Pushing the envelope


Bombarde16

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Didn't break anything making a big, so it's still up in the air how far I can take things with this little Harbor Freight lathe.

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While hiking in Kelly's Run this week, I grabbed a chunk of a fallen red oak.  Dragged, rolled, kicked, carried, etc. out of the woods.  Drove an axe along the natural crack in the pith and then nipped the two halves into some approximation of a cylinder with a chainsaw.

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From here it'd be a matter of getting it onto the lathe, rounding it on the outside, turning it around, digging out the inside, then wrapping it in brown paper and waiting a cockroach's life until it's dry enough to finish shaping. Before starting to turn it, however, I'm making a new tool rest for the lathe.

This lathe is advertised with a 10" maximum swing, but that's not the entire story.  For shallow platters, this is fine and dandy but for deeper bowls or longer spindles, there's a problem.  The height of the banjo (1 1/2") cuts a whopping three inches off the working swing.  To get around this, I'm going to make a new tool rest running the full length of the bed and supported by two banjos, one at each end.  Work begins by laminating some scraps of plywood.

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In the meantime, the lumps of red oak are sitting patiently in trash bags.

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Profiled the top edge of the tool rest with some time borrowed on a friend's saw. He's a timber frame contractor, so he did a double take when he saw a random lump of wood clamped diagonally across the table. Score one for furniture builders...then he showed me his collection of "offcuts", score a LOT for timber framers!

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Was supposed to visit another friend to beg time on a band saw this morning but that fell through. Stuck inside (snow again?!) for the morning, I conducted an experiment to answer a question that has doubtless been keeping everyone up late into the night. To wit, can you stop a chamfer with a carved lamb's tongue in plywood? The answer: Yes, but it really sucks and you need to have a tube of super glue standing at the ready.

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Attaching the steel bar to the top edge of the new tool rest. That loose flap that looks like a protective plastic foil? That's actually the layer of zinc...

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Ah, the joys of cheap quality control. Good thing I didn't actually need the zinc plating.

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And there it is, attached to the lathe and with a big lump of wood between centers. Tool rest is solid as a rock. The lathe, however is jumping around with this much mass swinging about. Time to add some ballast to see if that solves the problem.

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Success!

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The silver bullet turned out to be several bags of pea gravel, each wrapped in two layers of duct tape. Thus encumbered, the lathe stayed still (or an approximation of still) long enough for me to get the outside round and form a tenon for the chuck. Time to start scooping out the innards.

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 man you want to come over and use my space its not big and its a bit of a drive but then you wont end up hurting yourself by having that fly off and kill you. i know not having a dedicated shop is hard on wood workers but you dont have to make risky choices in life. 

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Thanks for the kind offer, Duck. I do indeed wish our paths had crossed before I left IL.

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First blank roughed out. I have no idea when I'm going to finish this, but I document my blanks with sharpie marker:

Date: April 2015

Location: Holtwood, PA

Species: Red oak

Initial (wet) weight: 3248g I'll keep weighing it as it dries to see when it reaches equilibrium.

1 of 2: This particular blank came from a log that was split to give two matched pieces. Those could become individual bowls or (what I hope) I can put them back together with a segmented ring in between to create a vessel.

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ever think of taking up carving full time? wont need large tools and you can work out of a tiny corner of your house.  maybe get a bandsaw for speed for roughing out shapes then maybe you can carve bowls instead of turning them with king Arthur tools or make smaller bowls and carve on the surface. 

 

.  frankly man i am afraid your going to hurt yourself making those blanks 

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Second half of the log up and spinning. I may have to decide sooner rather than later if I want these two pieces to become a vessel. This piece would be the top and it would certainly help to start shaping the neck now.

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Though larger and heavier, this one went with far less trouble. The guy with the chainsaw must've done a better job rounding this one. That, and the guy running the lathe is a bit more experienced.

OK, summarizing: Doing this on a mini lathe is well past ridiculous. Even after solving the problems of vibration and tool support, it just doesn't have the power to spin this much mass. Taking even a medium cut towards the periphery, the RPMs start to drop noticeably under the drag. Moreover, I need something that can spin slower than even the lowest speed on this thing.

I suppose I just needed to prove to myself that I really do want to get into bigger turnings. I'll finish roughing these blanks and then go back to smaller pieces. But by the time these lumps are dry, I intend to finish them on something much, much more powerful.

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You could always put a foot treadle on it then you can go as slow as you like :)

The thought has occurred to me. Not for a lathe, but rather for a sharpening station. With what Tormek is charging for their wares, I could probably hook a flywheel to a shaft with a variety of stones and buffing wheels. Could even have some of them running in a tub of water.

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Just curious if anyone knows.

 

I have been looking at your harbor freight lathe, and the grizzly 10x18 tabletop lathe and they look remarkably the same.  I could not get a link to work on my computer to show here.  but does anyone know if they are the same

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