wood turning

I seem to remember a thread recently about turning wood on an engineering lathe. I know that this is sacrilege to some people but !! Can anyone suggest suitable inserts for turning wood? I have manual turning tools but would like to speed things up a little. Cylindrical and shallow forms will be what I'm aiming for. Nathan.

I’ve used a profile tool with 6mm round polished carbide inserts. Taken slowly you can get a good finish on some hardwoods. The same 6mm inserts are now used by woodturners for hollowing.

Would it not be better to fashion a wood turning type tool rest and use wood turning tools? I think the downside of turning wood on a metal lathe is the mess to clean up as there are more oily mechanical bits like lead and feed screws and a complex apron to either shield from wood shavings and dust or clean and relube after you finish.

Mike

What timber? Big difference in tooling requirements between pine and boxwood and every shade of grey in between. Also different cuts needed for parallel grain and end grain on most timbers. The round polished carbide tips mentioned above work pretty well for end grain of denser timbers. The ideal answer is to learn the techniques of woodturning as Mike suggests above in order to get a good shape and finish but that's quite a learning curve. A sharp HSS knife tool driven by lead screw will give you a decent parallel cut.

Vic, thanks for your reply. I do have tools that use round inserts but these are manual. I could make tools for the tool post using the same inserts. Something to look at.

Mike, have you never turned cast iron? With wipers in place and shields over exposed screws clean-up is at least as easy and wood is less abrasive. As I said in the original post I do have and use manual tools on my L5, I just want to speed things up. Nathan.

Phil, I've been a wood turner for many more years than I care to admit ! My Father taught me in the early sixties. Timbers used for this experiment would be English Walnut/ Sapele/ Honduras Mahogany/Burmese Teak and Cherry, all of which I have in store. I won't touch the Rosewood for the time being!! Nathan.

I've found a decent sharp HSS tool works pretty much as well on many woods as it does on BDMS. If I want a hand-cut curved profile, such as an eggcup, I clamp a bit of square or hex bar in the toolpost as a rest, and use a woodturning gouge.

I use a cheap but quite powerful cylinder vacuum cleaner to clean out the crannies in the lathe afterwards.

I don't try to do the fancy stuff with very long thin sections and captive rings and suchlike that the real committed woodturners do, so it ain't really rocket science.

The one thing wood lathes really have going for them IMO is the much better circumferential grip of self-centreing chucks like the Nova. Using an ordinary metalworking 3-jaw on wood requires a bit more care and a light touch.

Nathan Sharpe

All other things being equal, a woodturner ie a worker using handheld chisels and gouges will remove material faster than a metal lathe operator.

The woodturner can achieve a surprising degree of parallelism but, of course, if greater accuracy is required the slide rest will give a better result.

I was not clear what you meant by "shallow" forms.

I made a pen from Burl wood some time back and the two halves needed to join together well and be perfectly parallel. I have a woodturning lathe but it was a much easier job to do it on my metal turning lathe. Fine cut and set on auto it went very well. Cleaning up wood shavings from a lathe is not difficult with a decent vacuum.

Nathan, you can buy a profile tool for your Toolpost that take the round inserts. They aren’t expensive.

I tend to use a CCGT insert but a HSS tool with a lot of top rake will work well enough on softer timber which tends to tear rather than cut if the angle is too shallow

Surely there must be purpose made tools/inserts for CNC wood lathes?

Of course they may use different toolposts and not fit metal lathes

A fair point Nathan, I don’t think my lathe ever recovered from its first cast iron session even though I stripped the saddle and cleaned everything, I even had to change the felt wipers. I think maybe I should have used the cover everything rather than clean up after method.

Mike

+ 1 for a thorough clean up after use om wood, (or any other material for that matter) Have been told that Oak is particularly bad, because it contains Tanninic Acid which will mark metal pretty quickly.

My practice, with cast iron, wherever possible, is to place a powerful magnet under where the swarf is likely to fall, and to cover it with one or two sheets of newspaper, (placed /shaped do that it will provide maximum coverage, without getting involved with the chuck. As work prgresses, a nice pile of cast iron swarf / dust builds up over the magnet. To c lean, just remove the newspaper, without spilling anything, so that the dust can be tipped away.

If you are unfortunate enough to get swarf on the magnet, Blu tack is pretty effective in removing it, but the Blu Tack, needing to be thrown away, then falls into the category of a consumable.

Wish that Brass was magnetic, but same tactics, without the magnet.

Howard

This patent, from 1879, is 'interesting' **LINK**

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=US&NR=221552A&KC=A&FT=D&ND=3&date=18791111&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_EP

MichaelG.

Looks a bit too chunky to fit my lathe!

**LINK**

Slightly off topic, but I'm always fascinated by watching this chaps work. I first came across him on Facebook, but he also has a youtube channel of you have a spare moment or two.
I inherited my Dad's woodturning lathe, complete with a part turned zebrano bowl on the faceplate; one day I hope to have learned the skills to make him proud when I finish it.

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Mighty impressive though

MichaelG.

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I wouldn't have thought work that fine could be done in Oak

... Amazed : MichaelG.

So am I, and (assuming real time video) it does rather make the point about speed of working. His finish is essentially from the tool, requiring a minimum of sanding. By contrast, an article in Fine Woodworking from May 1982 entitled "Woodturning on a Metal Lathe" described how forms produced by "twirling a couple of cranks" were finished by sanding from 60 (!) to 600 grit.

Thanks to all. I've found what I needed at "AZCarbide", they have a range of inserts designed for/suitable for woodturning. Nathan.