Just Starting - Sharpening
Jim Engel
>I have recently purchased an old Walker Turner
1 1/2 horse 36 inch cast iron lathe and seem
to have it running reasonably well.
Frankly, I am not sure how good a lathe this
is going to be for fancy turning, but it was $100
and came with a fancy plexi glass shield that
still sells for $170 and a bunch of tools, some of
which are "Maples" which I gather is a reasonably
good brand.
There is some vibration from the mechanical
varible speed, which may be impossible to
get rid of. Is this a long term limitation ?
It has arrangements for mounting face plates
on both the inboard and outboard ends of the
head stock, and a really heavy duty, adjustable
tool rest for the outside. Looks like you
could turn a table top up to perhaps 24 inchis
in diameter.
These tools are in terrible shape to worse, but
provide an opportunity to learn from the ground
up with no big investment.
The basic hurdle in turning seems to be learning
to create the right profiles and sharp edges on
the various tools.
If you read the ads the the Tormack is the solution to all sharpening problems.
But it is four hundred bucks, out of the box
it will sharpen chisels. Every single other
thing takes a new fixture at forty to ninety
bucks a crack, seems like pretty soon you
are going to be over a grand.
All of this to use a $100 lathe ?
OK, I have a six inch by 48 inch delta belt
sander. I can raise the thing to vertical
and it looks relatively easy to mount jigs and
fixtures on the end.
Is this a sensible option in place of a
circular gringing wheel, which will never,
ever do anything but hollow grinding, unless
of course you break the rules and use the
side of the wheel ?
I would think I would need to put a felt pad
on a 1700 rpm motor for finishing up.
Is this crazy talk, or a place to get started
without breaking the bank ?