First Lathe-Need Advice

Re: First Lathe-Need Advice

TDaniel

>Buy a set of 8 HSS tools from Harbor Freight for $39 and a 3/8" Sorby Bowl gouge (or equivalent) for about $50 and a grinding jig for the bowl gouge. A chuck is nice but not necessary. A good grinder is needed; minimum quality would be the Delta 6" VS. An excellent starter tape would be Del Stubbs. Is there a club near you?

TD

Safety first

Richard Allen

>Hi Jonathan

Safety first. Get a face shield and some dust protection. After that some hands on instruction. Then some tools and sharpening equipment as Terry has indicated.

The lathe is one of the few power tools that can KILL you. Other power tools can maim you. But a lathe, even a jet mini, can KILL you. Protection and hands on instruction can help to reduce the chance that you will be injured while using the lathe.

Good Luck

Richard

Re: Safety first

Andy in Raleigh

>Another safety tip:

The very first thing you try should be a spindle turning bewtween centers using a spur set so that if you catch (and you will) the wood stops spinning. But if you can get someone to show you the ropes, please do.

Howdy Almost Neighbor...

Tony - Memphis

>I'm out in Bartlett/Arlington area. I got the Jet mini about a year ago. Been real happy with it. My use of it os furniture parts and a few doo dads. I turned some kitchen utensils over the weekend out of some cherry scraps. I watched a couple of videos and read some books, and I still don't feel confident. Most of the classes I see are all about bowl turning, and I really want to learn spindle turning. You might check with Memphis Woodworks. There is a turning club around here. I've been buying Sorby tools. Colco up on Jackson has turning squares and blocks that might be good for practice. They have a ton of cherry squares that are cheap. Anyway, good luck with it. There is a fella who posts here quite a bit that is in our area that might could help you get started too.

Tony

Re: First Lathe-Need Advice *LINK*

Ryan McMullen - Memphis

>Check out the link below. This is the website of the local chapter of the AAW, a great place to meet the local woodtunrners.

Ryan


Midsouth Wood Turners

Re: First Lathe-Need Advice

Barry Turner

>Jonathan,

You have just bought one fine lathe, limited only by its size. Buy a book and/or video by Richard Raffan, Keith Rowley or Ray Key. Try to join a club, take a woodturning class or find a mentor. Get some good instruction before you develop bad habits. It's a lot easier to learn how to do it right from the beginning than to have to re-learn.