Pole Lathe

Re: Pole Lathe *LINK*

Ezekiel Holliday

>Go with a treadle lathe. You'll get continuous rotation insted of reciprocal. Ceck the link below for plans for both treadle and pole lathes.


Treadle Lathe FAQ

Re: Pole Lathe

John Lucas

>Simon

I would also suggest a treadle lathe especially if you are going to turn bowls and dried wood. I turn on a pole lathe once or twice a year for special events and it can be a chore. I haven't done a bowl on it yet but plan to do that this summer. After watching Don Webber turn this summer I now bring my shaving horse and shave the spindles to size before going to the lathe. It's much faster than roughing them out the old way.

You get much more speed out of a treadle lathe and the tool usage is much more similar to a standard lathe. Make your spindle with threads so you can take faceplates and you can turn a bowl just like you would on a normal lathe.

Re: Pole Lathe

Fred in NC

>Ah ... I can't wait until next year rolls around and I can get started building my "Treadle Mini" sized more or less like a Jet of the same size. I might just get the spindle from a mini so it has the Morse taper in it.

Re: Pole Lathe

John Lucas

>Fred

I have a spindle from My old Nova lathe that has a morse taper and 1 1/4 x 8 thread that I think I am going to use. I like the spring pole lathe but kids want to try it all the time and they have a really hard time with it. I think they would be able to turn on a treadle lathe easier. Besides I could get one kid to work the treadle and one to work the lathe. That would tie up 2 kids. John

Re: Pole Lathe

Fred Holder

>The recommendations to use a treadle lathe are very good and it is nice to have the wood always turn toward you. In 1993 when I retired, I had planned to do the craft show market and wanted a little lathe to demonstrate on to pull people in. I started to build a treadle lathe, but suddenly realized it was going to become very heavy to transport. So I built a mini springpole lathe instead. This is a picture of the version as it was first made. I used a spindle from a Sears lathe, my regular lathe had a 3/4" x 16 tpi spindle. I essentially wrapped the cord around the spindle. With the cord wrapped around the spindle, I could get three rotations. With that I could turn almost anything. The bonus, when I learned to turn well on this lathe, I was a lot better turner on a regular lathe. It is hard on the legs, however.

It you want to try this plan, e-mail me and I'll try to find a copy of the article I wrote on the later version of the lathe.

Fred Holder

Re: Pole Lathe

Scott Thorburn

>Simon, I have a treadle lathe that i use as a demonstration lathe at the Ren Fair that I sell at in the summer. I was lucky, I found an antique treadle lathe in running condition. I find that the kids love to see it in operation and always want to try it.

It works well for spindles, but for a bowl it is less than ideal. As the bowl size goes up the power needed to cut also goes up. So you have to make light cuts.

If noise is an issue I would look at one of the better lathes out there. I know the oneways are almost silent when running. You get more noise from the tool cutting the wood than from the lathe motor.

Great Wheel?

Al Kapocius, Metro Greendale

>If'n yr considering two kids on one lathe, mebbe a great wheel lathe might be in order. There's one in Old Williamsburg and one was used in making a trebuchet (catapult) on TV last year. The treadle flywheel could have an extry hub for a belt or rope to an external large flywheel. 'Tis said that you could run a lathe all day on one bottle of wine if you could keep the village drunk at the wheel.

Al Kapocius

Re: Pole Lathe

Simon Watson (U.K.)

>Dear Friends

Thanks for your contributions. I am probably going to have a crack at building something close to Fred's machine and will take up the challenge of a treadle lathe next year (I have Old Ways of Working Wood and the plans in the back seem pretty good)

Simon