Questions of you large bowl turners

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

tdaniel

>My home-made bowl lathe would turn 26" diam and was powered by a 3 hp VFD. It worked but it was not a dream machine. No matter how much weight I added it still walked. It got me started, kinda like your first wife. Then I bought the VB-36. The VB made me wish I had not wasted the $1100 on the home-made. You just can't get the quality without a lot of research and engineering. When you have a 200 lb pice of wood spinning it takes a gutsy lathe to handle it. It isn't how much the lathe weighs....it is where the weight is. Also, I think cast iron does a better job than welded iron. In short, I say keep saving your pennies until you can get a good lathe.

TD

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

RonZ

>Why don't you do what I recommend to my customers. The mentality her in Israel is what I would call lathe envy. =o) Have to do something big to show off. After its done, and they can't figure out where to store the 24" bowl or platter, they go back to turning 12" or less bowls. I tell them to turn a bowl or two on my VL300, get it out of their system and then be happy with a good 12"-16" lathe. I'm reffering to the hobbyist and a good lathe not one you have to chase down.

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

John Lucas

>I have to agree with RonZ. Most bowls sold are under 16". The urge to turn big is great and it's fun but they are harder to sell.

I've helped 2 people build bowl lathes. In both cases they wished they had used larger metal. Brings me back to what TD said. Nothing works as good as the factory machine.

As far as speeed. It's pretty easy to build a step pulley out of wood and get any speed you want. We say a photo of Ed Moulthroups homemade bowl lathe and it had wooden pulleys so we adapted that to my friends lathe. On both homemade lathes the tool rest wasn't as solid as we wanted. Deisign that piece heavy.

These days it's hard to beat the Variable Frequency drive with a used 3 phase motor. 3horse is probably plenty of power.

If you want to turn big make the spindle big. At least 1 1/4 x8 thread. You can buy heavy duty pillow blocks pretty cheap.

Personally I'm very happy with my Powermatic 3520. It will turn a 20" bowl and you can move the headstock toward the end to make it a real bowl lathe. The advantage of this lathe to me is being able to start my bowls between centers. A tailstock is one of the hardest parts to build on a homemade lathe.

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

Bruce McElhaney Spring Lake, MI

>I also have a PM 3520a with a 20" swing. The largest bowl I've turned was about 15". I don't think anything much larger would be very practical, but that's just me. If you're going for large capacity, you'd probably need to build a pretty beefy lathe, with at least a 3 hp motor.

See you're in Holland, I'm just up the road in Spring Lake. Do you have a turners club in Holland? There's nothing here! Heard about a chapter in Grand Rapids. Have you heard about Holland Bowl co?

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

Lan Brady

>Pete,

TD is right, the quality of the big bowl factory lathes are untouchable. However, I have turned on the homemade lathe that ended on e-bay last night. It is a hoss of a tool. His use of a truck transmission for the speed control works great. He has turned some big pieces on that lathe.

Lan

Re: Questions of you large bowl turners

Jerry-Huntsville, AL

>Pete

I visited Bob Hamada in Kauai, Hawaii several years ago and he uses a truck brake turning machine that he modified for turning wood. He got it surplus from the Navy. He has turned some pretty big natural edge stuff (24-30 in as I recall) which would start out pretty unbalanced. Said that it turned smooth as silk. I have a picture that I will post if I can ever find it.

That is something else to consider.

Jerry

Big Homemade Lathe

Ron in Drums PA

>If you REALLY have the urge to turn something really BIG and only want to turn maybe one a year. This is the lathe for you. The good thing is you DON'T have to spend allot of money because you can make it from parts hanging around the yard.

Now before we start let me talk about safety, read and understand the owners manual and always wear safety glasses.

First start with a old car, if it is a rear wheel drive rip off the rear fenders and if it is a front wheel drive rip off the front fenders. Now take the tire off one of the rims and attach a big hunk of wood the the rim with some long drywall screws or anything you happen to have close at hand. You may have to drill some holes here. Also, a few rolls of duct tape may come in handy. Now attach the rim to the axle.

For the tool rest I like to use a chassis form an old chevy. Just wheel it up close and jack it up to the right level with an old tire jack if necessary.

Start up the car and you are ready to turn. If you have an automatic transmission you will find it allot easier to change to higher speeds.

TIP:

If you find that the wood blank is unbalanced you can always ask a few of your in-laws to sit in the car for extra ballast. A word of caution here: Mother-in-laws are no good for this, they will distract you from your work with their constant bantering about how their daughter should have married a doctor who could afford to buy a bigger lathe. This could be dangerous to both you and your future children.

One of the big advantages of this type of lathe is two people can turn at the same time, one on each side of the car.

Safe Turning!

Ron

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If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy - Red Green

Good grief ! -

Fred in NC

>That is an awsome idea !!!!

Then you can drive down a gravel road and avoid having to sand it by hand . . .

Man !!!!

Equal opportunity turning

Jay in TX (formerly from Ohio)

>Ron,

I assume you'll be operating the "lathe" to go forward. Just make sure you get a southpaw to handle operations on the passenger (outboard?) side...8^O

Re: Good grief ! -

Ron in Drums PA

>Driving on gravel road beds does open up ideas for texturing your work. Good Idea Fred!