# Has anybody built a bowl lathe? I am thinking about building one.



## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I have a jet 16-42, but it just isn't solid enough. I already have all of the needed metal, and a 3 hp motor. The only cost would be the bearings. I have use of my grandpa's machine shop. I plan to make the spindle threads 1-1/4 -8 , so I can use standard chucks and faceplates. I don't think I can do MT. I would keep the jet, so I shouldn't need MT anyway. I plan to use 3 stepped pulleys like a drill press. Any other ideas? Here are some pictures of what I had in mind. I like the I-beam one best.


















Just for fun, here is one more.


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## Smith Brother (Dec 9, 2012)

I like the I-beam toooooooo! The second one down.

Do it, and post build pic's.

Dale in Indy


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

The second one down is less in the way, but the third one down looks more solid. I want it super heavy like 1,000 pounds. It will be easier to get that much weight in the yellow one.


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## robert421960 (Dec 9, 2010)

if you are building that nice a piece make it EVS also:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Smith Brother (Dec 9, 2012)

The second one down is BOLTED to the floor, personally I would like that.

But YOU is your own BOSS,

Dale in Indy


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

My shop is in my dads garage, and he won't let me bolt anything to the floor. I do like how easily you can walk around the second one. I will do some more research on evs, but my budget for this project is about $100.


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

Well you can buy a morse taper on in a round bar so you can simply add on threads or some sort of adaptor. I did that on my foot powered lathe. Just go to any of the metal working catalogs and search. 
I would go with 1 1/4x 8. It's beefier and still very common for accessories. 
Make it massive or at least capable of being filled with gravel or sand to increase it's mass. You will thank yourself over and over for that.


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...ePUVJ_XCoWqNsuogPgD&tbm=isch&ved=0CCIQMygEMAQ


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

john lucas said:


> Well you can buy a morse taper on in a round bar so you can simply add on threads or some sort of adaptor. I did that on my foot powered lathe. Just go to any of the metal working catalogs and search.
> I would go with 1 1/4x 8. It's beefier and still very common for accessories.
> Make it massive or at least capable of being filled with gravel or sand to increase it's mass. You will thank yourself over and over for that.


I was planning on 1-1/4x8 that is the same as my jet lathe. The target weight was 1000 pounds. How slow should it go? I was thinking 150 rpm is that to fast?


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## john lucas (Sep 18, 2007)

I don't know about others but I start every bowl between centers. I just prefer that so that I can easily readjust the center points to change how the grain flows or to enhance some or get rid of some bark inclusion or knot. It's also a safety thing. If it were me I would extend the bed just far enough to use a tailstock that would be easily removeable Once i have everything balanced. 
I would also have the spindle bored so that I could use a vacuum chuck. Especially if you don't add the tailstock option.
You did say 1 1/4x8. My mind skipped over that. I'll look in my drawer of stuff and see if I still have the Morse taper 1 1/4 x8 spindle I made for my foot powered lathe so I can remember how I did it.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I was thinking how to build a tailstock. I would keep my jet 16-42, do I really need MT or a bored spindle?


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*Find an old metal lathe*

I have an old 13" South Bend metal lathe and have considered removing the bed and coolant tray leaving only the head stock and gear change assembly. Face plates and chucks would all thread right on. It would look like this:









Also be aware of the speeds. You can't spin a large bowl much over 800 RPMs or so, and especially when roughing it out you need a much lower speed. You can't run a single belt system to get down that low ... if I recall. You may need a step pulley and jack shaft if you don't go with variable speed and you won't get that for $100.00. 


http://www.finewoodworking.com/tool-guide/article/homemade-lathe-on-a-budget.aspx


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3mqZjTgVc4


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

I would not enjoy a bowl lathe that didn't have a tailstock.

Except for a few small "salt bowl" sized pieces which I start on a small screw chuck, I too start almost all bowls between centers for much the same reasons that John mentions. 
I also not infrequently use the tailstock for various jam-chucking applications. When coring, for example, and often when making one-off "arty" pieces so I can finish the bottoms. (I don't have vacuum chucking capability)

Keep in mind that lathe with no tailstock, and without a bored spindle to facilitate vacuum attachment, is going to be restricted to either 4-jaw, screw chuck, or faceplate holds only. You can't even utilize a jam chuck at all nor can you use the tailstock as a backup to the primary fixing on the headstock—something that becomes more and more comfortable as both the size and the unbalanced nature of the workpieces increases. 

An arrangement like that can certainly be made to produce lovely pieces, but the design of the pieces is of necessity going to be constrained by the lathe's ability to hold the work.
I think there will be times when you might be less than happy about that.

Also, don't lose sight of the fact that a large unbalanced piece of work will make even the biggest lathe dance around if the speeds are too great. 

My lathe has a 3 HP motor and, with ballast, weighs about 1700 lbs, and it will still start shimmying around if an out-of-balance workpiece is big enough. So if you're thinking that a big heavy lathe will make the wobbles go away completely it won't. 
All it does is move the wobbles up to a different place on the spectrum of workpiece sizes/speeds. 

And if you're spinning big out-of-whack pieces like that up to turning speeds, you won't be unhappy to have a tailstock available as a backup safety device.


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## TomC (Oct 27, 2008)

If you are going to turn green wood and then let it dry before doing the final turning I believe you are going to need a tail stock to turn up the tenon for chucking.
Tom


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## Smith Brother (Dec 9, 2012)

I vote for a TAIL STOCK, all in favor say, YES!!!!

With family having a machine shop, the $100.00 is more doable, MAYBE.....

I wish you well, 

Dale in Indy


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*large, but basic*

A few ideas here on this basic lathe:


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

I just realized the first and second photos are of the same lathe. The second photo is the first lathe before painting and sweeping the floor.
It may be bolted to the floor, but it's still going to shake and vibrate with a large unbalanced workpiece. It's basically just a vertical column of I-beam with one end bolted to the floor and the other containing the source of the vibrations. 
I'd expect that lathe to have all kinds of frustrating vibration problems, some of them fairly high frequency from the oscillations, pendulum-style, in the vertical support column.

And of course if it's not bolted to the floor, it won't work at all.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I am going to build the yellow lathe. I plan to build a tail stock, and bore the spindle. I found some free bearings that will work. The targeted speed range is variable between 75 - 1000.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

hwebb99 said:


> I am going to build the yellow lathe. I plan to build a tail stock, and bore the spindle. I found some free bearings that will work. The targeted speed range is variable between 75 - 1000.



Make sure to post pics of the build! I'm hopeful to make my own bowl lathe this summer as I won't be able to afford a big lathe anytime soon. 


One thing to keep in mind, I don't know if it will matter, but the inside of "I" beams aren't square to the top side. The taper in and get thicker as they get closer to the center. 

You can get different styles that will be square, but if your using second hand or buying from a scrap dealer, you might not be lucky enough to find them. 

It might make tightening the banjo and tail stock a but tricky as the washer won't be contacting metal all the way around. 

If you have access to a metal lathe, which it seems your lucky enough to have, maybe you'll want to turn the washers out of steel to meet the taper of the beams.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I am using I beams out of an old building . I haven't looked at them, but they probably are tapered. I plan to use a milling machine to flatten the top. Turning a washer to fit the bottom is a good idea. I am working off what I can make mowing yards. A Robust, or Oneway isn't in the budget. I will start a build thread when I get started. I hope to get started next week.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

woodnthings said:


> I have an old 13" South Bend metal lathe and have considered removing the bed and coolant tray leaving only the head stock and gear change assembly. Face plates and chucks would all thread right on. It would look like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those south bend lathes are high dollar. I would sell the south bend and buy a robust.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

woodnthings said:


> I have an old 13" South Bend metal lathe and have considered removing the bed and coolant tray leaving only the head stock and gear change assembly. Face plates and chucks would all thread right on. It would look like this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I just looked at your link. I want a 30" swing, so 300 rpm is to fast. My motor is 3600 rpm. I have some large pulleys off an air compressor. The large pulley on a jack shaft with a set of stepped pulleys should give the speed range I want. I'm not worried about chucking a bowl for final turning my jet does that good. My jet doesn't handle large green blanks well. A rough turned dry blank does fine on the jet.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

hwebb99 said:


> I want a 30" swing, so 300 rpm is to fast.... I'm not worried about chucking a bowl for final turning my jet does that good.... A rough turned dry blank does fine on the jet.


 Yeah, you'll certainly need less than 300 RPM for anything that takes full advantage of a 30" swing. 

I've only ever turned a half dozen bowls in excess of 18" and only one bigger than 20", so I'm no world-class expert, but I did learn a few things, so let me just say this;

If it's in your mind that you'll be able to happily finish turn really large rough-turned bowls on your Jet, the difference between a dry rough-turned bowl about 10" diameter, and one 20" diameter is something that has to be experienced to be believed. 
The big one will have walls at least 2" thick and it will be heavy and have warped seriously out of round and will be mighty frisky when first remounted for finish turning.

If your Jet is hopping around with 10" green blanks now, I promise you it will hop around every bit as much with a dry rough-turned bowl anywhere close to twice as big.

And having done it a few times I have to tell ya there's no way I would want to try finish-turning a big bowl like that, on any lathe at all, without tailstock backup, at least until I'd got it rounded out and decently balanced (and that means not just taking the eccentricity off the outside, but out of most of the inside too), and on the Jet you won't have the tailstock option on a piece that large.

I'm not trying to be a naysayer here. Really I'm not. I think you should go for it if that's what you want.
But the bigger the workpiece the greater is the need for everything that you can throw at it in the way of backup holding methods. 

A 10" bowl taking flight is plenty bad enough. A 20" bowl taking flight is not just twice as bad, it's a whole lot worse than that, and is way outside of a regular faceshield's capacity to protect you.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I will probably never turn a 30" piece. I hardly ever turn anything bigger than 12". I will build a tailstock. What do you guys think will be the ideal speed range?


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

hwebb99 said:


> I will probably never turn a 30" piece. I hardly ever turn anything bigger than 12". I will build a tailstock. What do you guys think will be the ideal speed range?


Very slow to not very fast! 

You'll want it to spin as slow as you can get it too. You won't need to it to soon very fast because the bigger the bowl is, the more chance it'll break from being spin too fast. 

I think 1000 rpm would be plenty fast enough. 

You should plan on turning smaller bowls on this lathe too not just big monsters.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*why is it?*

The several large bowl turners I've seen on You Tube always start on the outer edge.... some wood , some "air" .... real good chance of a catch.
Why not start at the center and work your way out to the edge? :blink:


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

hwebb99 said:


> I will probably never turn a 30" piece. I hardly ever turn anything bigger than 12". I will build a tailstock. What do you guys think will be the ideal speed range?


Oh, I misinterpreted your saying you wanted a 30" capacity for a desire to turn really large work. Sorry.

While you're getting all this together for your new build, have you tried putting a crapton of ballast on a shelf incorporated into your Jet lathe stand? 
I may be misremembering, but on some photos you posted in another thread I don't recall seeing any. 
A few bags of readymix concrete or something similar can put your lathe weight up not too far from 1000 lbs, and that's sure to make turning green log blanks in sizes up to 12" much steadier for any turning you do until your new build comes online.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

woodnthings said:


> The several large bowl turners I've seen on You Tube always start on the outer edge.... some wood , some "air" .... real good chance of a catch.
> Why not start at the center and work your way out to the edge? :blink:


 That eccentricity has to be turned away sooner or later, and when it is you're often in more "air" than wood for a while no matter from which direction you approach it. 
No way around that.
And it's the eccentricities out near the rim which contribute the most to a piece being so unbalanced you have to keep the speeds real low, so the sooner they are dealt with, the sooner you can increase speed to make turning less "choppy".

Turning a really large unbalanced bowl is rather like eating a plate of frogs. If you eat the biggest one first, it somehow makes eating the rest a little bit easier. 

Also, you don't want to get the bowl too thin closer to the center before you've removed much of the weight out around the rim. Two reasons for that. One is that it's the wood closer to the center that must be strong enough to hold the forces exerted on it by the spinning rim, and if you thin things out there too much before reducing the mass of the rim you can have a nasty blowup.
Another is that the thicker the bowl is toward the center, the less vibration you're likely to get when working on the rim. If the bowl walls near the center are thinned down too early, it can become enormously difficult to work on the rim at all.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

9thousandfeet said:


> Oh, I misinterpreted your saying you wanted a 30" capacity for a desire to turn really large work. Sorry.
> 
> While you're getting all this together for your new build, have you tried putting a crapton of ballast on a shelf incorporated into your Jet lathe stand?
> I may be misremembering, but on some photos you posted in another thread I don't recall seeing any.
> A few bags of readymix concrete or something similar can put your lathe weight up not too far from 1000 lbs, and that's sure to make turning green log blanks in sizes up to 12" much steadier for any turning you do until your new build comes online.


If you look close you can see a five gallon bucket. It is full of lead, and weighs about 400 pounds. This brings the total weight to about 850 pounds. I want a large swing, so I am never limited by the swing. It is easy to turn a 12" bowl on a 30" lathe. However it is difficult to turn a 30" inch bowl on a 12" lathe. I plan to turn a few monsters, but mostly 12" stuff.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

hwebb99 said:


> If you look close you can see a five gallon bucket. It is full of lead, and weighs about 400 pounds. This brings the total weight to about 850 pounds. I want a large swing, so I am never limited by the swing. It is easy to turn a 12" bowl on a 30" lathe. However it is difficult to turn a 30" inch bowl on a 12" lathe. I plan to turn a few monsters, but mostly 12" stuff.


Having a good wide stable base is just as important if not more than a massive amount of weight. 
Bolting to the floor isn't an option for you so a big base and I've herd of people tying in the headstock to a close by wall.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

hwebb99 said:


> If you look close you can see a five gallon bucket. It is full of lead, and weighs about 400 pounds.


 Yikes.
I did see the bucket, but didn't figure it to be full of lead. I just thought maybe it was an ice bucket for your beer or something. :smile:


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

The guy in the video has it all wrong for the slowest speed. He said that the slowest speed that you use should be no slower than the product of the diameter times the RPM which in his example would have been 600 RPM and 900 RPM should be the fastest. The correct answer is that the "formula" is only to specify a ballpark number for the fastest speed (in this example it would be 600 to 900 RPM). The slowest speed that can be used is whatever the slowest speed that the lathe can run at, which for a lathe designed to turn very large diameter stuff ought to be able to go down below 100 RPM. I have turned as slow as 30 RPM on my Robust for a piece that started out about 24 inches and just barely clearing the ways. Once you are proficient, you turn at whatever speed feels the best for the particular situation. For me that is frequently slower than the maximum.

That maximum safe speed "rule of thumb" is just a very general guideline. The wood being turned needs to be considered in making a decision on how fast is safe. Sometimes the maximum safe speed is much slower than what he rule of thumb says.

Most likely your motor is not three phase so it couldn't be used with an inverter. Also, for really large turnings, you will need to have the belt drive ratio so that the motor is running above 50% of base RPM for your typical mid-range speed.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

john lucas said:


> Well you can buy a morse taper on in a round bar so you can simply add on threads or some sort of adaptor. I did that on my foot powered lathe. Just go to any of the metal working catalogs and search.
> I would go with 1 1/4x 8. It's beefier and still very common for accessories.
> Make it massive or at least capable of being filled with gravel or sand to increase it's mass. You will thank yourself over and over for that.


John would you post a link to the mt insert. I have done a google search, and can't find anything.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I started the lathe build today. I don't have anything picture worthy yet. I spent most of the day tearing apart a transfer case out of a trencher. I got six 1-1/4 ID pillow block bearings out of the transfer case. I didn't have anyway to thread the spindle, so I dropped that off at another machine shop.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I looked at the I-beam today, and the inside is crowned. The spindle should be finished. It should warm up this weekend, and I can cut the I-beam. Then I am going to have to get the old forklift started to load the I-beam. I will be surprised if it starts. I hope to get this build started next week.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I am about to get this build started soon. It has been cold and nasty here with one ice storm after the next. I have a 2 hp motor 1750 rpm, and a 3 hp motor 3400 rpm. It is going to be hard do get the 3 hp motor slow enough. Which motor would you guys use? I also have a 5 hp 3phase motor. Where could I get an inverter to make it EVS?


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