Woodbox 23

There it is, in all it’s glory. You can click the link for a bigger picture if you want.

And yes, my shop is total mess right now.

At this point the “spring pole” lathe is almost built. THe reason for all the quotes around “spring pole” will be evident in a moment. At this point, we have uprights mounted on A frame supports, parrallel crossbeams, holding up a moveable head and tail stock with steel centers. Now we need a power source to rotate the object that will be held between the centers.

In olden times, and I do mean OLD, the power source was a springy pole, that would pull the rope wrapped around your workpiece back after you’d pushed down on the treadle to rotate it. This would create a reciprical or back and forth motion of the workpiece. You’d apply your tool on the down stroke, and ease off on the up stroke. This is the wood turning was done for hundreds of years.

Since I could not walk out to the woods and find a springy pole, and more to the point, I had no room in my garage for one, I decided to use a “bungie cord” instead. This would give me spring back enough to do the job, and could take up much less space, while still recreating the motion of the springy pole.

For my lathe I took a couple of lengths of 2×2 and drilled holes about 1 inch down from the top, on one side.  I did this for both side pieces.  They were about 8′ long, straight out of the hardware store.  I trimmed about 6 inches from the ends to get rid of bad wood.  I then cut a 4′ chunk, and drilled the ends to accept a 6″ piece of dowling on each end.  It stick out about 4″ after sinking it into the ends.  These dowels go through the holes in the tops of the side pieces.  No need to attach it any better, since the next step is to hook the end of the bungie (mine was purple, very festive) around the 2″ of dowling sticking out of the side piece, and stretching it over to the other side to hook it over the other dowling end.  This pulls the two side pieces up agaisnt the ends of the 2×2 middle piece, and it’s all good.

All I had to do was tie a rope around my bungie in the middle, and wrap it around the piece of wood pinched between centers, and voila a “spring pole”!

The last step was to create a treadle from some 1×2 scrap, a piece of leather for a hinge, and a piece of scrap ply wood to stand on.  The 1×2 should extend past the end of the crossbeams.  I notched the ends and made a sort of A shape out of the 1×2 pieces with two hinges attached to the plywood I stand on.  The crossbar of the “A” was placed so my foot had a comfortable place to rest.  It works quiet well, and is less work than I expected!

I’m still working on a design for a toolrest.  For now I just clamp a 2×2 scrap to the head and tail stock, but that doesn’t work very well.

– Badger

This post will cover the creation of the head and tail stock for the “spring pole” lathe project.

To make the stocks themselves, I just bolted together chunks of 2×4 to create a solid head stock. To make access to the piece of turning easier I cut the two side pieces with a 45 degree cut to give it a diagonal access to the area.

The length of the middle piece was determined by measuring above the crossbeams about 8″ (the height of what I thought might make a good turning area. (close to 16″ diameter turning area seemed more than enough.) The bottom part I picked a sizable tail to it, so I could cut a mortise into it for clamping to the cross bars, and left some below that to give it some strength (I will draw up plans later with exact measurments.) The size and depth of the notches in the uprights gives me a gap between the crossbars that a 2×4 fits into. The two short pieces (8″) screwed to the side of the middle, longer piece rest on the crossbars. when I fit a wedge into the mortice in the tail of the headstock, it locks the stock to the crossbars and is quite immobile.

To put the mortice hole in I used Fornster bits a bit wider than the width of the wedge I am using. I used a piece of Maple I had sitting around because I figured it would hold up better being pounded in and out all the time. I made the hole go above the bottom of the crossbars so that the wedge would lock against the underside, and not top out against the stock. I also angled the bottom of the mortise with a chisel to approximatly fit the angle of the wedge. My wedges ended up being different sizes but they both work quite well.

To make the centers I useda 1/2″ bolts I found at the hardware store. 1/2″ steel rod was expensive, but 1/2″ zinc plated steel bolts were about 70 cents for a 4″ bolt. The threading didn’t go all the way up the shaft, so a quick hacksaw job later, and I had cheap steel 1/2″ rod in the 2″ length I needed!! I rough ground one end of each center to a vague 45″ cone on my 6″ grinder, and then chucked the piece into my drill press, and held a metal file to the end to make a pointed shape. It turned out pretty nicely. I got this method of shaping the point from the Woodwrights shop tv program.

Drilling a 1/2″ hole in my head stock, and just pushed the center in. I can remove it later if I need to build a new headstock. Locking the head stock in place with a few taps of a wooden hammer to the wedge, I lined up the tailstock right up against the pointy end of the center in the headstock. I locked the tail stock down too, so they were in the exact turning positions they would be in at this point. Then a hard rap to the tailstock drove the face into the headstock cenet point just enough to make a mark. This gives me a pretty much true lined up centers in both stocks, which is important in turning. Drilled that hole, mounted the tail center and voila!

Next post should be all about the “spring pole”…

badger

Over the next few posts, I’ll be detailing the rest of the build out of the “spring pole” lathe I built last weekend.  I was able to complete it fairly quickly, and I snapped some cell phone pictures along the way.

This  edition of the blog will feature th buid out of the uprights, and attaching the crossbeams.

As you can see in the above picture, the uprights are attached to a sort of “A” frame to hold them up.  This design came about for two reasons.  One, it’s based on a period (1583) drawing of a lathe I found.  Two, it’s a practical and easy to build method of holding the beam up.  I grabbed some 2×4, and just started cutting what felt right in terms of lengths based on what I had on hand.  I want to be able to break it down and travel with it, so each upright needed to be able to stand up independently and be self contained.  The angled pieces are cut with a 45 degree angle on the table saw, and screwed into place with long wood screws.  The beam upright rests on the horizontal 2×4 which extends a little bit out from the base for stability, but not getting in the way.

The cross beams are Douglas Fir 2×4.  I took a standard 8′ one, and cut it in half to create a 4′ bed for the lathe.  Subtract a little bit for the head and tail stock, and you have about 3.5′ feet of workable