help with bowl turning

[trojan62]

hi all
how would i go about turning a bowl on this lathe i recently bought.
as you can see in the pictures the headstock centre shaft doesnt seem to come out, i think it was made like that, also the tailstock wont allow me to put another thing in there such as a drill chuck, it seems to be just one big screw that goes thru it with the live centre at the end.
anyhow, looking at the pics, is there a way i could turn a bowl on this machine.

thanks for all replies

regards

chris m........

 

[Grahamshed]

I think that lathe was designed for a very specific purpose and it wasn't bowls..... but that is just me and more knowledgeable folk will be along

 

[CHJ]

Have you looked at the Help Sticky and the two articles about turning a bowl without a chuck?

With that peculiar lathe you are going to have to get round the protruding centre by ether fitting a false plywood facing on the faceplate to pack your blank free of the centre of bite the bullet and cut the fixed centre off.

My Option would be to cut the centre off, at least you would have the option of getting a chuck with suitable thread (or adaptor) to fit in future, between centre work would still be possible by mounting a centre in the chuck.

Whether spending money on chucks etc. for that machine is worth it only you can determine.

 

[woodfarmer]

Yup, if the centre can't be got out, cut the spigots off with an angle grinder, the cut the centre spigot off, with angle grinder and the lathe turning slowly. If you maintain a slightly tipped angle with the grinder you will take the centre out slightly hollow which would be an advantage.

 

[graduate_owner]

Once those projecting bits are removed you could use the disc as a faceplate - possibly drill some more holes in first. Or you could screw on a wooden disk about 1" thick (2 pieces of ply glued together) and turn out a centre portion to make a jam chuck, but that might only hold for finishing work. You could do this without removing the projections of course. It might even be possible to drill suitable holes in the backplate to fit a 4-jaw chuck, then you'd be able to attach a whole range of jaws. If you have the chuck backplate you could use this as a template for the holes. If you could remove the faceplate from the lathe then someone with a metal lathe could sort out an alignment step to match the chuck.

K

 

[Spindle]

Hi

I'd be reluctant to take the above advice without further consideration.

The spurs can be unscrewed from the faceplate - that's a good start.

The central point is your means of centralising work on the lathe and I'd not wish to remove it at this stage.

Make a wooden faceplate thick enough to cover or leave about 1mm of the centre point projecting and screw this to the metal faceplate. You now have a glue chuck onto which you can mount all manner of work, aided by the centralising point.

Once you have turned the inside of your bowl you can reverse mount it onto the faceplate using a jam chuck screwed to the glue chuck - support the work with the tailstock until you are down to the last delicate cuts to refine the base.

That's my opinion, and it's a bit concise - if I'm 'speaking in tongues' get back to me and I'll expand on anything you're not sure of.

Regards Mick

 

[CHJ]

...... If you could remove the faceplate from the lathe then someone with a metal lathe could sort out an alignment step to match the chuck.

This is a faceplate with a central adaptor plate fitted and turned to provide an accurate location for a Chuck body using an ISO BackPlate.

This then provides the equivalent of a standard ISO Backplate suitable to take the Body of such as the VersaChuck from The Toolpost.