new to turning-need advice

[trojan62]

hi all,
im pretty new to this hobby and infact only recently bought an old crappy lathe thats called the alpine machine lathe.
ive turned a few spindles no problem but thought i would have a go at some sort of bowl, i dont have a chuck or anything like that.
im hopeing soon to get the axminster 100 and chuck in the near future.
anyway, my problem is what you can see in the pics, i tried to hollow out this piece but as you can see it went a bit uneven to say the least.
is this because the wood is not more or less absolulty flat on the face plate or is it the wood maybe not being absolutely round, even though it looked perfectly round to me.
also if it has to sit on the face plate absolutley flat, how do you get your blanks to have absolutley flat faces.
have a look at the pics and see what you think.
like i said i quite new at this and this lathe is pretty crappy, but all help and info appreciatted.

thanks

chris........

 

[finneyb]

Hi Chris,

Welcome.

Looking at the last photo it looks to me as though the wood is not central on the face plate - is this the problem?
What I would have done is mount the wood and then true-up the outside so that it is central to the axis of the faceplate and lathe.
Having true-up the outside I would then have turned the inside.

Others will be along later to give their words of wisdom

Brian

 

[Vic Perrin]

Hi Chris I agree with Brian that it looks like the piece was not sitting central in the face plate. Did you turn the outside shape between centres and the mount it on the faceplate ?

Voc

 

[trojan62]

Hi
Yes that's exactly what I did.
I turned it between centres and then screwed it onto the faceplate.
I though it was quite round and smooth, obviously not.

Cheers

Chris....

 

[J-G]

Hi
Yes that's exactly what I did.
I turned it between centres and then screwed it onto the faceplate.
I though it was quite round and smooth, obviously not.

In all probability it was - when it was between centres. What you did wrong was to mount it on the face-place off-centre.

The chance of you mounting anything on a face-plate 'dead-centre' is millions to one - even with the aid of a centre, which face-plates don't have.

Brian has given you chapter and verse - mount on faceplate and turn outside and inside without dis-mounting - to finish the bottom off (without access to a chuck) mount another piece of scrap timber on the face-plate and turn a 'jam-chuck' to a tight fit on the inside.

 

[Paul.J]

As said you need to mount you piece between centers,but at the tailstock end flatten the base off but give it a slight concave finish this will leave a small nub where the tailstock center will be but you cut that off wit ha chisel.
Center the FP as best you can then remount and you will need to center the piece again.
Flatten the end off you will be hollowing out to balancel all off.
You will also need to allow an inch or two of waste at the headstock end for parting off when finished,making sure you miss the screws.
Shape the outside but leave enough mass on the tailstock end so you don't get any bad vibrations.
Finish the inside then go back out and finish the bottom off and part off.
HTH

 

[Vic Perrin]

As said you need to mount you piece between centers,but at the tailstock end flatten the base off but give it a slight concave finish this will leave a small nub where the tailstock center will be but you cut that off wit ha chisel.
Center the FP as best you can then remount and you will need to center the piece again.
Flatten the end off you will be hollowing out to balancel all off.
You will also need to allow an inch or two of waste at the headstock end for parting off when finished,making sure you miss the screws.
Shape the outside but leave enough mass on the tailstock end so you don't get any bad vibrations.
Finish the inside then go back out and finish the bottom off and part off.
HTH

Spot on answer that Paul

Vic