Newbi to woodturning would like some advice!

[rockabilly]

Hi all!

After Meany years i.ve bought myself a old but useable wood turning lathe, shes an old Axminster M900 variable speed. few question for those that are in the know, firstly the is on faceplate of chuck with the lathe, just the centers, after some google searching I can fine tool posts an tool rests but that's about it! also looking for advice for hand tools to buy chisels and the kit to re sharpen woodturning chisels.

Meany thanks in advance!!

 

[KimG]

As I am first to respond I will reiterate the advice we give all newcomers to the hobby, buy Keith Rowley's book Woodturning: A Foundation Course
if you do not already have it, it is an invaluable resource that will help you with many questions about turning.

Tools, buy high speed steel tools from somewhere like axminster, crown, Sorby or their own brand are fine. Starting off I would suggest a roughing gouge (I would get a 1", it will be all you are ever likely to need) A 1/2" bowl gouge (crown do a very good cryogenic one through axminster) a 1/2" spindle gouge, a 1/42 parting and beading tool. A round nose and a square ended scraper. This should see you right for a good while till you discover a little more and you can expand from there.

 

[Tazmaniandevil]

Ditto to the advice above. You can get by just fine without a chuck with a bit of inventive thinking. Start by turning between centres for maximum safety and practice, practice, practice. I have all of the Axminster tools mentioned by Kim above (apart from the square scraper), plus a 1" Axminster skew and a ½" Crown skew. I also have a set of Sorby mini-tools which came with my lathe and haven't been used much.
Also invest in a good quality face shield and some kind of respiratory protection. You will inevitably have stuff come flying off the lathe to begin with, so PPE is a must.

 

[finneyb]

Try Cumbrian woodturners for a few meetings http://www.turningcumbria.co.uk/ it will help.
Also see their For Sale section there is a lathe & tools for sale - they may split; if not and it maybe worth buying both and selling the lathe on.

Brian

 

[Spindle]

Hi

I can't endorse Kim's advice to get 'The Book' enough - read and digest it before polluting yourself with You Tube, at least then you'll know the difference between sound and bad practice, (both readily available on You Tube etc.)

I think the 1/2" bowl and spindle gouges recommended above may be a little on the large side - I'd start with 3/8" versions which will allow you to turn smaller / more delicate items.

With regard to sharpening, the cheapest way is to get a 6" bench grinder and fit an 80 or 100 grit white wheel. You can easily make some grinding rests - see here:

http://www.southdownswoodturners.com/Workshop.html

If you don't have a decent hot melt glue gun I'd suggest putting one on your shopping list - ideal for glue chucks until you take the plunge into chuck ownership.

Enjoy the woodturning 'journey'

Regards Mick

 

[rockabilly]

Thanks for the reply's guys, very helpful!! will take all suggestions onboard, know what you mean with the kit buy the best I can afford even if that's one at a time, once I get into just the job of turning sometime I wanted to get into the world of bowls (I'm sure every man an dog turns bowls!) but non the less I wanted to give it a go, I thinking this is not possible just using center? an I would need to source some type of face plate or something, any ides on were such item can be got for the m900, yes ill check out give the cumbria club finneyb
thanks
Thanks Again

 

[Spindle]

Hi

The M900 has a spindle thread of 1" and 8TPI - just match that to a faceplate of your choice:

http://www.axminster.co.uk/catalogsearc ... =faceplate

Regards Mick

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

But, you need to heed the advice in these posts. It was hard won. Don't whatever you do try bowl turning as your first outing on the lathe. It's just asking for an accident. Start by turning a piece of 10 inch long 2x2 square stock into a cylinder mounted between centres whilst wearing face protection. Then practice doing curves, coves, beads, parting etc. Get a feel for the tools and how they respond before you mount a large heavy chunk of wood that's only supported at one end and is out of true so turning out of balance. Keep the lathe speed slow at the start also and make very light cuts with sharp tools so you don't stress the holding methods.

The very best advice I can give is to join your local turning club and secure a one to one lesson BEFORE you start. For probably in the region of £50 to £75 you will get a ton of first hand advice that will save you not just months of trial and error but also possibly a trip to A&E.

 

[Walney Col]

But, you need to heed the advice in these posts. It was hard won. Don't whatever you do try bowl turning as your first outing on the lathe. It's just asking for an accident.

Gosh. Is that why I'm having so much trouble. I've just spent my first day on a wood turning lathe (a little charnwood) and decided what I'd really really like to try to make from the blanks startup kit I got of ebay is a 5" utile bowl. I'm having bother preventing the motor from cutting out when I'm working the OD (puny little thing it is but no doubt I'm a tad ham fisted too) and I haven't a clue whether I'm using the right one of my 6 Record Power chisels but other than that I'd say it was going ok.
Hi to the Cumbrian OP from Walney btw, it's nice to see at least semi-local on here but sadly getting to the Cumbria club is a little bit out of my driving range due to not being too well.

Keep talking guys I appreciate all your comments.

 

[bogmonster]

But, you need to heed the advice in these posts. It was hard won. Don't whatever you do try bowl turning as your first outing on the lathe. It's just asking for an accident.

Gosh. Is that why I'm having so much trouble. I've just spent my first day on a wood turning lathe (a little charnwood) and decided what I'd really really like to try to make from the blanks startup kit I got of ebay is a 5" utile bowl. I'm having bother preventing the motor from cutting out when I'm working the OD (puny little thing it is but no doubt I'm a tad ham fisted too) and I haven't a clue whether I'm using the right one of my 6 Record Power chisels but other than that I'd say it was going ok.
Hi to the Cumbrian OP from Walney btw, it's nice to see at least semi-local on here but sadly getting to the Cumbria club is a little bit out of my driving range due to not being too well.

Keep talking guys I appreciate all your comments.

I would say even on a small lathe you should have no trouble with a 5" bowl. I'm thinking you are doing something wrong. Sure, you can get almost any lathe to bog down if you take large enough roughing cuts but on a 5" bowl blank you would end up with an egg cup real soon I suspect some combination of wrong tool, wrong approach, blunt etc. Also, if you are working hard and having to put physical strength in, you are going it wrong.

Whilst I am far from a great wood turner I would like to think I can turn nice bowls with a low failure rate. I learnt on my own in my garage with a borrowed lathe and with Keith's book and a borrowed M900 or M950 (can't remember which). I think I went on to bowls very quickly and stayed there so don't think you need to master spindle turning before moving on to faceplate turning but do learn the basics of safety. Keith presents a set of 'laws' I think he calls them and my advice is to stick with them religiously until you know enough to know which ones you can break and when.

I have not read the book for ages but if I remember correctly the one area that is a little outdated is bowl turning with fingernail gouge profiles. If you buy new gouges most of them start out life square ground and I would advise stick with that for the time being.

BM

 

[JimB]

The best advice I was given was that the tool will tell you what it wants to do. When it's cutting cleanly without effort you know you're there. Admittedly the skew had a lot to say at first.

 

[xraymtb]

I have not read the book for ages but if I remember correctly the one area that is a little outdated is bowl turning with fingernail gouge profiles. If you buy new gouges most of them start out life square ground and I would advise stick with that for the time being.

BM

Interested as to why you suggest square ground bowl gouges? I've always seen fingernail profile put forward as the 'correct' tool for bowls?

 

[Walney Col]

you can get almost any lathe to bog down if you take large enough roughing cuts but on a 5" bowl blank you would end up with an egg cup real soon I suspect some combination of wrong tool, wrong approach, blunt etc. Also, if you are working hard and having to put physical strength in, you are going it wrong.
BM

Thanks BM. My chisels are new and I don't have to exert a lot of force to get going but within seconds of starting a cut 1/16" deep or even less at 5" diameter it just grinds to a halt followed by a faint click as the motor's electronics cut out. I spoke to the place I bought it from yesterday and from my description they didn't seem to think it was delivering the right amount of power either so it may be that a replacement is on the cards.

My actual wood turning technique is undoubtedly rubbish at this point but it even bogs down when scraping which I wouldn't have expected at all.

 

[bogmonster]

I have not read the book for ages but if I remember correctly the one area that is a little outdated is bowl turning with fingernail gouge profiles. If you buy new gouges most of them start out life square ground and I would advise stick with that for the time being.

BM

Interested as to why you suggest square ground bowl gouges? I've always seen fingernail profile put forward as the 'correct' tool for bowls?

For a couple of reasons:

1) Accurately grinding a fingernail profile is not easy for a beginner. Even with a jig unless you start off with a gouge with a good fingernail grind it may be difficult to get a decent profile with an off the peg square ground gouge.
2) It is easy to know if you have an acceptable square ground gouge, just measure the angle. With a fingernail grind it is difficult to know if the grind is wrong or your technique is wrong until you have some experience under your belt. Are those catches due to slightly high wings or poor presentation angle? With a square grind, if the bevel is an acceptable angle then you know it is you, not the grind. Simply takes a lot of variables out.

A square grind, although a little out of fashion, can produce some very nice bowls. If you are teaching yourself then it is a good place to start. If you have an experienced wood turner to help you then go for the fingernail grind as you can lean on their experience. I know when I bought my Ellsworth gouge I immediately screwed up the profile and as I was grinding free hand I could not get it back. In fact I discarded the tool for ages and went back to square grind. Later I invested in a jig and re-created the grind (or my interpretation of it) and have not looked back. However, it I had started out with a fingernail grind and had no square ground gouges I may simply have given up.

These days for bowls I tend to only use a short fingernail for 90%, a long fingernail grind for undercut rims mainly, and a spindle gouge for beads and the like (I definitely don't recommend a beginner goes anywhere near a bowl with a spindle gouge).

Of course the above is just my opinion, I am sure many will ave conflicting advice.

 

[xraymtb]

Thanks BM. I use a Sorby jig so hopefully my grinds are fine but I might try a square ground gouge just to see.

 

[Spindle]

Hi

Whatever grind you decide to use you will find it easier to maintain bevel contact on the inside of the bowl, (and thus reduce catches), if you grind the gouge to about 60 degrees rather than the 'normal' 45 degrees.

Regards Mick

 

[rockabilly]

Thanks Mick an Bob, yea will heed all advice given especially with the ppe, as I actually only have sight in one eye, young to have lost sight as only 35, but I get by, oh yea I will be starting very simple on some stock an go from there, lathe is not quite up an running as yet only collected it the other evening, unfortunaly the drive tapper seems to have vanished! think it was an MT2. so nothing will be happening yet, as still on with the man shed construction 10/16 ft, and a lot for stuff from my old house to go in it!! the new hobby of woodturning will have to live along side of old classic moped/scooter tinkering and bass guitar playing, it will be 1 busy shed! that's if I can get time with my 5 month old daughter, wont be long until she's joining me in there!!

 

[bogmonster]

I am also practically blind in one eye at the tender age of 41 - and have been for many years. Sod's law says that if something goes wrong it will be the good eye that gets it. In fact I got a metal splinter in my good eye some years ago. Drove myself down to A&E where they removed the splinter and filled my eye up with gunk that made everything blurry. I was then stuck at the hospital pay car park with no way to drive myself home again

 

[rockabilly]

Yes strangely enuff I had peactaly the same experience, I was self employed at the time an was out at a coustomers home doing some repares to the campervan, cutting some alloy to make a braket an shared managed to get behind my ski type goggles into my good eye, so after finishing the job and packing up, drove my self to A&E very grubby and dirty mechanic looking, after meany hours of waiting they decided that they would have to grid the shared out as it was quite deep in an on amount of picking with the cotton buds would move it. not the nicest experience iv ever had!!

 

[bogmonster]

Going off topic a bit but I recommend a basic polycarbonate face shield (one with a thin metal frame so that you can change the profile of the bottom edge) and a Trend Airace respirator as a reasonable starting point. The Airace fits under the faceshield nicely and the whole setup offers reasonable protection providing the respirator fits well. However, if you are a beardy wierdy you have a couple of options, shave or powered respirator (very spendy but the only option lazy gits like me). Personally I have found paper masks to be hopeless. Full face respirators also work well but can be hot.