If I had a penny for every time somebody suggested
that I should build a lathe, by now I'm pretty sure I'd
have like a dollar. I've had the idea to build
of building one and for the bearings, I was just gonna
have a steel shaft that rotates
and wooden blocks, like this, and I figure that should work.
So, I drew the lathe up in SketchUp, and I
printed out the end profile, one to one, using my
Big Print program. And, I'm gonna use
some used plywood to try this experiment.
The bed of the lathe is gonna be these two pieces of hardwood,
and then the head stock is gonna be these pieces, like this.
And the shaft is gonna mount on wooden bearings on top,
and then the tail stock is gonna go together
almost the same way, For gluing the head stock together,
I scraped off any varnish off this used plywood
where I'm gonna glue it, and I also made some spacers
to hold the middle part at the right height.
And, I almost forgot to drill a hole, right here.
I'm squaring up the hole for a carriage bolt,
which will be for holding the head stock on.
And, now to make the bearing blocks, first I
drill the screw holes for mounting it,
then I cut the block in half,
and then I clamp it back together, and then
I drill a hole through it.
I round the corners a bit on the belt sander,
just to save my knuckles on it later.
This is transferring the pilot hole locations.
So, I wanna put this on here
as a pulley, but I really should have a bit more thickness
so I thought, why not just add another step-pulley here.
I drilled the hole slightly under-sized
but to make sure these won't spin on the shaft,
I'm gonna cut a key-way, right here.
I'm using a nail as a key, to keep the pulley from
slipping on the shaft.
I just realized I forgot to put glue between those two disks,
so I pried them apart again
and now just putting the glue in there.
And, I almost forgot to put the V-belt on.
OK, got a clamp down on the work bench
and I've got a spacer here to keep the motor at the right
distance.
Listen to all those bearings now.
I need a little bit more belt tension.
Now, with the groove turning the large pulley, I can put
the V-belt in that and work on the smaller one.
That's a much better point. Now I need a way to
spin a work piece that's up against this point here,
and the easiest would probably be to just
weld a couple of nails to the side of the shaft
but you got to have a welder for that.
Next thought was to cut a thread on here
and then grind some points onto a couple nut
that screws onto here. But, again you need to have
special tools for that, so my thinking is to
put a wooden sleeve on there and some screws in on the edges
to have some prongs here.
So, these two washers here are gonna act as a
thrust bearing, and I have to put those on now, because
this part is not gonna come off.
I've got the hole lined up close enough, I can see through it,
so I should be able to just drive this nail in there.
For the tail stock of this lathe I'm just gonna have a shaft
that's clamped on here, and I'll need to grind a point on here
that's perfectly conical smooth and centered.
And, the way I did that for the head stock worked out
really well, so I rigged up a temporary pulley on the shaft
that's actually for the tail stock, so I can
grind and smooth that point.
Now, I just need to make it a little bit smoother.
Well, that came out nice.
So, now I can bring those points together
really precisely. I drilled the hole
in the bearing block, it's a little large so I have some
wiggle room, so I have to sand the top block
to tighten that up.
Now, I just need some kind of a tool rest.
So, I'm figuring a board in here
and then a block that attaches here, and then
this goes on here, and a metal strip in here
to protect it against the chisels.
Well, I'm actually ready to do some wood turning on here.