Thread: wood lathes

Check out Carbatec/Hare & Forbes or Timbecon. All have starter lathes at $350-$400. You will need to buy a set of chisels with starter sets from $100-$150 (go for the $150 dollar sets if you can).

www.carbatec.com.au
www.timbecon.com.au

BTW: You will be a junior member until your Forum Posts hit 100+.

Originally posted by Wayne Davy



BTW: You will be a junior member until your Forum Posts hit 100+.

Or until you go into your user profile and change it to whatever you want it to be.

Mr Doorstop Suh!

How does one make handles for their lathe tools
when their lathe tools have no handles??

I'm gonna have trouble sleepin' tonite.


Sir Chizalot The Bold.

Pedro you have hit the nail on the head, so to speak, buy a good lathe from the start and you wont have to worry about upgrading again. To do this your budget will have to be about $2500. This will get you a decent lathe, scroll chuck, stand and as doorstop indicated a decent set of tools to get you started in the world of woodchips. find out where your local club is and go to a few meetings to see if you like what they are about and find out a lot more about this new craft for you. A bit of gratuitous advertising www.cws.au.com will give you a better idea on what is available. It is not all that is available but it will give you an idea.

Apologies to all - I should have read Pedro post properly before mentioning the toy stuff.

Pedro,

Ignore my post and listen to these guys, they are the experts.

Good, now stoppers guard is down, I can.... DAMN !Did I say that out loud - Damn

Thanks for advice.Made a decision and bought a CARBA-TEC MC 900 on special. Any comments?

Pedro

I made a similar choice around 4 years ago. Still happy with it.

It would be interesting to see what you think of it in a few months.

PS - Buy good Chisels. Mine are a collection of P&N, Sorby, Henry Taylor and I am really glad I purchased them. Please note the first two were purchased handled. You need some tools to make handles for the other tools.

Pedro,

Thats the one I've got as well (see Doorstop). Very happy with mine too.

Originally posted by Sir Chiz
Mr Doorstop Suh!

How does one make handles for their lathe tools
when their lathe tools have no handles??


Sir Chizalot The Bold.

Vice grips work amazingly well to hold a medium sized gouge, but I haven't been brave or silly enough to try it with a roughing gouge

Darryn

How does one make handles for their lathe tools
when their lathe tools have no handles??

Use the tool without a handle. We're talking 50mm square timber not bloody tree trunks. Strewth.

Pedro

Don't use the tool without a handle.

The end of the chisel has a nice sharp tang excellent for slitting wrists.

It is a bit like using files without handles - lots of people do it but I have nevr seen a text anywhere ever recommend it. And I don't do it.

People also make chisels from old files - hard steel and it breaks nicely as well.

My approach is never knowingly put yourself in jeopardy - there are enough other ways to get hurt.

Here's my 2 cents as a beginner:

invest all of, say, $26 in a set of el-cheapo woodturning chisels from a highly respected vendor like SuperCheap Auto.

This also gives you a cost-effective way to learn to sharpen your tools (something no-one seems to have mentioned yet in this thread). I'm much happier grinding, re-grinding, and re-re-grinding the cheapies than I would be shortening a $40, $50 or $100+ tool.

This gives you the opportunity to learn which tools you'll use, and for what, so you can then buy the good ones, and also solves the problem of what to use to make the handles for the good tools.

Cheers,
Andrew

P.S. I find a Triton SuperJaws wonderful for pressing the tools into their handles.

I guess I'll go back to being:

Sir Chizalot the Chickenheart!

We're not all build like Little John yaknow!

Or that Lumpy Behemoth in the Rouges Gallery.

Strewth Forsooth!

Chiz.