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kiwiatgundy
21st May 2013, 04:56 PM
Hi All.
I’ve been slabbing timber and harvesting the odd burl over the last few years, recently I got stuck into a couple of seasoned burls with a grinder and sander, apart from butchering it, I had an absolute ball, and have wanted to start wood turning in general for a number of years and itching to start,
I’ve been going through the forum for knowledge, have purchased the book “Woodturning – A Foundation Course”, great read but I am in information overload.
Here’s where I’m at.
Unlimited supply burls, timber etc, mainly red river gum and other gum varities
Have chain saw, band saw, thickneser, dust extractor etc already
Wife has approved a budget of 3 grand but I think if <ST1:CMr swan can go over then so can I
Main interest at moment is faceplate turning
Prefer to buy quality over price
From the trawling of sites, like the sound of a Teknatool brand, like there range of interchangeable chucks and accessories but very open to thoughts
Looked at there 1624-44 @ $1395 and larger DVR2024 @ $3795
While the DVR is a lot more and will dent budget, thinking long term, better value as more H/P, bigger range of rpm.
So question 1 – Is the DVR worth the extra compared to the 1624-44 model?
Could someone suggest a “starter package” i.e., face plates, chucks, tools required, and if I could stretch the friendship, sizes?
Tool sharpening – I’ll need a jig; I see several different types available, suggestions on a user friendly model?
I am a novice so excuse me if I have stated the stupid
I live at Goondiwindi, 5 hours west from <ST1:CBrisbane. Have asked round town for any wood turners so I can make contact and get some basic training on how to not kill myself, no such luck. If anyone knows of someone round the area or Toowoomba, will travel.
Thank you for reading this and I appreciate any of your comments.
P.S - have attached a pic of weekends burl harvest

spankingpigeon
21st May 2013, 08:19 PM
Im only new to it myself so cant offer any advice but welcome and i think you are going to be very popular with the "locals" lol

ogato
21st May 2013, 09:09 PM
Sensational wood supply - just need some good kit. You'll need a good robust lathe for that lot so perhaps consider a heavier lathe, such as a Vicmarc. A little more $ upfront but you won't have to trade up to one later on.

A new alternative, and I can't vouch for quality is the newish on the market Laguna Lathe being marketed by Gregory Machinery. Saw on at Maleny Wood Expo a couple of wks back and it looks pretty beefy, at a reasonable price.

OJ

Paul39
22nd May 2013, 03:10 AM
Kiwiatgundy,

If at all possible get some instruction and practice on a lathe before you buy anything.

A week end work shop and membership in a men's shed will save you 6 months of trial and error and a pile of $$$.

Do a search in this forum on "sharpening", "bowl lathes", and anything that crosses your mind.

If you get 10 turners together there will be 15 strong opinions about the "ONLY" way anything can be done. With a little instruction and practice you will find what works for you.

I will expand on this later, it is daylight and I have stuff to do.

Wood Nut
22nd May 2013, 08:05 AM
Hi and welcome aboard. Some great advice already given and I don't have sufficient time at the moment but will send you a pm with my phone number. Give me a call and I'd love to have a chat with you. Many of the beginning/novice turners in our club ask the same questions.

Cheers

kiwiatgundy
22nd May 2013, 10:47 AM
Kiwiatgundy,

If at all possible get some instruction and practice on a lathe before you buy anything.

A week end work shop and membership in a men's shed will save you 6 months of trial and error and a pile of $$$.

Do a search in this forum on "sharpening", "bowl lathes", and anything that crosses your mind.

If you get 10 turners together there will be 15 strong opinions about the "ONLY" way anything can be done. With a little instruction and practice you will find what works for you.

I will expand on this later, it is daylight and I have stuff to do.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Sawdust Maker
22nd May 2013, 11:35 AM
Good luck and welcome to the forum

Good advice the see if you can have a play on others lathes - you can see how things work and compare tools etc. I understand the tyranny of distance might make this a bit difficult.

I've the DVR XP - I like the torque and the infinately variable speeds between max and min. I don't use it enough though. I'd also look at the Vicmarcs and maybe the Woodfast. In hindsight I'd like a lathe where the headstock moves along the bed. For serious bowl work you might like a stubby. Another point is that once you get to know what you'd like you might be able to find a good second hand lathe which will do everything you want. They come up regularly for the patient amongst us.

As to chucks I've the teknatool variety. Considered opinion is that the vicmarcs might be a better quality and finish (especially now the teknatools are made in china)

You might want to look at Vermec (based in Brisbane) He makes his own chucks and has one which takes both teknatool and vicmarc jaws. Link (http://www.vermec.com/index.html). His equipment is well designed and well made. Sells all sorts of stuff and is approachable.

Tools - I like P&N, made in Victoria somewhere. I've also some Thompson from the US and we've done a couple of joint orders (might be one coming up soonish) others like Hamlet and Sorby (each to his/her own). As to which tools and sizes it depends on what you end up wanting to turn. My initial purchase I based on the list in one of Raffan's books and have added to when I've needed (ok wanted because of the glitter factor) something else. Another hint to keep within budget is to buy the tools unhandled and make your own. Can save a little that way.

I like the tormec sharpening system. probably because I've had better consistency in replication than the woodfast I had. You can get the tormec jigs and bar and use on an 8" grinder without going to the expense of buying the wetgrinder. You'll need an alox wheel or one of the new CBN wheels for the harder steels.

You'll probably get a faceplate with whatever lathe you end up getting

Nice looking score on the burls etc

PS: I'll look up Raffan for you and post his list of suggested tools in a while - I'd better do some paying work :doh:

Paul39
22nd May 2013, 12:37 PM
Kiwiatgundy,

If you have not done so, have a look in Woodturning Info Links at the top of Woodturning General. The book you have is a good one. Richard Raffan has a book and DVD Turning Bowls, I have the book and every time I go through it I learn something. The DVD might help you if you are not able to get some instruction.

I have been turning about 7 years, mostly bowls, and selling through a craft shop for about 4 years. I am mostly self taught, watched a few demonstrations, bought several books and turned, turned, turned.

At first it took 20 to 30 hours to make a finished bowl. Last week I split a piece of dead on the stump dry locust in half, cut the corners off with a chain saw, put it on the lathe and had a bowl sanded and first coat of Tung oil on in 3 hours.

All of the below is how I started. Others will have different methods. There are many paths to the same place.

To make a bowl, you need a lathe, a 4 or 6 inch faceplate, a 1/2 inch high speed steel bowl gouge, a thick heavy 1 inch high speed steel round nose scraper, a parting tool - that can be a stout bread knife from a junk store, a saw to cut off the bowl after you have made a groove with the parting tool.

You can make bowls with just scrapers, but with burls and softer woods a bowl gouge with the slicing cut gives less tear out of grain than the scraper.

There are discussions of brand name tools, cryo tools, powder metal tools, carbide tools, etc. I have Crown, Thompson, Henry Taylor, decent Chinese, Sears & Roebuck, home made from mystery metal and files, and junk Chinese tools.

I find little difference between all the high speed steel tools. The home made and carbon Chinese work, but need sharpening more often. The more expensive brand name tools will have bigger and better handles and are finished better.

I will grind on any of my tools to take off sharp edges on the sides and polish the tops and inside the gouges, so I am willing to not buy the big names and buy used. Of all my turning stuff I have only bought one thing new, a 5/8 inch Crown bowl gouge.

You will need sand paper, 100, 220, 320, grit. Probably some 80 until you get proficient with the scraper. I use Tung Oil, have used Danish Oil, and Boiled Linseed Oil.

You will need a grinder and grinding jigs for sharpening.

I have a 5 speed Hegner 350mm swing lathe with 5 speeds, 800 rpm is the slowest. I have a 20 inch swing Woodfast short bed with 6 speeds pulley and DC variable speed drive added. The biggest advantage of the variable speed is that I can mount big out of balance chunks on it and get it more or less round barely turning over.

The Hegner at 800 gets me a little tense at times. As you have a band saw you can easily make more balanced blanks.

I like to use the tail center as long as possible to avoid getting a mouth full of spinning timber, so swing over bed is important to me. More swing also helps with big chunks that are not round.

Looking at the two lathes you mention. I do not find it that hard to shift belts on a stepped pulley. Most of the time I do the bowl and never get above 800 on the Hegner. I may go up one step to 1400 for cleaning up with the scraper, than back down for sanding.

Think long and hard about size of bowls you will be making. The 1624 may be as big as you will need. You also have the option of turning the headstock for larger bowls. I do not like the look of the tool rest hung out in space though. A pipe to fit the tool rest in a bucket of concrete would be a work around.

I find that even with 20 and 28 inch swing lathes I make and sell a lot of bowls on the 350mm swing

The advantage of starting with a smaller less powerful lathe with belts is when you have a bad catch the belts slips or the motor stalls. With a bigger machine you may rip the bowl off the lathe, break the tool rest or tool, or have the tool jerked out of your hands, or any combination of the above.

Almost everyone who continues to turn will have at least two lathes. (I have 9 wood and metal lathes and one BIG one under construction, some are kept as pets.) Either another one is bought and kept, or one is traded. As soon as you take a lathe out of a store it has lost 1/3 of its value.

For sharpening I have the Oneway Wolverine basic system and the Vari-Grind jig. It works well for me.

If you have a grinder, one or the other of the commercial jigs or home made is almost a necessity for the bowl gouge. If you do not have a grinder I prefer an 8 inch slow speed - 1725 here, 1400? rpm there. I like a 120 grit white aluminum oxide wheel. I have one on both sides of mine and the V arm on one side for bowl gouges and the platform on the other side for scrapers.

Paul39
23rd May 2013, 10:05 AM
Kiwiatgundy,

Once you have allotted the money for the stuff above and have some left over, we can talk about "nice to have".

A scroll chuck is very handy if you are making bunches of bowls or work with wet timber. As timber around here takes about a year per inch of thickness to dry, the process is sped up by rough turning with the wall thickness 10 to 20% of the diameter of the bowl and and drying, then remounting and finishing.

If you are making bunches of bowls, you can rough out as many as you like in a period of time and set them aside to move around before finishing. Then you can re-chuck and remove the oval shape, fix the small cracks, sand and finish.

Sometimes I will start a bowl and not like the shape but don't know quite what I have in mind, so set it aside for later and begin another.

Having a chuck also keeps you from wasting wood that the screws go into when using a face plate or going to the trouble of gluing on a waste piece for the screws.

When I bought the Hegner, my first "good" lathe, it came with a Oneway chuck and tail center set. I found them both to be of good quality and they work well. When I bought the Woodfast I wanted a bigger chuck. I had seen a demonstrator at a wood show using both a Oneway Stronghold and Vicmarc chucks and asked him what he thought of them. He thought the Vicmarc was the best and the Oneway a close second.

I also thought about the big Nova but my local dealer would not order one unless I committed to buy one. I want to hold something in my hand before parting with that much money. The dealer 90 miles East of here had Vicmarc and Oneway but no Novas. After deliberation I went to the dealer East on my way to visit family and bought the Oneway Stronghold bare body, #3 Jaws and insert for for the 1 1/4 X 8 spindle for the Woodfast. I asked them if they would give me the same price as buying directly from Oneway via internet, and they did.

Second photo below is the 1995 Woodfast with Stronghold chuck. $850 in rusty condition with faceplate, drive center, and tailcenter frozen on. About 4 hours of various oils and potions, propane torch, hammer and drift, and fine sandpaper and oil and it was purring like a kitten.

Part of the reason of Oneway over Vicmarc was cost, and part was Canadian made. I want to keep our $$$ close by. Sadly the US makes no chucks or reasonably priced lathes. There are some made to order bowl lathes for the cost of an arm, a leg, and your first born child.

Some time later I saw a Penn State Industries used chuck set for $50 at my local dealer. After looking at it once a week for a month I bought it, and then got an adapter to fit the Hegner 33 X 3.5mm thread to the 1 X 8 chuck thread.

It was this chuck: Barracuda2 Lathe Key Chuck System at Penn State Industries (http://www.pennstateind.com/store/CSC3000C.html)

It looks very much like the same size Nova and is made in China. I use it interchangeably with the smaller Oneway and find it works very well. The smaller Oneway is a three handed toggle bar system so it is a bit more awkward to use than the PSI. Even hung way out on the adapter the PSI runs true. First photo below.

I think you would find the Nova chucks fine for your purposes. If cost is no object, Vicmarc.

I like the Oneway tail center set, but all you need is a ball bearing cup center with a removable point. If it is hollow it is easy to make tool handles and run a long drill through the center for the tool. If you are going to make tool handles a Jacobs chuck on a Morse Taper to fit the tailstock is nice.

A plain old 4 spur drive center for the headstock will do for spindles.

To start making spindles you can use your bowl gouge for roughing and the scraper and sandpaper for finishing. A skew will work much faster and make a beautiful finish. A decent 3/4 inch high speed steel skew, some 200ish grit sandpaper on the bed of the lathe to sharpen it, and 20 or 30 pieces of 2 inch square timber or reasonably straight chunks of firewood, and about 40 hours in front of the lathe will get you reasonably proficient.

Do a search for my rant "Accursed Skew" on this forum.

If you are going to buy a starter set, something like these would be good:

Set of 6 Benjamin's Best WOOD Magazine "Best Value" HSS Lathe Chisels at Penn State Industries (http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LXWM1007.html)

Set of 6 Benjamin's Best HSS Lathe Chisel Turning Set at Penn State Industries (http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LCSIXW.html)

They are made in China and I have seen close to the same in a Steelex brand.

Resist all the wondrous tools that promise to make you a world class turner instantly. Wait to buy them later at half price from those who find they didn't.

What makes you a good turner is 100 hours in front of the lathe. Two hours at a time at first. Too much at once tends to make for cramping and mistakes that could hurt you.

Get a GOOD full face shield: Elvex Clear Lexan Face Shield 10" x 18.5" x 2mm (http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/fs-18l.html)

I wear glasses all the time and have safety plastic lenses, if there is any suspicion about something coming out of the lathe, I wear the shield. Starting out you should wear one all the time.

When I first had the Woodfast I was turning a partially rotted locust stump that had big holes in it. It was securely screwed to a face plate. I went in just a bit fast and the tool caught in one of the holes. The blank broke 2 #10 screws off and tore out the other two and it went 25 feet out into the yard.

I had another piece come out of the Hegner go up and smash the florescent light, showering me with broken glass, and come down and hit the back of my hand.

Read the safety things at the top of the forum. A lathe can kill you.

Sturdee
23rd May 2013, 10:29 AM
Have asked round town for any wood turners so I can make contact and get some basic training on how to not kill myself, no such luck.

In addition to the excellent advice received sdo far you should also have a look at 's safety videos (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f8/safety-videos-161992/). Excellent videos that approach the safety aspects in a no nonsense or over complicated way.

Peter.

Sawdust Maker
23rd May 2013, 02:25 PM
I've had a look through the Raffan books - can't find the list, which I'm sure was in his book. Might have been a book I borrowed from the local library.**

anyway below is a list from Mike Darlow (from Fundamentals of Woodturning). He suggests it is the minimum required.

For Spindle turning
Roughing Gouge* 1 1/4" 32mm
Skew 1" 25mm
Detail gouge 1/2" 13mm
parting tool 1/4" 6mm

For cupchuck turning (in addition to the spindle turning tools)
Scraper 1: 25mm

For bowl turning (in addition to the above)
One or two bowl gouges about 5/8" 16mm
HSS ring or hook tool

Darlow suggests the purchase of additional tools as required. His general recommendations for extra tools are:
Larger and smaller detail gouges
A wider and narrower skew
More scrapers as needed
A sheer scraper
An extra bowl gouge if you bought only one.

*NB the roughing gouge should only be used for spindle work and is now more likely to be called a "Spindle Roughing gouge"

** check your local library - they might have further books and/or DVDs which can be worthwhile having a look at.


Hope this is all helpful as is the posts from Paul above

PS I haven't used a ring or hook tool so obviously I didn't follow this bit of advice. However I did buy pretty similar to that list at the beginning but slightly smaller to conserve money.

Willy Nelson
23rd May 2013, 03:06 PM
You guys have got it all wrong, we need to see more piccys of burls before we hand over our hard earned experience and knowledge.

Stunning collection of burls there, I also recommend getting into the Arbortec Industrial carver, there is a brilliant article written on the subject of the Australia Wood Review, No 72. Has everything you need to know from start to finish. The author is also a mighty handsome looking dude.
Willy
Jarrahland

kiwiatgundy
23rd May 2013, 04:37 PM
You guys have got it all wrong, we need to see more piccys of burls before we hand over our hard earned experience and knowledge.

Stunning collection of burls there, I also recommend getting into the Arbortec Industrial carver, there is a brilliant article written on the subject of the Australia Wood Review, No 72. Has everything you need to know from start to finish. The author is also a mighty handsome looking dude.
Willy
Jarrahland

Ha!! Like your style Willy. Am going burl harvesting again this weekend so brace yourself, more pics comming.
I have a Arbotech wood carver, had a crack the other night. That thing can move some wood alright. Bit to agressive in my rough hands. About 10 minutes before I read this, both kids paid board (for once) and mum not here to claim it so I figured I'd buy there new mini turbo. May need a spare bed but bugger it, worth the risk. Will have a crack on a nice burl end that I will try and turn in to a platter looking thingy over weekend. Will send pics.

If I can also, a BIG thankyou to everyones comments so far. Been blown away by the offers of help advise, phone numbers to call for chat etc. Will try and get to thanking all personally and replying etc, just been damn busy with wife away burning the dinner etc.
Better get back to day job.:~

RETIRED
23rd May 2013, 07:16 PM
A skew will work much faster and make a beautiful finish.What is this I hear? Another convert. :roflmao:

Wood Nut
23rd May 2013, 07:27 PM
Isn't it great to hear about a skew being used as a skew :) (instead of as a negative raked scraper - a technique so popular North of the Equator)