Home Made Lathe

[Paul39]

I went to a birthday party for a 98 year old friend today. I had heard him tell of the lathe he made from a Model T Ford camshaft, and asked to see it. Photos below, 3 step drive pulley is made of wood, tool rest of wood with a metal strap for wear surface, wood tail stock, dead center, wood bed. Last photo is a pair of calipers he made.

My friend is a retired mechanical engineer who early in his career built a nice house in a fancy neighborhood from the ground up with no electricity on the lot, all with hand tools.

His 70 something year old son told me when he was a kid during the Yo Yo craze, he and his brother would make solid walnut Yo Yos in all sizes on the lathe. Much nicer than the store bought ones.

[tea lady]

We are so spoiled these days. :D

[hughie]

Necessity provides all manner of amazing things and it looks well used . :2tsup:

[Scott]

That's a pretty awesome story Paul, thanks for sharing! :2tsup:

[NeilS]

His 70 something year old son told me when he was a kid during the Yo Yo craze, he and his brother would make solid walnut Yo Yos in all sizes on the lathe. Much nicer than the store bought ones.

That brings back memories.

We turned ours out of camphor laurel at about the same time (in my case 55 years ago), then painted them with silver frost so that they looked more like the bought ones, which we couldn't afford. That was my first woodturning project'

They were also turned on a home made lathe. Ours was constructed out of an old pedal sewing machine by my older high school aged friend. Our turning tools were re-purposed screw drivers.

Bruce Leadbeatter (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~kjeeves/leady/leady1.html) grew up in the same small country town, but he had left to go away for his training by then, otherwise he may have helped us with better techniques. However, I did learn a bit by hanging around in his father's workshop later on. His dad, Horace, had 'invented' a few of his own lathes (see page 5 here (http://www.sydneywoodturners.com.au/site/bhe/bhe_mar2011.pdf)) before Bruce continued on with that family tradition.

Our lathes may have been less sophisticated than those that most of us have to work on now, but our aspirations were also modest in comparison.

Thanks, Paul, for the opportunity to wander down memory lane.

[Christos]

Thanks for sharing.

[tea lady]

That brings back memories.


They were also turned on a home made lathe. Ours was constructed out of an old pedal sewing machine by my older high school aged friend. Our turning tools were re-purposed screw drivers.
Wow. How did they hold an edge? :d

[NeilS]

Wow. How did they hold an edge? :d

They didn't, although some were better than others, however, they did all come with a bonus handle...:)

Most screwdrivers have a carbon content just below tool steel and they also came in smaller diameters, which was ideal for doing the yo-yo slot.

Besides, the high carbon steel tools we made weren't that much better. We made them out of an assortment of other tools, eg old woodplane and mower blades, and discarded steel components from cars, eg springs and exhaust valves. We spent a lot of time sharpening tools.

It was decades before I had the luxury of getting my hands on the first HSS tools from P&N, sometime in the eighties. Henry Taylor had them earlier, in the late 70's, but I was distracted on other interests at that time.