Thread: Setup and first chips

Today saw the last of the bigger machines sold and on the trailer.
Amazing how much room I now have with the machinery gone.

After a full on clean out , including spiderweb removal, I set to and rearranged the workshop.
My big wood bench and side bench have stayed put and I swung the third table around to create a U-shaped working area, roughly half the side of a 6 x 6 meter garage. I'll fine tune more as I go but things look a lot neater and everything is pretty close at hand.
I'm roughly 6'2" tall so I have my benches high and I initially thought the the machine would be too high to work comfortably but it actually turned out spot on. The tool rest working height allows for very natural positioning of the chisel, so at least I don't have to saw anything off the legs.

That done I set up the Lathe, whacked in a 90 x 90 x 350 piece of heart Rimu and proceeded to play. Currently waiting for my set of chisels to turn up, but was able to have a play using an old skew chisel from my neighbor.

I have to say I'm most impressed with the little beast. Very quiet, no vibration and the centers aligned nicely straight out of the box.

The most common stock size I will use will be 90 x 90 and 100 x 100, mostly Rimu and Tawa, and if I can find some locally some Totora as well.

I turned back part of what will be a lamp-stand, and sanded it to 800 grit and then polished it just to see how well the machine operated doing these various tasks. Suffice to say it took it all in its stride. It didn't feel under-powered for what I was doing which was my only real concern, but as it turns out ( pardon the pun ) it never felt like it was having any issues, so I'm well pleased.

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As well as doing all this I copper foiled and assembled all the panels for this lampshade & stand. Over the next few days I will complete the lamp and turn the stand and it can then go in the gallery where I work for sale ( hopefully ).
More later

Cheers
Ralph.