Thread: H&f wl 38 wood lathe

Originally Posted by bellyup

For me, I'd be worried that the minimum speed is 420 rpm - too fast for the kind of rough lumps I'd put on it.

My Hegner 175, 350mm swing has a minimum of 800 RPM. A few times with maximum size, rough, out of balance chunks, things got a bit tense, one time with a not well secured blank, it came out and up, broke two florescent tubes and came down hitting my wrist. I had a good bruise and several cuts on the hand.

If you are buying or band sawing your bowl blanks more or less round, I think the 420 RPM will be fine. If you use max size out of balance rough chunks, with care you will still be OK.

If you stiffen up the lathe stand with a stout shelf down low and put weight on it - concrete blocks, buckets of gravel, cast iron engine heads, that will keep the lathe from jumping around.

Securely mount the funny blanks to a faceplate, use the tail center nice and tight, start the lathe standing to the side. Remove the out of balance parts first and get the blank more or less round.

If you use a chuck, make a recess or spigot, remove the blank and mount in the chuck, further remove chunks sticking out, still using the tail center.

By now most of the unbalance is removed and you can proceed. Make another recess or spigot if you need to turn the blank, and finish roughing.