Router lathe

Here's my first attempt at a router lathe - this is only a prototype, so I can decide which features I like, and which ones need changing. It doesn't do spirals yet, but I've being playing around with some pulleys and spirals will be coming soon :)

The headstock is a bicycle hub with a fixed faceplate. The chuck was made from cut down angle brackets, with a nut brazed on. Index holes are spaced at 15 degrees. Maximum stock width is 75mm, length 700mm.

Any profile can be routed by clamping a template to the back wall - an extrusion from the baseplate sits on top of the template. I have shown straight and tapered in the photos.

The clamps that prevent the router from moving are simply bolts that compress two sides of a slotted hole together - this works really well.

steve

Good work Steve, I have loooooonnnnnnggggg term plans of making a router lathe one day, so will use your post for inspiration at that time.

Will be interested in more info if/when you do the gearing setup.


Cheers.................Sean, wannabe router turner :)

Steve,

just hate it when someone else actually *does* what I've been thinking about!!

I'd be interested in a pic or two of the headstock.

Also, with your templates, I assume the distance from the centre-line of the router bit is the same to the centre of the sliding rail, as it is to the point of the template follower? This means that any feature on the template will need to be twice as large as the desired cut in the workpiece?

And this would mean that you couldn't use an original piece as a template?
Or have I got this completely wrong?

Cheers,
Andrew

Hi, Steve.

I have done some 30mm spindles for my grand daughter cradle using my small chinese lathe and some improvised modifications. I´d like to see some pictures from your router lathe since I have in mind to use some bike parts to make one of these machines.

Thanks in advance.