Tuesday 26 March 2013

Pole lathe turning seasoned square timber

As some of you know I make strops. These are made either from kiln dried oak or ash, sawn on the bandsaw and feed through a planer thicknesser. The video shows how I turn them on the pole lathe. Do not be frightened of turning seasoned wood or even square stock on a human powered lathe, it is possible, and we have been doing it for centuries. Okay there are a few drawbacks, tools go blunter sooner and as the wood is dry and therefore harder, it will take longer.
I often skip from modern electric tools to traditional ones, I have a small electric lathe but do not like it. I learned on a pole lathe and I am comfortable with the tools and techniques. to be honest I can probably turn stuff quicker on a pole lathe rather than an electric one. These handles are turned in under 3 minutes.
If you have a pole lathe give it a go, it will help improve you turning techniques, and your round dowels or components will stay round!

4 comments:

  1. Its tough but possible. One of the worst spring-pole turning experiences of my life was turning a set of bun feet from a square of hard maple. It took a really long time but came out nice.

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  2. Hi Sean!

    I seem to only have 31 seconds video - is it just me?

    KRs,

    Richard

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  3. I think it just you Richard, do try again, could be just one of these annoying computer glitches.

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  4. Hey Sean. Watched the video on turning dry wood. I have, on several occasions, turned dry wood in order to fill out my inventory for up-coming events in order to have something to sell. Yesterday, after watching, I went out and split some over dry beech to make some stirring spoons for a customer. Of course beech is slightly oily so it turned rather well and burnished nicely.

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Sorry, because of the huge amount of dubious people leaving spam comments for their useless stuff, I unfortunately have to bring back word verification.