Henry Taylor ST 2000 System?

A friend loaned/gave me a brand new Henry Taylor ST 2000 tool and tips. This has a handle and shaft with interchangeable tips. A hollowing loop, a flat cut bowl gouge, and a bowl gouge with the wings laid back maybe 35 degrees.

This tool has been taken off the market and Henry Taylor no longer sells even the replacement tips. Hate to look a gift horse in the mouth but I would like to know why this tool was taken off the market. Too good? Too bad? Safety issues? E-mailed Henry Taylor, I'm getting ignored looks like.

I did pull the trigger on purchasing a Talon chuck from Packard Woodworks today and have a half inch Jacobs chuck on a #2 Morse taper coming from the same direction as the ST 2000 tool. Nice to have friends!

Current tally on bowls, one blew to pieces, one busted in half, one on the lathe that ain't likely to see the sun set tomorrow! I'm getting better but still have a ways to go. Need more of everything including experience and book lerning!

Hu
 
I've not really heard anything good or bad about the ST2000 system. It looks good on paper, but I suspect there just wasn't enough market demand for a proprietary system like that to keep it viable. (As I recall, it was pretty pricey, too.) If someone gave me one, I'd definitely put it to use. I have several Taylor tools, and they are of decent, but average quality. Better than the cheaper tools from Harbor Freight and Penn State, but not in the same league with Thompson or Glasser.

Good to hear you keep getting back on the turning horse each time you get bucked off. :) From the sounds of things (with as many bowls as you're losing), I suspect you might either be trying to be a bit too aggressive with your cuts (being in too big of a hurry to remove material), presenting the tools to the wood incorrectly (something a bit of mentoring with a club member can easily fix) or that your tools aren't yet "turning tool" sharp. ;) But keep working at it, and all the pieces of the puzzle will come together. :thumb:
 
this is pretty much where I am at now.

I've not really heard anything good or bad about the ST2000 system. It looks good on paper, but I suspect there just wasn't enough market demand for a proprietary system like that to keep it viable. (As I recall, it was pretty pricey, too.) If someone gave me one, I'd definitely put it to use. I have several Taylor tools, and they are of decent, but average quality. Better than the cheaper tools from Harbor Freight and Penn State, but not in the same league with Thompson or Glasser.

Good to hear you keep getting back on the turning horse each time you get bucked off. :) From the sounds of things (with as many bowls as you're losing), I suspect you might either be trying to be a bit too aggressive with your cuts (being in too big of a hurry to remove material), presenting the tools to the wood incorrectly (something a bit of mentoring with a club member can easily fix) or that your tools aren't yet "turning tool" sharp. ;) But keep working at it, and all the pieces of the puzzle will come together. :thumb:


Vaughn,

It takes awhile to catalog all I was doing wrong and still won't have it perfect for a long time yet. First the basics. I want to turn bowls and hollow forms. I have turned dozens of spindles with toolpost type equipment and duplicator type equipment and I just don't want to mess with spindles although I know handheld tooling isn't the same thing and most people start with spindle work.

Pretty much everything about my stock and equipment is wrong. Until I move a building or two here and set up better my fairly light lathe is on a bench I knocked together out of scrap to reload on twenty years ago. Getting a wee bit shaky. My wood is whatever I had or grab. So far I have destroyed a piece of very light cedar that is about five years old and a piece of pecan with rot all through it. A major portion of the problem was that I couldn't hold it adequately. Someone with their ducks already in a row might have been OK with my set-up but my blunders were multiplied by the piece getting loose on the headstock spindle over and over. The piece on the lathe now has seen me return to the outside over and over when I was supposed to be done turning there. It really is past due to blow up. It has been through a rainstorm and a weather front with paper towels wrapped around it and covered with a garbage bag on a roofed but open patio. Going to see how bad it wobbles in a few hours and put some tape on it and see if I can turn more on the inside. To give me room to turn on a face plate with two inch bolts going through it I am turning end grain cedar, trying to make a goblet. Not the usual beginner project. All my tooling is 5/8" or bigger too.

How many things can one person be doing wrong? I finally found what seems to be a pretty good video to me after watching probably a dozen instructional and other videos. First off, my gouges are either square or one with the wings raked back about 35 degrees with sharp corners. Even if I was doing exactly what the videos show it wouldn't work with my tooling since they are using long feathered edges. However, the horizontal angle I held my tooling was wrong, the vertical angle was wrong, I had the tool far too open trying to shear with an angle to come across much like a spiral cut router bit. Also once I seemed to have things going well I opened it up ninety degrees, didn't realize that forty-five or less is about maximum for most situations and I would probably be best served by only opening to twenty degrees or so most of the time now. Need to try some wider flatter projects in better wood to learn on too. My RPM seems too low and lower than the speeds indicated on the dial. Not sure about that, not used to this size wood lathe.

I am reading, watching video, and studying. I do believe in doing some cutting at the same time to try to drive home what I am learning. I was watching the video inside with a cereal bowl and gouge in hand copying the angles and motions. Glass bowl, no harm done.

A few things I have done right. After over forty years around rotating equipment of various types I haven't been in harms way when things go wrong and I do test spin everything after changes staying well to the side. of the likely path of any flying chunks. I do know Murphy can still strike and something come flying off at an angle but I reduce the odds. I'm also incorporating what I learn. Annoyingly, I got a better finish when I didn't have a clue!

I have the drill chuck and Talon coming as mentioned. I am also going back to where I bought out half of a wood working shop, including many turning tools I can't find, this Saturday. Everything from carbide roughing tools, three or four sets of chisels, I think a couple fair quality, probably a Wolverine sharpening system I thought was something homemade the man was building on.(my brother and I bought out the shop from a widow so no direct information and neither of us has wood shop experience)

My cue lathe is a fantastic duplicator for things like gouge handles and I refrained from buying blanks until I have it set up again to resist the temptation of hacking them out but basically whatever I need that I don't find this Saturday I intend to start replacing with Thompson tools or very probably some of it with my own tools. I still have access to a job shop machine shop and some grinding equipment. Speaking of which, while I am just using some tiny diamond stones that no doubt went with something else, I am carefully maintaining tool bevels, sharpening as needed, and the tools all shave hair after sharpening with stones hand marked coarse, fine, and ultra fine. No idea what they are in terms of grit but fine leaves a smooth finish and ultra fine very close to a mirror finish.

The local AAW chapter meets on the 13th and seems very active with over a hundred members. Hopefully I will learn a little and get a little local assistance after I join. I'm hoping to find someone with a sharpening system to reshape some of my tools when I go there. I do know basically what I want in the sharpening system and unless I find most of what I want from the shop I bought I think I will go with the cheaper but seemingly well thought out Sharpfast sharpening system. May put something of my own together. Funny as it sounds I am more qualified to fabricate, weld, and do standard machine work than I am to use turning tools. Far more qualified but as you can tell that isn't saying much!

Some people say I am determined and persistent. They usually use the vernacular, pig headed and stubborn, but close enough. I will make this thing sing and dance before I am done. One thing I learned long ago though, a few minutes or a few hours of face to face mentoring can be invaluable. After months of fighting an ill handling stock car a man told me in one sentence how to fix it. That was decades ago but I still remember it well. Another time a good friend that was a world record holder for many years listened to my ideas concerning how I wanted to set up my benchrest rifle and rest and told me he was sure that after I finished reinventing the wheel it would be rounder and better than ever. I laughed, rubbed the big dent in my head, and got the message. I try to avoid reinventing the wheel these days but once I understand it I might indeed balance and true it.

I have some vast and some halfvast ideas. Sorting out which is which is the tricky part. I know many of my problems and am watching for new knowledge. I couldn't understand my catches hollowing because I was making sure my corners weren't touching. My "catches" might not have been catches in the usual meaning of the word, they were caused by having the tool way too far open trying to hollow. I learn, . . . slowly.

Final note, when the weather breaks I plan to grab some straight grain oak logs that are pretty fresh. It won't make pretty forms and bowls but probably far better to learn and practice on than the wood I have on hand.

Hu
 
Hu sounds like you have it figured out as far as what you want, and what you need to do. The only thing that i keep hereing that you might want to change is to find some better wood. That oak you have your eye on ain't gonna be the best thing for a new turner. Heck it ain't the best thing for someone that's been turning for years. If you can find some gum, maple, even poplar, it would be much better to learn on. Not sure what ya have down there,but i'm sure you have something better than oak. Just my openion of corse,but i think most turners would agree.
 
Hu sounds like you have it figured out as far as what you want, and what you need to do. The only thing that i keep hereing that you might want to change is to find some better wood. That oak you have your eye on ain't gonna be the best thing for a new turner. Heck it ain't the best thing for someone that's been turning for years. If you can find some gum, maple, even poplar, it would be much better to learn on. Not sure what ya have down there,but i'm sure you have something better than oak. Just my openion of corse,but i think most turners would agree.


Stephen,

I think the oak is probably still wet, it is in ten or twelve foot logs with the bark on so I was hoping it would at least be better than what I am working with. I am mostly restricted to downed wood or what someone I know saws down. I could have had cords and cords of gum over the last few years, just got interested in turning from natural wood in the last month or so. I don't know if we have poplar down here, might be cousin to some of our trees. A good bit of swamp maple which I think is a very soft maple. There are some three or four foot mimosa stumps that have just been butchered a few weeks ago, I am going to take a good look and probably whack them down. Pretty small maybe eight or ten inches though. I can't run a chain saw due to some electronics in my side, frustrating I miss my chainsaws. I do have some 42" green wood bow saw blades coming, hopefully they will work pretty good with my own custom bow to give me clearance.

I have a small gum log hanging in the air on this land I live on. Don't know how long it has been there. Might be from Katrina or any of a half-dozen storms afterwards. I will go saw a section or three out of it soon to try if it doesn't seem rotten. I have a small John Deere with a front end loader that I can use that makes a pretty fair helper handling heavy wood. One thought is that I might be able to trade some of the natural wood I have that can make beautiful stuff in the hands of somebody that knows what they are doing for easier wood to work with after I meet a few fairly local wood turners. Too soon to tell of course.

I'm just scratching the surface of what I need to know so far. I'm hoping to get better wood, stabilize my equipment better, and get better tooling in the near future. I have learned many things over the years and one thing I learned, it is far easier to learn something new when the equipment and stock aren't handicapping you. I strongly disagree with people who think that they don't need good equipment and tooling when they are first starting out. In many ways that is when they need it the most. Experts can make do with far less than beginners. It will take me a little time to get what I need though, I noticed my credit card is hot enough now from being whipped out so often that it is starting to melt in the upper left corner. Guess I'll turn it around in my wallet and start working on the low right corner awhile . . .

Thanks for your input. I do hear you loud and clear about the wood. One soft wood I might find around here is sycamore. Any thoughts on turning it? Willow is readily available too. Same question if you don't mind, any thoughts on turning willow?

Hu
 
Have no experence turning willow,but from all i have read. It's not the best thing in the world ether. Now that sycamore is a different story. I've turned a bunch of it and really like it. That swamp maple i'm sure would be good stuff also,as all the maple i've turned has been really fun and easy. You get some really long curlies out of that when it's green. :) As far as that oak it's not really bad to turn wet, just don't expect it to make it through the drying process intact. It will want to warp out of shape and crack worse than anything else i've ever tried. I have had a little sucess, but you better turn at least 100 pieces to get 2. If you have any ash that turnes real nice also. I'm sure you have just about the same as we have up here in TN, as i'm on the Mississippi bourder also. Just at the northern end.:)
 
Have no experence turning willow,but from all i have read. It's not the best thing in the world ether. Now that sycamore is a different story. I've turned a bunch of it and really like it. That swamp maple i'm sure would be good stuff also,as all the maple i've turned has been really fun and easy. You get some really long curlies out of that when it's green. :) As far as that oak it's not really bad to turn wet, just don't expect it to make it through the drying process intact. It will want to warp out of shape and crack worse than anything else i've ever tried. I have had a little sucess, but you better turn at least 100 pieces to get 2. If you have any ash that turnes real nice also. I'm sure you have just about the same as we have up here in TN, as i'm on the Mississippi bourder also. Just at the northern end.:)


I am pretty sure I have ash, wouldn't know it when I see it. I have to do my homework concerning trees too, I only know a few common ones. Lost a friend last year with a PhD in such things, kinda leaned on him when I had questions. I have elm too, seems very tight grained and I would guess stable more stable when finished than the oak. While I certainly want some finished results to survive right now I am far more concerned with lesson wood than project wood. If the operation is a success I won't mind too much if the patient dies. Tired of him dying on the operating table though! Fairly sure this piece in the lathe is a no-hoper, the top was very thin when I had to bail due to the storm. Second line of storms through here recently, both times caught me with wood on the lathe. Kind of an oh well thing too. I have a little eight by ten building I have to move now that I plan to move a couple machines into and hopefully before fall I will have my 12x20 cue shop moved here. It was stick built by me and is taller than standard, heavily built, well wired, and insulated. Got air conditioning and music too. Get my machines in there and I'll be turning in style, well until I get my Vega or Oneway!:D There is a long running gag between a friend and I that neither of us can even spell mudderation. There is some truth to that.

Hu
 
Hu, I'll second Steve's recommendations about wood. Oak is one of my my least favorite woods to turn, but sycamore and maple are great. The elm will quite likely warp almost as much as the oak, but probably not crack as badly. and when it's dry, it can be as hard as woodpecker lips.

On a different subject, I've noticed a couple of times you've mentioned attaching a faceplate after rough turning the outside. I realize you're turning without a chuck right now, but once you get the Talon, you'll be able to follow a bit more straightforward (and secure) sequence:

1. Attach faceplate to the blank on the side that will eventually be the top of the bowl.
2. Rough turn the outside of the bowl and turn a tenon on the side opposite the faceplate (the eventual bottom of the bowl).
3. Turn the blank end-for-end, holding the tenon with the chuck, and remove the faceplate.
4. Rough turn the inside of the bowl.

You're gonna enjoy the Talon. It's a great tool. And it sounds like before long you'll have most of your other tool bases covered, too. :thumb:
 
Vaughn,

What you mentioned is pretty much the plan or even just use the chuck screw that comes with the Talon on good solid wood that isn't too big before cutting a tenon and turning the piece over. I'm pretty sure such a thing exists as good solid wood somewhere. I assume the screw is normally used cross grain?

I suspect I might be able to find some gum that isn't rotten, we are lousy with gum trees around here. About a decade ago I cut 14 big ones off of a one acre house lot, leaving some behind. I was leery of the sap in those but I'll certainly respect the advice of all of the experienced wood turners that are telling me that gum is a good wood and oak isn't a good wood for a beginner. Doesn't mean I won't turn what I can lay my hands on but I will know what to expect.

Tools are like stray cats, they tend to follow me home. Fortunately I mostly like tools a lot better than cats although it looks like I have a new mouser as of yesterday. Probably the hot dog I threw it last night, it was waiting at the door when I stepped out this morning.

Hu
 
the toy truck came and . . .

For two dollars extra on the shipping I could second day my Talon chuck. That is a no brainer of course. I was pacing circles this morning like the coyote waiting on his shipment from Acme to finally catch the roadrunner. Other things to do once I wasn't tied down waiting on the UPS truck was part of it, another part was that I was like a kid on Christmas morn, I wanted my new shiney!

The toy truck came. New address, new driver, apparently most folks around here don't refer to the UPS truck as a toy truck and the driver as the toy truck driver. I suspect he will get used to it, looks like I will be seeing a lot of him.

Some temptation to look at the instructions before putting this tiny little chuck on a lathe. I'm used to six, eight, even twelve inch chucks on the metal lathes and lifting equipment to help position some that are on the top side of 200 pounds. Went and looked at an old lathe to buy awhile back, a 48" according to the ad. It had a 48" dia. chuck, a little larger than I had in mind for my garage! Anyway, I haven't even kicked the stray cat that has taken up residence, my man card would be revoked if I started reading instructions before all else failed too. Gently walked the screws in around and around in sequence seating the insert into the chuck. After the dealing was done I did read the instructions to look at pictures and see what other shiney things I might want from Oneway. I felt a lot like my baby girl at Christmas. I gave her the Sears and Roebuck catalog and told her to pick out what she wanted. She came back in the living room a few minutes later, "One each will be fine." Pretty much covers it, one each of what Oneway makes would be fine for me.

OK, I have to admit, no wood has fallen from heaven yet, I had a new chuck and I was gonna cut something. I grabbed a short section of the cedar, should have recut the ends to not have to rough inches extra off for no good reason but I wanna cut, I wanna cut now! I lay a piece of steel rod on the section of wood from each end a couple of times and get close to center. One end is cut on a big diagonal, the other end straight. the wood is only a couple three pounds give or take, I slide over maybe an inch towards the heavy end and drill a hole for the screw chuck after flattening a bit with a carpenter chisel.

The plan is to rough a little and cut a tenon, I have a decent but not ideal grip on the piece. Turns out it is rock solid but this is my first use of the screw chuck so I'm not quite as confident as I could be. Gather my tools, still using bubble safety glasses got to find a face shield, and stand so that I am cutting from the tailstock end of the lathe instead of the side, a good idea learned from a video.

Power on! The wood turns a half turn and sits there gently rocking back and forth at the bottom of the center of gravity, not quite what I had in mind! Not used to this lathe or this size and type of lathe I have been thinking it was spinning much slower than indicated but had no way to test. The dial was sitting on about 650RPM, actual RPM, well actual RPM at the work piece was zero. My ailing Reeves drive was ailing no more, it was graveyard dead!

Three hours later I now know how to overhaul a Reeves drive and no people, animals, or equipment died in the process. I learned a lot too. The Reeves drive isn't really that big of a deal to work on. The last hour was spent trying to hold the spring pack in place on the top pulley with one hand while installing the snap ring with the other. With more than bare hands to work with and what I know now I could probably do the work again in half the time.

I turned wood until nine PM. By then the flashlight batteries were getting dim enough I was cutting by feel and in my eagerness I had started with tools I knew really should have been sharpened first. Lessons learned, holding the wood firmly and turning at more reasonable RPM were huge steps in my progress. However I have already built bad habits into my muscle memory that I need to correct before they get too ingrained.

The story of overhauling the Reeves drive with mostly just tooth and claw, brute strength and stubbornness, deserves a write-up all to itself and there were actually some things of value I learned that might be of benefit to others. Where would be the place to put a story that is largely humor but I will capsulize the things I learned that might be of help to others at the end of the story?

Hu
 
Hu, I need go digging (when it's not 3:00 in the morning) to see if I have any photos of the rig I used to remove the spring on my Sears lathe back when I had it. It makes removing and re-installing that spring a LOT easier. It's something you can put together in about 5 minutes out of some all-thread and a bit of scrap metal. If my experience with that lathe is any indication, you'll be taking the spring off again down the road. ;)
 
Who needs sleep? Here are a few pics to show what I made to remove and replace the spring on my Sears lathe:

The jig is built on a piece of all-thread long enough to go through the spindle. I think I used a piece 3' long, because that's what I had handy. It could have been shorter, but I didn't see the need to cut it. On the spindle side of the headstock, there's a nut and sufficient washers to keep the nut from falling into the hole at the end of the spindle:

Reeves%20Spring%20Removal%202.jpg


On the pulled side of the headstock, there's a piece of scrap metal (I'll call it the plate) that has two holes tapped in it, space to fit the cap that holds the spring in. In those tapped holes, are two bolts that are essentially "fingers" pushing down on the cap. I think you'll get the idea from these pics:

Reeves%20Spring%20Removal%203.jpg


Reeves%20Spring%20Removal%201.jpg


Once that's in place, you grab the all-thread with a pair of vice grips and turn the nut on the spindle side. I just used a deep socket and turned the nut by hand:

Reeves%20Spring%20Removal%205.jpg


And here's a shot where you can see the vice grips I used to keep the all-thread from spinning:

Reeves%20Spring%20Removal%204.jpg


That jig turned a major wrestling match into a cakewalk for me. Something tells me you could fabricate something similar. ;)
 
getting closer

Vaughn,

When I managed to fight the spring off and found out it was two or three times longer than anticipated I knew that the way it came off wasn't going to help going on. It was a battle getting the spring cap back over the shaft, the hollow shaft. That was one of the things I failed to consider trying to replace the snap ring. There are slights and tricks that work well with solid shafts. The other end of the snap ring going in the shaft tunnel causes these tricks to not work. Trying to hold the spring compressed with one hand while putting the snap ring on with the other is a wee bit tough.

I dropped the snap ring. Had to use the needle nosed pliers to get that tiny bit extra reach to pick it up while holding the spring. Dropped the snap ring a little further away. Now if Lassie or Ren Tin Tin were there they would have handed it to you, maybe put it on for you. What is a paw or two between friends? Gentle Ben would have held the spring with one paw while snicking the snap ring in place with the other. Flipper? Even Flipper would have made a good faith effort. A cat strayed up a few days ago, probably dumped. I have been feeding it hotdogs for all this time. "Excuse me ma'am, you mind handing me that snap ring?" Meow", yawn. "How about just nudging it a little closer with a paw?" She didn't bother looking at me again. I had to release the spring and go back to point "A". Easy to see why cats will never be known as man's best friend. She only loved me for my hot dogs.

Machine seems to run properly now and I am getting closer to success. Four pieces of wood dead now, less than half a garbage can full of shavings, pretty sure I will turn something besides shavings soon. I do like your tool and it or something very similar will be built before I take that spring off again. I'll have three or four of those snap rings too, good shop practice to always replace the old snap rings plus I normally have to allow for a few lost.

Hopefully there will be a cell phone photo of my latest failed effort attached. A smallish pith hole in the bottom of the piece I was turning, none in the top and I had left a large block of wood on bottom to mount manly bolts through a faceplate after issues with things moving. Looked pretty good until I started thinning out the stem. Ouch! No wood except a little rot for about an inch of pith diameter. Would have been cool to leave like that but not what I want at the moment so my goblet became a brandy snifter with a pith hole in the bottom. I was aware it needed more sanding but I am sanding by hand and just wasn't that interested in spending a bunch of time sanding on a failed effort.

Husecondfailedpiece.jpg
 
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