Travis Johnson
Member
- Messages
- 2,369
Okay...now you guys all know I use a lathe a lot, and know how to turn between centers, facing, off-setting the tail stock and cutting threads and all that is good in the metal working world, but how do you keep your hand held turning tools exactly on the centerline?
Every time I use my wood lathe, my tools "catch" the wood and either stop the stupid thing from turning, or gouge the wood. Either way, this jumpy guy, jumps and its not a lot of fun.
Now at work, the tool height is set to withing a few thousands of an inch and is shimmed and adjustable and seldom is changed. At the same time, I never catch the metal with this system, or at least very seldom to I "catch" the metal anyway. So I was thinking about building a carriage system, and an adjustable tool holder that was geared to my shops wood lathes spindle so that for every revolution of the spindle, the carriage would move ahead by a few thousands of an inch. This would give me a consistent chip, and yet also keep the cutting edge of the tool inline with the centerline of the turning. That is the only way I can think of to keep the cutting edges from skews, gouges and whatnot from catching.
So then I began to realize, I am basically going to have to convert my wood lathe into an engine lathe. Something is wrong with this picture because I doubt other wood turners go through all this just to keep your cutting edges from "catching", so my question is...what do you guys do to keep your cutting edges from "catching" the wood?
Every time I use my wood lathe, my tools "catch" the wood and either stop the stupid thing from turning, or gouge the wood. Either way, this jumpy guy, jumps and its not a lot of fun.
Now at work, the tool height is set to withing a few thousands of an inch and is shimmed and adjustable and seldom is changed. At the same time, I never catch the metal with this system, or at least very seldom to I "catch" the metal anyway. So I was thinking about building a carriage system, and an adjustable tool holder that was geared to my shops wood lathes spindle so that for every revolution of the spindle, the carriage would move ahead by a few thousands of an inch. This would give me a consistent chip, and yet also keep the cutting edge of the tool inline with the centerline of the turning. That is the only way I can think of to keep the cutting edges from skews, gouges and whatnot from catching.
So then I began to realize, I am basically going to have to convert my wood lathe into an engine lathe. Something is wrong with this picture because I doubt other wood turners go through all this just to keep your cutting edges from "catching", so my question is...what do you guys do to keep your cutting edges from "catching" the wood?