Neat pole lathe video

Interesting. Not for me. We have a pole lathe turner in our club. He works at a State Park crafts demo place not far away. He watches for tourists to approach him then he will turn for a few seconds until they walk up and he'll talk to them. His speciality is tops which he makes at home on his power lathe to sell in the park store.
 
I'd love to give that a go!

I think I understand it, not really that hard to get my head around, I'm sure a lot harder to actually do of course :D

Some points;
He turns only greed wood, and very green at that.
He uses very sharp tools that are designed to turn green wood, I'm sure that if you ran your finger along the sharp edge of one of those tools you would bleed.
He does no sanding, the somewhat rough finish seems to be desired.
He finishes with just an oil finish, he is not making art, he is making utility.

I very much envy him, he has found a vocation he loves and seems to be able make a living at it. He lives out in the countryside, paint me green with envy!

Very cool!
 
I was thinking if you were doing shows something like a treadle lathe would be a really good way to draw a crowd even if you didn't use it day to day. I think the treadle would be a bit easier to run than a spring pole based on my very very limited experience. I had tried making a spring pole lathe many years ago but had no real idea what I was doing so had an impressive lack of success. I'd like to try it again sometime just to get it to work once :D
 
I think Roy Underhill used to have (may still) a foot powered lathe on his show that went round and round. He did OK with it. He also sweat a lot. :rolleyes:

His is/was a pole lathe as well so it reciprocated - and (I suppose unsurprisingly) Roy is pretty good with it so it looked more natural than some folks. Watching the videos there is a definite rhythm to it that I think may be not to bad once you get into the "swing" of it.

Dave if you decide to make one, we'll definitely want pictures :D I reckon there would be more market for re-inactors on that side of the country than over here.
 
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