
Spindle Turning Session 1: Getting started
George VondriskaDescription
As you work through the class, it will be important that you understand the jargon that’s specific to lathes and spindle turning. We’ll cover the parts of a lathe, and what you need to know to make sure that, if you buy lathe accessories, they’ll work with your machine. We’ll also cover various types of speed controls you may find on lathes, which is very helpful if you’re lathe shopping.
Here comes what I think is one of the most important aspects of the class that you're about to get started on. And that is to watch through the entire class before you grab any of those skills and go out to the shop to use 'em. Because I really want you to understand the big picture, not just tiny aspects of spindle turning. As you're watching the class, and hopefully you'll watch it more than once to get a handle on these skills. Things I really want you to pay attention to are the body mechanics, how I stand, how I place my hands, how I handle the chisels.
These are all things that are really, really important to make sure that you can do the cuts correctly and safely on your machine. So watch it start to finish, grab onto those key points. Take the notes out to the shop, come back and watch it again. And as I said, it's all about body mechanics, it's all about muscle memory. So really pay attention to those aspects of the spindle turning class.
And in no time at all, you'll be cranking out spindles on your lathe. Before we get into spindle turning, you really gotta understand the parts of a lathe so that when I refer to 'em you know what the heck I'm talking about. On the drive end of the machine, there will always be a headstock. This contains a power plant of some kind, a means by which we can change speed. We're gonna talk a lot about using different speeds, different RPMs, depending on what you're doing.
That's gonna all come from your headstock. Opposite the headstock, what makes a lot of sense is we have a tailstock. In our spindle turning, this'll support the opposite end of our work. Have to have something out here so that that spindle stays parallel to the bed, parallel to the axis of the machine. Now, in the headstock, we've got a really important component.
We have to have something that, when the headstock is spinning will drive the spindle, will make it go round. This is called a drive center or spur center, names are interchangeable. We're gonna end up driving this into the end grain of our material after a little bit of preparation. Once that's engaged and the headstock spins, that's gonna make the spindle go with it. Opposite this, in order to support the spindle on the other end, we've got a live center.
Live center because as the spindle spins, this will also spin, there's bearings inside here. Most lathes today come with a live center. If yours did not, it's a wonderful upgrade. It's a really must-have thing. The way you can tell the difference is, on yours, if this assembly doesn't spin with the spindle, you've got instead what's called a cup center.
If that's what you've got, because it's not gonna spin, this component has to be kept lubricated, otherwise it'll really burn your end grain. Now, when we're doing our turning we've gotta have something to support the chisels they're gonna rest oddly enough, on the tool rest. So that's this component right here. Don't worry about the length. These come in different sizes.
Gonna get 'em as accessories for your lathe if the size you have isn't suitable for what you're doing. The tool rest is adjustable in height. We're gonna do quite a bit of that as we go through our turning. The tool rest lives in what is the oddest name on the lathe. This is called the banjo of the lathe.
And we can adjust the banjo in and out and left and right. That'll control the proximity of the tool rest to the spindle. It's very important for safety. And also control the location, depending on what we're turning. Now, let's go back and do a couple more things on the headstock here.
One is, the way that the drive center and the live center engage with the headstock and the tailstock, and that's with what's called a Morse taper. In this case, it's a number two Morse taper. That's the size of this, the diameter. Smaller would be number one, larger would be number three. Number two is very common for lathes.
It's good to know this for your particular machine, because if you wanna add an accessory, you've gotta know what size taper your machine is gonna take. It's really amazing, once we lock this in, and that may have been enough to do it right there. Because of the taper, it really engages with the inside of the shaft. It's really a secure way to keep things together. When we wanna get that out, a rod is gonna come in from the other end to drive it out.
With the headstock, we have to have some way to control the speed. Now, I'll show you my favorite way. This machine has got electronic variable speed control. So with the push of a button, which I'm doing right now, the RPMs are going up, up, up, up, up. Push of a button, they'll go down, down, down, down, down.
What's nice about that is it really lets you fine-tune the speed, so you get it exactly where you want for your turning. An alternative would be headstocks that have step pulleys in 'em. We change speed by moving the belt from one pulley to another to another. Works just fine. It's a little bit more time consuming because we need to open the headstock, make the change, close the headstock.
With electronic variable speed, the machine can be running and we can make the change. The machine can be off, we can make the change. It's very easy to make those changes on the fly. That gives you the jargon you need so that you understand all the players in the game here. So when I refer to the parts, you're gonna know what I'm talking about on parts of a lathe.
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