Lathe Safety

Let's quickly cover some basic safety rules about the lathe so that you can make sure you're safe when you're using the machine. First, RPM. It's very, very important that you have the correct RPM selected for the machine before you put the work on. So you'll wanna refer to a speed chart and make sure that based on both the size and the length of your spindles or bowls, you've got the right speed set up on your machine. Then you want to be certain that your lathe has the work secured.

So, between centers, I wanna make sure that I'm firmly engaged on the spur center, and the tailstock center on this end. If I'm using a face plate, I wanna make sure that I've got screws that are plenty substantial through the face plate, into the bowl to hold everything in place for me. Now, let's have a look at the tool rest, it's very, very important. You wanna make sure that the tool rest is always as close as it can be to your material without actually touching. Before I turn the lathe on, I'm gonna spin that piece to make sure that if it's missing on one corner, it's missing on all four corners.

So if I'm just a little bit off center, I don't have a part that's gonna bang into the tool rest. So you wanna make sure that that's set up just right. Now, for you personally, there are a couple of things that you need to do. All the jewelry should be off, no rings, watches, or bracelets. We don't want anything that can get caught here.

If you've got long sleeves on, they should get rolled up to your elbows, even better, short sleeves so that you don't have anything dangling over the machine. For personal protection, couple of things you wanna do. Whenever you're working on the lathe, you should have a full-face shield on. The chips are gonna fly here, especially I think more so with bowls than with spindles, but there's always a lot of stuff flying off. Safety glasses are good, full-face shield is better.

That way you're fully protected. Now, a lot of stuff is gonna get airborne, certainly when we're sanding, but even when you're using a chisel. So a dust mask is a great idea so that you don't inhale that stuff. The more dust you breathe in, the more susceptible you become to becoming allergic to it. So you really wanna protect yourself right from the start.

We can roll these two ideas into one by using a product like this. This gives me a full-face shield, plus it's a self-contained air filtration system. There's a battery in here, so when I have this on, and I turn it on, it's filtering the air that it's pumping over my face. So this is a great idea for when you're working on the lathe, or even just in general, when you're working in the shop. So those simple tips are gonna help protect ya, and keep ya safe when you're working on the wood lathe.