# Pictures of a self-made wooden lathe and a new member intro



## Pekka Huhta (27 Jul 2006)

First message, here it goes 

I had a problem: I needed a lathe for a couple of chisel handles but had no intention of buying one. My workshop is about 2,3 x 2,4 m big and already pretty full and I did not want to waste money for something that could be easily built anyway.

I have used my hand drill for all sorts of small turning tasks, modifying screw heads, polishing anything that could be gripped in the chuck and rotated etc. So the thought of using a hand drill as the motor for the drill was quite obvious. 

Unfortunately I did not take photos during the building stage, but here is the finished lathe:







It’s made of an old, badly tarnished table top (which turned out to be masur birch after I planed it down a bit) and workshop scraps. The headstock, tailstock and toolrest base birch, and the rails (?) are ash. Tool rest itself was carved of a scrap of Iroko which had enough sapwood to prevent me from using it on my boat projects. 






The first thing was to assemble the rails, headstock and end blocks on the other end together. The headstock bearing was a brass bushing with a flange in it. I have no idea what it has originally been for; it was just a discovery from my “box of surprises”. It had 10 mm hole through it. The spindle is just a knot bore re-ground so that it doesn’t drill into the workpiece.

Tailstock bearing was drilled by inserting a 10 mm drill bit through the headstock. This way I got them aligned properly. I did the same thing “backwards” when I aligned the center of the drill holder on the left end. 






After drilling the hole for tailstock bearing I inserted a brass pipe over there, drilled and tapped a piece of 10 mm steel plate for the tailstock screw and added a locking screw. Here is the catch: there is a ball bearing (just one 10 mm ball) between the tailstock screw and (wassat sharp part that goes to the end of the workpiece). This way it rotates very lightly and the tailstock screw doesn’t unscrew easily. 

After assembly I took everything apart again for finishing. First I used a quite thin mixture of turpentine, linseed oil and a tad of tar. Using pine tar for everything is a bad habit of mine, coming from fooling too much around in wooden boats. The final coatings were just shellac. 

All the other parts were just leftovers from my endless boxes, jugs and tin cans full of screws. Total cost of building was zero, although it took about a week or two to make in the evenings. 

Here are the first leather capped chisel handles turned with the new lathe. 






I hope you enjoyed the story, at least I had fun building that thing  

Pekka


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## Adam (27 Jul 2006)

Welcome to the forum, and the lathe looks marvellous. Well done!

Adam


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## Mcluma (27 Jul 2006)

That looks marvelous, you could have even made the bed bigger, so you could turn bigger pieces (probably not needed for your project)

Pekka, could you show some more picuters of your workshop, because by the look of the back wall it looks quite an piece of art itsself (old logs)

ps
Welcome to the forum


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## Alf (27 Jul 2006)

Welcome, Pekka. Wow, what a smashing job you've done of that, and great chisel handles too. =D> =D> =D> One thing that may have got confused in translation - "The spindle is just a knot bore re-ground so that it doesn’t drill into the workpiece." What's that then? Must be a drill bit of some sort?

Cheers, Alf


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## dedee (27 Jul 2006)

Pekka,
welcome, and a very nice lathe. I too would like to see more pictures of your workshop.

Andy


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## CHJ (27 Jul 2006)

A Job well done there *Pekka*, both in the Lathe project and the consistent finish of the handles, and welcome to the forum.

You have already spiked the curiosity of of members about your workshop construction with the pictures, but the mention of Wooden Boats is setting yourself up for some really serious probing when certain members spot the thread.


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## PowerTool (27 Jul 2006)

Welcome to the forum  

Like the lathe - more pictures of the workshop,please [-o< 

Whereabouts in Finland are you ? (At work,we have an agent in Helsinki,but also go to Hamina,Rauma,Hanko,Porvoo,Turku,Kotka and Tampere - to name most of the places I can remember)

Andrew


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## Anonymous (27 Jul 2006)

Welcome Pekka, very nice work


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## devonwoody (28 Jul 2006)

Thank you Pekka for your very interesting thread project.

Clicked the saved button and will put on my to make list, I need to make round knobs occasionally for box lids etc.


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## Pekka Huhta (28 Jul 2006)

Thanks everybody. To be honest, I'm a bit proud of the lathe myself 8)

Before a quick visit on my workshop, a few short replies. 
I thought about making the lathe bigger, but it already can hold a piece about the size of a carving mallet and I doubt that my drill will be too happy with anything bigger than that. 

That ghastly "knot bore" came straight from a dictionary and it didn't sound right at all to me either. Meaning one of those drills you use to drill knots out and later plugging the holes. What's the right term?

Finish on the handles must be pretty consistent as they weren't finished at all yet  I tend to use linseed oil, tar, shellac, beeswax and that sorts of easy things for finishing. Having varnished several acres of boat planking during the past ten years has made me hate varnishing or anything else too shiney. 

It seems that I may have to return to the issue of boat restorations and general messing about later. I'm having the last day in work before my vacation so I'll have to clean up the desk  

We live in a house built in 1919 in Espoo, which is just next to Helsinki. The workshop was one of the good reasons to move in. Actually my workshop is a small room intended for the kitchen maid. And a small maid she must have been, there really isn't much space in that room. 

The pictures were taken the last time I cleaned up. So don't even imagine it looks this tidy all the time, but as the room is so small I have to have a fixed place or tool holder for everything, otherwise I don't have room to work. Click the pictures big if you want to see the details. 

Coming in from the door (175 x 60 cm, you have to squeeze in) you see the tool shelves and cabinets. Most of the hand tools are here or hanged on the walls. On the blue cupboard below I have the screws, nails, fittings, extra tools etc. 




On the left side there is a shelf where I have the power tools in plastic boxes. These days they are hardly used. I seem to have more fun with the hand tools. And besides, I hate cleaning up after using them. 




Turning back to the door there are some tools hanged on the walls.




And as we came in we forgot to have a look on the "metal bench" which I use for small metalworking things, cleaning up old planes etc. 




As you noticed there isn't that much room for materials or semi-finished projects. That's what attics are for. Again, this has been taken some time when I got the floor built to the attic, these days it's so full that it'll collapse one day and kill us all in our beds 




It's not big but it's one man's heaven  

Pekka


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## devonwoody (28 Jul 2006)

The only machinery I can see is your lathe  

Some of the boys (and girls) will love you here. :wink:


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## Alf (28 Jul 2006)

Pekka Huhta":amzrddxe said:


> That ghastly "knot bore" came straight from a dictionary and it didn't sound right at all to me either. Meaning one of those drills you use to drill knots out and later plugging the holes. What's the right term?


Gosh, I haven't the foggiest. Someone?

Great workshop - so tidy too. I dunno how you chaps working in boxes manage it, I really don't. Necessity is the mother of invention I s'pose. 

Cheers, Alf


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## devonwoody (28 Jul 2006)

It looks to me like a Forstener bit, or a hinge cutting bit, and as said above with the cutting blade or pilot adapted.


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## Ulrich (29 Jul 2006)

Hello Pekka, 

gratulation - I have been very impressed by your self built lathe. But I have a question referring to your chisels, too: I am facing the same problem - I have gained recently some old stanley chisels with composite handles, which I should like to replace by new ones turned from applewood. Your method, to attach to the top of the handle a piece of leather as a shock absorber is very appealing, and I should like to imitate your method. But how did you attach the leather to the wood? With cyanoacrylate glue?

I should be thankful for some more informations and, maybe, a picture of the top of your handles.

Best wishes from Germany

Ulrich


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## Paul Chapman (29 Jul 2006)

Fabulous lathe and really interesting thread, Pekka =D> =D> 

Paul


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## Pekka Huhta (29 Jul 2006)

I have to take a pic on the drill bit (the sorry "knot bore"), it's sure that you all should know it. Well, if it isn't a finnish specialty anyway. Would you settle for an "oksapora" then?  A Forstner bit it isn't but it's one that's doing exactly the same job. Pine is the most common wood around here and it has plenty of knots. You just drill a shallow hole in the wood on the knot and put a plug in it instead. That way you don't get the pitch oozing out through the paint or whatever you're using for finish. They use it a lot when building wooden boats around here. And for just about anything else as well. 

I'm sure that there are plenty of people here who can explain the chisel handles better than I, but here is how I did it. 

First I drilled the outside diameter with a 44 mm hole saw, the type you put on your drill. The biggest leather punch I had was 20 mm, so that's what I used for the inside hole. I just turned the chisel end to about 20+ mm to make it a snug fit and used contact cement to glue the leather rings on place before turning them to the right size. Cyanoacrylate is OK I guess, but for leather... Have you ever seen a shoemaker use cyanoacrylate for repairing your boots? I haven't for sure 

I don't have too good images on the finished handles, but here is on on a semi-finished one. As you can see, the turning chisels were shamefully dull (the leather looks all "hairy"), but I got it done anyway. Polishing took care of that. 






I promised a set of chisels to a friend of mine and that made me build the lathe. I haven't yet even had the time to turn any handles for myself, today I've been busy building a frame for a turntable for another friend (who is nagging that it should be called a "plinth" instead f a frame but I've got no idea what it means. Probably we'll get into another vocabulary discussion  ). 

Pekka


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## Noel (4 Aug 2006)

Pekka, welcome to the site and well done on the lathe and chisel handles. Your English is excellent.
With regard to the Knot Borer is it just a simple plug cutter?
I know nothing about Finland except Timo Mäkinen, Pentti Airikkala, Hannu Mikkola, Marku Alen, Ari Vatanen (the best), Henri Toivonen (also the best) and Tommi Makinen and Marcus Gromholm etc and of course one or two F 1 guys too (Kimi). Looking forward to the Neste Ralli Finland later this month.


Rgds

Noel


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## Pekka Huhta (7 Aug 2006)

Noel, I'd say it's just a plug cutter. Whenever I get back home from my holiday trip I'll post some more pictures. Now I was just coming off from a sawmill opened around 1880's. For some funny reason all the other guys were a bit frustrated as I had to check all the bits and thingies one by one over there.  

Pekka


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