How doyou do that?

[RussianRouter]

How do you get a square length of wood to a round shape before you actually carve/turn it to shape?

Thanks.

Hah its ok just watched a youtube vid,I got it in my mind that the turning chisles would catch the corners of the wood and throw/yank the chisel out of your hand,seems not as the spinning rotation of the lathe is going too fast.

Cetainly would like to have a go at turning wood.

 

[Lightweeder]

R-R. Go for it - but maybe start with round bits :wink:

 

[RussianRouter]

Hi Lw

I'm accustomed to Lathe but the engineering metal lathe,I done a 12month course in Engineering but never turned square block into round.

I swear the instructor had a wicked side to new recruits as what I did back then was soul destroying.

2.5" block of steel had to filed down to 2 1/4" square then milled to 2 1/8" later on in the course...sod.

Had to make 500 1/2"x1/8" nuts on the Lathe...bigger sod.

 

[Lightweeder]

Hmm. Sounds a lot more difficult than wood turning, but hope the course wasn't a complete waste.

 

[duncanh]

If you're really daunted by the corners you can always take them off with a plane to make the blank octagonal. That's what the person who taught me suggested at a night class. It really doesn't make much difference though because by the time you've done that you could probably have made a cylinder on the lathe.
If the speed is high enough you can just take the corners off with the tool - roughing gouge or skew chisel when you have more experience.

 

[RussianRouter]

Hello Duncan and Lightweeder

I was having a browse through Ebay before and a good starter lathe went for £60,problem was it was too far down south for travelling to pick it up,as were most lathes up for sale ie pickup only.

That MachineMart place has gone awfully dear these days.