Be an Expert Woodworker Tomorrow for $300

My life has been changed.

I have wanted to do woodturning for a long time. I didn’t have room for a wood lathe in Miami. I made myself a toolrest for my metal lathe, and I worked it out so I could use a small 4-jaw wood chuck held in the jaws of my metal chuck, but I didn’t get to do anything once I had the equipment made. I thought my metal lathe would follow me to Marion County quickly, but it hasn’t, so I got myself a little Harbor Freight lathe yesterday. I got 20% off, naturally.

The lathe is surprisingly heavy. It’s around 80 pounds. I expected a wood lathe to be much lighter than a metal lathe of the same size, but the difference is only about 20%. I did not enjoy carrying the lathe from the car to the workshop.

A fair number of Internet monkeys make fun of this lathe and call it a toy, but it’s pretty much the same Chinese lathe you will get from respected companies like Rikon and Jet. I’m sure there are little differences, but the bed is flat, the motor runs smoothly, and all the parts seem to be well-made.

You can turn a cereal bowl on this lathe if you want. That’s about the outside envelope. That’s fine by me. I only got it so I would have something for little jobs. I don’t want to get sawdust all over the metal lathe and my metal shop every time I want to make a tool handle.

I was nervous about turning the lathe on. It comes from the factory fully assembled and ready to go, apart from screwing in one handle, so turning it on is about all you have to do. I did do one other thing: I wiped all the bright metal surfaces with Corrosion-X to prevent rusting. Things rust badly here because of the cold weather. You would think Miami would be worse, but I never had problems with rust there, except for the time I stored muriatic acid in my garage.

I don’t want to talk about that.

I found a round piece of wood which may have been a broom handle at one time. It was about 1-1/4″ thick. I sawed a piece off with my Veritas dovetail saw. It’s incredible, using a wood saw that actually works. I stuck the wood on the lathe and fired it up, and I got out my never-used Ebay NOS Sears Roebuck HSS turning tools.

I don’t know what I was nervous about. Woodturning is for idiots. Comparing joinery to woodturning is like comparing technical drafting to fingerpainting. My training consisted of watching a few Youtube videos, but I did everything perfectly.

I should not say “perfectly.” I caught the wood on the end of chisels three times. Everyone does that, though, so it doesn’t mean I’m inept.

In a few minutes, I had created the shape of a nice file handle. I sanded it down, and I got it ready to part off. Then I realized part of it still contained wood from the outside of the broom handle. That part hadn’t been turned down enough, so it wasn’t round. I went back to clean it up, caught the wood, and tore off a big piece of my file handle. I tried to clean that up, caught the wood again, and snapped the handle at the parting points. I was all done.

The wood was coarse, dry, brittle, and easily split, so it wasn’t an ideal test of my skills. I probably could have split it with my fingers. I didn’t know how weak it was when I put it on the lathe.

This is really cool. Everyone who uses tools dreams of buying a powerful tool and doing great things with it quickly and easily. Wood lathes fulfill that desire, just as tractors and plasma cutters do. I had never turned anything by hand before, and had the wood not given way, I would have made a perfectly fine file handle my first time out.

I’m going to find myself some better wood and see what I can do. Everyone who uses tools has a ton of files, so I have a great excuse for making a dozen or so handles.

If you have the urge to do woodworking, but you’re lazy and cheap, woodturning is for you. You just need a lathe, a few chisels, a bench grinder with quality wheels, some sandpaper, and some discarded wood. You can add doodads if you want, but you can do a lot with the things I just mentioned. You can pick up an unused set of HSS Craftsman chisels on Ebay for under a hundred bucks.

A Youtube woodturning guy says woodturning is woodworking for people with ADD. I could not agree more.

You’ll have to find a way to deal with the sawdust. My suggestion is to put your lathe bench on wheels and roll it outside or to your open garage door.

It’s great when a plan works. If I make anything that isn’t totally stupid, I will post photos.