Priceless lathe

Is that what you call a rule of thumb carpenter?

-- A tube of calk and a gallon of paint will make a carpenter what he ain't

That was an enjoyable … and enlightening … watch with my Coffee Fix for the day! Comforting to see my style of carpentry in action too!! Thanks for bring this video to our attention jumbojack :)

-- Elaine in Duncan

That’s about the crudest treadle style lathe I’ve ever seen, but it seems to work. It looks like he gets all his lumber from a dumpster (come to think of I could get better lumber from a dumpster). I’ve turned a few small flat rounds on a hand drill clamped to a bench an I thought that was crude. I suppose if you like this guy’s idea, you’d probably enjoy Roy Underhill’s DIY lathe he did years ago. One of the old Fine Woodworking books had a treadle plan or two as well.

It reminds me of some of the Rube Goldberg devices I’ve made in the past, including home made lathes. I wouldn’t want a lathe like that, but it was fun to watch. Here is one. Not a lathe, but a rounding jig for someone without a lathe. The square workpiece edges were first shaved off with a plane and then finish sanded in my little jig.

-- Mike, American in Norway

You went one better than me, Mike, and put a tail stock on your drill lathe. I found that a bit of non-slip rubber under the drill helps, too, as well as a second clamp on the neck of the drill. The only thing I didn’t like about was you need an extra hand if you want to run the drill at a low speed. Actually, I think if I ever want to do much more on that scale I’ll just pick up the little lathe HB sells for close to $100 sometimes.

Now that was creative woodworking… I wish I had taken a picture of my creation a few years back.

My ‘first’ lathe was my drill press – tipped it on its side and with a bearing stuck in the tables center hole had myself a workable adjustable variable speed lathe.