(OT) Giant wood turning timber bed lathes.

[airboss]

I am in San Jose, short drive to Sparks. Will one fit in the bed of a Pickup truck?

Jim N

Hey Jim: Yeah, they would both fit, with all the paraphranalla too, but I am beginning to question if everybody knows what a timber bed lathe is.

Let's say you take a set of bearings, put a shaft through them on a cast frame, then stuck a normal wood turning auger on one end and a plate drive circle on the other. There is a drive pully in the middle that is designed for a leather, make it as you need it, drive belt. These are made with staples after the leather belt is cut to the right length. The staples are available.

Ok, at the other end of any lathe is the live center or dead center depending on what you're are turning. Right? Both of these sets of bearings mounted in their cast bases are "keyed" at the bottom to fit between two "Timbers" that are set up on legs and made to the length you need for the "Bed". So the way I have them sitting now is on a pair of 12' long beds. So its a 24" by 144" lathe. Right? Now, turn the drive end around and stick it on the very end of the bed. What is that now? It's like a gap bed lathe right? if you put your timbers on a stand 10 feet in the air, you have a 20 foot lathe. If you put the non driven end (dangit, what's that called ABG?) on another base about 5' away, theoretically you could turn a small swimming pool, if the material was not too heavy for the bearings and the attachment set up.

I can see somebody making tooling for casting horns with these.

I know this seems way off topic, but believe me, it's either here or on some big bowl turning forum that it belongs. Most guys down at Woodcrafters are making ink pens for their bosses and girlfriends. You could make an ink pen for King Kong with these babies. Most real men use a pencil.

There are three or four of you that have pinged me. I think they are going to go to good homes and not to the dump out by the Mustang Ranch. They do another kind of trick turning out there.

By the way, the bearings are babbit, if that scares you or you don't know what babbit is, you don't really want one. It's super easy the way these are made to change bearings. And a hell of a lot cheaper than calling Atlas Bearing.

[westend9]

I have a pair of "The Porter" timber bed lathes dating from the early part of the last century. One set is a 16" (8 center) and the other is a 24" (12" center). When set up at the end of the bed, the centers are limited only by the height of the bearing center above the ground.

What that means is a guy could turn a 4' or 5' horn if he so desired from either lathe. They include dead centers, live centers and massive hardware for setting up knife supports and guides in any configuration you can imagine.

They came out of Paramount Studios (scene) carpentry shop from very early in the last century. Cecile B DeMille probably had Grecian Columns built on these things.

If a guy had some sense of adventure, he could set one of these up to turn round Traxtrix horns in any configuration he so desired. They were designed to be driven from a line shaft, but I think a scheme for drive by electric motor or even a Milwaukee Hole Hawg, could be put together to do just about what ever you wanted.

I don't need them, or at least not both of them. They are free. It's just shipping that will kick your butt. Carefully packed on pallets I think we could get the weight down to a couple of hundred pounds for either one. I hav recently brought a Leslie cabinet from Ohio to Sparks Nevada (255lbs) using FedEX Ltd Freight for about $155 terminal to terminal. There's a terminal in Sparks for drop off, you'ld just have to find a close by terminal to pick them up from. Having them delivered to the house with a tailgate will add over a $100 bucks.

I'll post a photo or two here today or tomorrow. If you decided to set one up as bed lathe (for turning those columns you've always wanted in your garden, you'ld build your own beds from 2 by 8 lumber laminated with Titebond. As open ended bowl or horn turning lathes I would build a base from concrete block and a little sackcrete.

Anyway, If I don't get them gone this summer they go to scrap. Hate to do that.

Dan

PM sent to you about the lathes.