Building a wood lathe from scratch, using wooden bearings and wooden pulleys. woodgears.ca/la... plans for the lathe available here: woodgears.ca/la...
Neat, simple solution for the drive spur, and the wooden bearings are an interesting choice. They wear, but not quickly and you can always just make new ones as they do.
+John Heisz My uncle used to work in a company where they used beech I guess for wooden bearings for tractors.. It's maybe 25 years and they still ride :D :D
+longshot789 I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't expand on this prototype. He has said before that woodturning is not his thing and he even has a lathe that he barely ever uses. Although he might make some useful plans for sale and improve this just for the engineering challenge. Lets wait for next week I guess.
This project isn't anything but a way to shut people up and prove it can be done. He has a proper lathe already, but rarely uses it. Maybe it will be revisited with plans, but I wouldn't hold my breath!
You got a bump from Mr. Adam Savage himself off his FB page. Likes your style. You know he comes through ontario twice or thrice a year. I'm sure you two.would have some stuff in common. If you have seen his one day builds on tested
I love it! You start explaining how you'll build a lathe in front of an existing but seldom-used lathe. Then the classic Matthias droll humor... "If I had a penny for every time somebody suggested I build a lathe, by now I'm pretty sure I'd have ...like a DOLLAR!" .....Hilarious! I presume there is some reason you will build a spare lathe. Certainly this one will be lighter and easier to move. Perhaps a prototype for sellable plans?
"If I had a penny for every time somebody suggested I build a lathe, I'm pretty sure that by now I'd have like... a dollar." I lost it right up front. Thanks Matthias.
I know that lignum vitae is a wood used as prop shaft bearing material in some ships and hydroelectric power plants. Your maple bearings should last a while since you are oiling them. Which kind of maple did you use?
+Alonzo Branson Yes, a gravity tensioner works great. You want just a bit of drag in the hinge ( or other drag). When you suddenly apply load to the spindle, the motor moves a little. Without a little drag it can start bouncing. Also, you can make the hinge so that the motor can be slid back and forth so that different pulley combinations can be properly aligned and tensioned.
+Derganove matthias does that all the time! and he is absolute right. if i ate a pizza and someone asked me, why i ate a pizza.. well, i ate a pizza, because i wanted to eat a pizza. lol.
+Matthias Wandel One question that comes to my mind whenever I see you using wood for a bearing-type application, is if you've considered Lignum vitae. Obviously not something you'd find at your local Big Box hardware store, nor likely to be found as scrap wood. Of course, if you have completely acceptable results with hardwood (occasionally used with an oiler hole, like here), why bother complicating things?
mlindholm i suggest u get something done urself! because people like u are usually the ones, that mumble all over the place, but dont get *ANYTHING* done at all. just like the youtube-safety-police: they MOAN very laud, but most likely dont even have a srewdriver in their home.
+fuerimmerallein What? No really, what the heck do you mean? Neither I nor +WJCTechyman are trying to say Matthias is wrong, we're just curious about the choice. As I noted, the oiled hardwood seems to work just fine. Lignum vitae is an extremely hard wood that has been used as a shaft bearing in Navy ships and submarines, due to it's durability and natural oils. Is it necessary for this application? Doesn't seem so. If the answer is "it's too expensive for my needs, and not worth it for these applications", or even just "no, I haven't" or even "yes, and I felt oak, maple, etc are perfectly suitable"....I'll have no argument for Matthias. I'm not moaning or mumbling about anything, I'm just a fascinated watcher in the peanut gallery.
+Peter Brown Yes, if only to show it off. Actually, I think I have my other lathe mounted much too high, and it's just too big. This one is more fun to use.
+1crazynordlander i think it'd be cool to see him try a scrollsaw as well, but I wouldnt expect it as he said in the video detailing his tools that scrollsaws are so common and cheap its not really worth trying to make one.
+IRejectSociety Well, given that I have built a lathe, maybe i'll try. one thing I'd like is a scrollsaw with a 5 cm stroke. That would make cutting thicker material much easier, and make better use of the blade.
I want to be like you when I grow up (BTW I'm 63 and watch every vid.). You already know the easy solution for keeping the tail stock shaft from slipping back on ya.
+Matthias Wandel Oh this Friday I went back and looked at last week again LOL, thought I missed something. No problem. I see where 5/8" for head and tail stock shafts allows for many off the shelf attachments. Have been thinking of a treadle but I get winded just thinking about using. Kudos
This video is so reassuring! For most machine functions you can find a reasonably effective hand-held alternative. Eg. Table saw = cicular saw/hand saw/gouge plane (depending on function) but I've never been able to find an alternative for a lathe which I think is essential to doing good furniture (something I enjoy) and the thought of buying one can be very intimidating. Thank you for sharing; I'm a huge fan.
I'd love to see how well the wooden bearings hold up! I know you don't use the lathe that much but maybe you can give an update on that in a future video.
1:33 "I almost forgot to drill a hole here" and a hole appears. WTF IS THIS BLACK MAGIC STUFF. IM SCARED. Mattias don't touch me I don't want a new hole.
For those that haven't checked it out, Matthias big print is a VERY handy program. Small, efficient and worth every penny. You won't be disappointed if you purchase it.
Wooden bearings work okay--The walkers in combine harvesters used wooden bearings and it was nothing for them to do 3-4 thousand hrs before replacement was necessary and these were not lubricated at all and the wood was some sort of soft wood.. I would think bearings out of dense hardwood would be far better and with oilers as well----who knows how long they would last..Good project Mathias
Cool! Now how about some fiber machines? A drum carder? A spinning wheel? A loom? I'd love to see the creative solutions that brain of yours would devise.
Your voice is clear and friendly. Your explanations go step by step and are clear. Best of all, and unique in all youtube, you show how pieces should be put together before you put them. This offers the general picture, and allows for much better understanding and interest. I think you are a genius.
A great idea to rekindle interest in wooden bearing blocks; they were used in early Australian windmills so farmers could repair them with local materials. Popular Mechanics featured a cement mixer with them also. I think this lathe will be most popular for folks (like me) who have a spare table-fan motor in their shed !
it's really cool how you make all these machines with minimal tools and simple engineering, maybe you can do later advanced videos for upgrading them with better tools and hardware.
+Blog das Madeiras Many materials can make the shaft precise/centred with time and care, however in time they will eventually degrade. Ball bearings will make sure it *stays* precise/centred :)
Paul Frederick I know but Blog das Madeiras specified ball bearings so just ran with that. Given the subject I thought that fair enough lol. Thanks for the input though :)
***** yeah the whole ball vs. sleeve bearing deal with lathes is something counterintuitive. Ball bearings can be extremely precise, but there's no way you can adjust them. So for that last little bit of tightness nothing beats a split sleeve.
Looks great and sounds even better! very quiet! So did you spin the pulleys while drilling the center hole to make sure it is perpendicular to the surface?
You logical, creative approach does wonders in bringing things to a more simple understanding! Nice lathe! All it needs now is a MW label somewhere! ;)
Fabulous example of minimum tool, low cost construction to make a useable machine, wonderfully encouraging to the impecunious with ideas, energy and drive.
when i grow up i hope to be like you, ok i'm fully grown up already but just now i got my own house with garage/ workshop. co inventor/builder by birth.
correct me if I'm wrong, but i remember you saying in another video(collab not exactly sure) that you weren't that into lathes because you really didn't like fancy curves or something along those lines... What's the deal?
+Steven Walsh, lathes are not for just making decorative things -they are great for making other hand tools, jigs, fixtures etc. Very simple and ingenious design - thank you Matthias!!!
I predict (or perhaps just hope) we'll now see a series of lathe innovations resulting in a rig that lets you turn the same pattern repeatedly, akin to the pantoroutor
Really Impresive!!! How long you think the oil will work for the shaft friction? Or do you think you might need to add a sleeve in? I just have the impression that with time it will get loose. Great project nonetheless...
+Tomy Hovington I think you could find bearings pretty cheap. Either ball bearings or brass. In regards to the oil, I think if you just kept your oil on the lathe and oiled it very frequently it should work out alright.
Hi Matthias, I would like to tell you that one is a good way of making it, but as a wood turner I have to tell you it isn't. I have started at woodturning with a homemade built with just a drill wich worked a little bit like yours. Then I built a second one with a bicycle arbor, that one you can see on my channel. After that one I bought a very old, rust and cheap table saw arbor which I used for making another lathe which was completely made out of scratch, just some plywood and hardware, that lathe is also on my channel and I turned a lot of things with it, including 30 cm bowls and other interesting things, I also made a lot of homemade gouges and other woodturning tools because here in Uruguay you can't go and buy them. Recently I build a very good lathe out of metal (I learnt to weld by making it) that works better than most comercial ones, the arbor was made by a metal turner. If you would check my channel to see it would be great. I'm 16 and I learnt a lot from making things an youtube videos. Cheers, Bruno
a nice build, though i'm curious how well the wood bearings will hold up. Think you might have better durability by using an actual ballbearings inset into the wood. (the polyethylene might work well also, though I wonder about heat there....) more than most wood working machines, the lathe has to stand up to higher forces it experiences during it's operation.....
+Tim Hyatt the wooden bearings will hold up for about as much as most folks use wood lathes. If you find yourself using your lathe more, then go out and buy a real lathe!
+Paul Frederick I have a Rikon....i'm a bowlturner. Not saying this isn't a bad idea, just that on his sander, he used a roller bearing pressed into the wood and I wondered why he didn't the same here. The headstock gets significant pressures on it during normal use, more so than any other machine in a wood shop really.....
Tim Hyatt probably because he did not expect to use the machine any more than he did for the video. He's probably already chopped that lathe up, and heated his shop with it.
+Matthias Wandel Hi, EXCELLENT! Must agree with WJCTechyman! who I did giv a thumbs up for asking my "?" GIT!! I do however have to ask, if you don't wish to use bearings, say from a washing machine/ spin drier; Then why not treadle power? Really did like this as I am a no power type as I have spent a good 10 -12 years off grid, till recently many years without it even though I live in the UK! Well when I say recently, I think it was 2008 maybe 10 when I came in from the cold!
