The Woodpecker Ep 102 - I'm trying my lathe duplicator 

Another great video regardless of the actual results. Thank you and all the best for 2016.

Very good video. I too have had very little success with a duplicator. Thanks for posting. As always, we some time learn more from failures.

Alain. Happy new year to you and Renee. Great to see a new video from you.

My dad made a lot of similar spindles in his day. People often suggested using a duplicator, but my dad always said he'd still have to stand there, and he could turn the spindles out faster by hand. Once he'd made a few of one kind, getting them all identical wasn't that hard.

Man oh man. Those Canadian women are tough as nails, and it appears they are strong enough to lift an entire lathe. Wow!

Happy New Year and thank you.

Nice lathe. Interested to see some long turnings ;). Have a good 2016!

Happy new year to you and all your family

Great video. Thanks!!

Happy new year 😊🎉

I use to use a duplicator similar to the first one and turned over 30,000 chair legs some years ago. If you spend the time on setup matching cutting tool to follow tool and placement also remove as much vibration from the copier as possible (All up and down sloppiness in the copy head) Balance your spindles properly and remove as much waste before loading then your outcome would be greatly improved. After balancing and setup I use to be able to remove copier and use my lathe as normal. A lot of people say they are a waste of money due to not spending the time getting setup right or the retailers not having the knowledge themselves to pass on. I could turn a leg every 2 minutes thereabouts with a lite sand of 320g from start to finish, including prep time was just under 5 minutes, but if i was to turn by hand using all the relevant marking tools and short cuts? it took me around 15 minutes and where never 100% the same. I use to make $1.20 a minute profit, $2.50 per leg and made over $90,000 in a eight months and 20 years ago was big money. So my $1000 dollar setup made more money than a friends factory setup including his overheads and 1/4 of a million investment plus paying worker wages in eight months. So they do work really well, they save quite a bit of time and reproduce great replication (depending on your template) that should be hand turned first and then a acrylic template made from a half slice of the original turning. A fully automated basic copy lathe runs on the same concept just has more cutters and computer technology. Which today you could do to your own copy attachment with a few motors few switches and a Arduino or Raspberry Pi.

It looked a lot easier when Norm was doing it! Happy New Year!

I have used a couple duplicators. The first one I made from thiswoodworks design. It used a router to hog out the material. While it did leave a great finish it had a tendency to barber pole the project. I turn a decent amount of table legs made from pine so like you the tear out is an issue. I bought a viel duplicator which I think is from your area. It uses an angle grinder and 5 carbide cutters. It does a fantastc job turning pine. You still have to sand after turning but for my projects its perfect. I can complete a set of 5x5" table legs in about 20 mins.

Alain, have you done any research about how to sharpen the cutters? I don't know if the steel they're made from would keep you from using your new water wheel or some other kind of stone. That duplicator looks fun to use.

Alain, could you put up a video detailing that steady? from the bit I could see it looked like a decent design. just would be nice to see both sides.

The lathe duplicator is awesome, try using a smaller follower. this will help out with duplicating an item. do not give up on it.

The cutter on the first one looks like it was cutting too far below center for a good cut. I think you made the right choice by putting it away. Duplicators don't look like fun to me. The second one looked like it might be useful if you were doing a lot of spindles to use for marking the key features - the same as if you were using a story board.

I think that the speed of your lathe turning is pretty fast also the speed of duplication seems very high...keep up the nice video's Alain

Like the extension. Always intended to make one of those. The duplicator is not anywhere close to what I thought it would be other than a roughing tool.

Aiain the geometry, speed and where you set the cutter to work relative to the centre line of the piece will make a world of difference in you duplicator's performance. Don't give up just yet it can be a useful and productive attachment for your lathe

I think part of the problem is that you where trying it with Oak which has a long grane and does not shape nicely. Would you try it with maple?

Like others I'd say that first duplicator was a long way below centre which is going to contribute to the tear out. I've never found pine to be very good with a scraping cut anyway, in fact it's not an easy wood to turn. The second duplicator was better but I think you were getting close to the best results you were going to get. I don't like duplicators they never leave a piece that's as good as the original, you always lose the crispness of a hand turned piece.

I used to know a guy from Woodstock, Ont, on the canadian woodworking forum and he used a Vega duplicator all the time (mostly for bed legs/posts and the like) and he had beautiful results. Let me know if you're curious and I could look to see if I can find links to his forum posts for you. ...art

It seemed to me that the problem was in the blade and too fast feed rate.

The cutting edge is at an angle to your work surface. Huge part of your problem.

This comment is a little late, but I guess better late than never. I find that I get the best finish with my lathe chisels when I 'ride the bevel' (let the chisel bevel rub on the wood) and slowly raise the chisel handle until the edge just begins to cut. This gives a shearing action. Applying that to your duplicator, you might get better results if you can drop the back of your cutter so you get a shearing action instead of a 90 degree scraping.

Do not give up on duplicator I have one here in Australia, it is awesome I get great results I have not had a bad result since I got it. I made a top of the balustrade with a round & copied 5 of them and they came out pretty darn good. you gave up too soon.

The first duplicator seemed to be doing an ok job, just needs a smaller diameter stylus :)

Couldn't you grind or file down the follower a bit? Also, just like for regular turning, wouldn't it be better to do the major wasting away with a gouge, and then switch to an extremely sharp duplicator bit only for the final shaping? Turning usually uses a gouge followed by a skew chisel right? The duplicator may be useless for duplicating but perhaps with a bit of work it could be a useful accessory for just producing extremely regular diameter of straight round lengths, and things like that.

Sorry it didn't "turn" out the way you wanted. Wish you and your wonderful wife all the best in 2016!

dull cutter and follower should be same size and shape as your cutter to copy exactly

The radius on you follower need to be the same as the cutting tool. And these need to be smaller than the smallest radius on your sample

Why don't work very well the copy lathe?

Your second method is better. It is the same way as the Shopsmith duplicator.

There is a piece missing on your dupl. There is a sharp follower that goes on the styles rod. WARREN p.s. i HAVE ONE AND HAVE TO Make THAT PART. Cheers.

Cut with the grain, WOODWORKING 101. Also the cutting point should be at center line or 1/32nd higher!

You were going to fast, the bit must be sharp and move very slowly 1/16” at a time.

Don't you need a center support when turning longer items? Hate for you to get hit by one of those 6' missiles when it comes flying off.

Hello my friend, before you give up on the copier lathe check out this video "Crazy Router Lathe Video"

Yeah, put it away instead of using sharp bits and slowing down your speed.

Something's wrong with this picture. January in Canada and you are wearing shorts?

You're moving to fast, slow down a bit and you'll get much better results.....