Shopsmith Forums

I have been thinking about buying one of the SS head stocks on ebay and seting it up somehow as a lathe for larger bowls ect. Any one have ideas, thoughts, yay, nay,?

The Shopsmith has a pretty impresive swing? How big of a bowl are you going to turn?

I'm sure some lathe experts will chime in at some point but until they do I'll give you some things to think about.

First the shopsmith as it stands has a 16-1/2" swing, I don't really think that is practical unless the blank were already perfectly round and balanced. Just to start the conversation let's say we start at say 14" as size we want to do for that bowl or platter.

The ruff blank would then be turned between centers on a standard shopsmith, you would be required to use a new power pro or speed reducer to do that. A blank of that size I would say at no more then 400 rpm to start and maybe just maybe you would go to say 600 after it is balanced.

Keep in mind a 14" circle running at 600 rpm will have a rim speed of about 25 mph! This is in contrast to say turning a 1/2" dia object, say a pen at 3000 rpm and having that speed be only 4-1/2 miles per hour. The pen has no mass to speak of so if things go wrong you are probably going to be OK, the blank of 14" of wet wood might be say 10 or 12 pounds.... now that could do some real damage.

In my opinion if you are thinking more then about 14" you will want to go find a BIG lathe made to do some heavy objects at even slower speeds.

So those are my thoughts on the subject.

Ed

14 would deff be max butt just getting all thae extra stuff out of the way was my thinking.

mustangpalmer1911 wrote:I have been thinking about buying one of the SS head stocks on ebay and seting it up somehow as a lathe for larger bowls ect. Any one have ideas, thoughts, yay, nay,?

What did you have in mind for a tool rest?

One of the stands.

mustangpalmer1911 wrote:One of the stands.

???????????

These are awesome and would be perfect for that http://bestwoodtools.com/

However as Ed has already said if your going to be turning at over 14" there are a few logistics to work out. Personally I've never seen someone turn a 16" object but my guess would be that the person would be a serious wood turner and would probably have a very large "professional" lathe. If you were out of round and just a little fast a Shopsmith would jump like water in a hot pan of oil.

mustangpalmer1911 wrote:I have been thinking about buying one of the SS head stocks on ebay and seting it up somehow as a lathe for larger bowls ect. Any one have ideas, thoughts, yay, nay,?

This is a "Poor Man's Speed Reducer/Increaser" I made years ago. I took a Gilmer Drive headstock (normally cheaper to buy) and removed the broken Gilmer belt. I installed a 1 1/2" OD V-belt pulley (machined ID to 5/8") on the idler shaft and the largest V-belt pulley (around 8"-9" OD) that had a long hub on the drive sleeve shaft that would fit. I installed a second set screw on the larger pulley's hub side that did not have one. I used a 5/8" ID to 3/4" OD insert drilled for the set screws. I used a link belt and added a 5/8" OD stub shaft (hub end of the Drive Sleeve) and drive hub to the top pulley so I could still drive a SPT. I believe this gave me around 200 RPM at the slowest speed. I had removed the belt housing when first using this set-up but put it back on later. It was not a pretty sight but worked. I had planned to make a belt guard for these pulleys but never got around to it. I reversed the pulleys and used the headstock to check the quill and drive sleeve bearings at 12,000-15,000 RPM until they got real noisely. I was testing several makes of bearings to determine the best bearing available price wise for higher speeds.

I used this headstock to drive my bandsaw which I used to cut aluminum and metal material. I finally brought 2 metal cutting bandsaws, one for steel and one for aluminum. Then, I sold the headstock after 5 years of use to a customer to use for bowl turning.

I can have available a rebuilt headstock with the pulleys/belt modification if interested. The custom belt guard for this speed reducer modification would be a first for me so could take me a while to construct. I would not recommend using this modification without a belt guard. This modification is back on my list of projects to do for myself now that I am back working in my shop again.

SS is too fast for turning the larger unbalanced pieces. Get a dedicated JET or other brand if you really want to turn larger stuff. My SS started to dance around the driveway when I tried to turn a piece of 10" diameter hackberry that was not balanced enough. The 700 rpms is dangerously too fast for anything larger than a few inches at start up. With a speed reducer maybe 100 rpms would be ok, but I have turning friends that go about 20 rpms to start larger platters and bowls.

Seems like this thread has a double post going on.