Shopsmith Forums

When i bought my SS from the original owner i know he had all the Lathe set up tools and I'm wondering if there's anything else needed to experiment with "Turning"? I see all sorts of fancy setups to mount the wood to the Lathe but I have no idea how to do it or what the set up procedure is. Wouls the SS come with whats needed to mount the wood to the Lathe?

If the lathe has the original equipment from SS then it should be good to go.

For mounting
Spur Drive on the quill/headstock
Cup Center or Live center n the tailstock

Alternately Faceplate on the quill/headstock

For cutting the standard set of SS chisels is a good starter set.

Read up as much as you can on wood turning and read up and practice your sharpening skills. Sharp chisels make all the difference in turning.

If your machine did not come with a copy of Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone, go to the Shopsmith Academy site, http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/introduction.htm, and you can learn about your machine, how to use and, specifically, using it as a lathe.

You can also learn a lot by spending time online with both articles and videos, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUXil-5dEeo which is an excellent (long) video on all the ways to mount wood to the lathe (kinda important to get it right if you don't want to use your face for a catcher's mitt when it comes off).

Once you get into specifics, there are lots of very skilled turners on here who can answer questions.

Have fun (but be safe).

I'm going to make a Mallet so that's my initial project. I do know all the gouges are there and there's a bunch of items in boxes that look like they probably would go for turning. All items are new and never been used as the previous owner never used the SS for Turning.

Even new chisels need to be sharpened.