The Absolute Best Beginner's Guide to Using a Lathe

hi everybody Liam Seadrill and today we're turning if you want to know what that means stay tuned [Music] [Applause] [Music] so we're going to be turning on this tool right here now what is it this is a wood lathe and it's a little bit of a mystery to a lot of folks but I'm going to show you how simple it can be and how much fun you can have now currently I'm turning a handle for a yard tool that I built to handle on instead of replacing the whole tool I'm just going to turn a new handle for it so can I tell you what I love about turning number one it's pretty easy to learn especially when you have somebody go over the basics with you and that's what we're going to do today number two once you purchase the equipment guess what the wood can come to you free and what I mean by that is I want you to think about this how often are you walking around your neighborhood and you see where our neighbors chop down a tree well guess what that's a free resource for bold lengths if for spindle blanks but of course you know you can purchase wood like this wood here this is olive wood but the great thing about purchasing wood is you can find exotic woods to turn let's talk about what you should be wearing has it reget advisor now I'm wearing a shop apron with a turtleneck here I like it because well it keeps wood shavings from going down my shirt and sometimes you get covered with wood shavings so a shop apron is always good but it isn't necessary what you do need to wear if you don't have a shop apron is wear a tight-fitting shirt with short sleeves because you don't want anything getting hot in that lathe that isn't supposed to be there now these are our turning tools these are the tools that we're going to use today maybe you're thinking wait a second you don't really look like the tools that I've seen well they're not the traditional still turning towards the gouges that you see what these are are carbide turning tools this has a square head this is a diamond head and this is a round head now what I like about the carbide tip cutting tool is it's really beginner friendly it's not as difficult to learn to use these carbide tip tools at the traditional wood turning tools the other thing they like is this tip here is removable so as it dulls and I got to tell you it takes a long time for these carbide tips to dull you can remove them and replace them now in the case of a square one you would loosen it loosen it and then you just rotate it to a different side rotate it to a different side and the ones you use all four sides then it's time to discard it and place a new tip off but let's go over the parts of the lathe first this is the banjo slide back and forth because it allows you to get your tool recipe that rests inside the banjo in place close to the wood and then you just lock it into place once you've got it set up the way you like it now I'm going to move to the front of the lathe this is our headstock and our head stock also contains pulleys and those pulleys have bands that drive the spur drive that's what this is right here now your spur drive also known as the spur Center is removable with this rod you just inserted in the headstock and give it a tap and it comes right out now when we move down the headstock to the motor there is our motor now right next to the motor is this lever and this lever and lock allows us to place tension on the pulleys that are housed in the headstock now we're going to slide down to the other end here we have our on/off switch we'll move up to the tailstock this is our tell stock here and this right here is another Center it's the cup Center now the interesting thing about the tell stock is the tell stock moves where the headstock does not there's a lever behind the tailstock okay that you is the loose about the tow stock and you allow it to to move back and forth and the reason why I wanted to move back and forth is you want the TEL stock to meet the wood that you're going to lathe then you lock the tail stock in place make certain that it doesn't move so this knob here controls how far the cup center comes out watch out I'll turn it now one last thing I want to mention about the lathe and its parts is the tool rest here now the tool rest comes out and you can replace the tool rest with an appropriate size tool rest sometimes when you're working on smaller stock you may want to use a smaller one and then of course when you're working on larger stock you going to use a longer one now I like this tool rest because it's my favorite I like the way that pulls right across and sometimes I'll turn small spindles even though the the tool rest itself is larger than the spindle and turning now we're going to attach the wood to the lathe I got to tell you this is where the big mystery comes in because nobody can quite understand how you get the piece of wood to stay while you turn it I'm going to show you how now there are a lot of ways to attach wood to a lathe you can use a chuck that's what this is or faceplate that's when I'm pointing to here but I'm just trying to keep it very basic for you so we can just get you started right we're going over the basics let's not start riding the ten speed bike before we get to the tricycle so the easiest way to attach wood to a lathe is between two centers now this tool handle that I'm turning is being turned between two centers and that is the most basic way to turn so I'm going to pull this out and you'll be able to see the center's this is what they mean by turning between centers there are two centers here there's this Center is this is the spur Center that's on the headstock now this pops right out there we go there is thus person if you notice there are little tiny Spurs there and that is what really bites into the wood that you're turning and keeps it in place now this headstocks percenter that's the way you need to think about it it's like a bicycle it's the back tire where the gears are it's the one that's doing all the work it's the one that's turning now this Center here is our Cup Center and it's attached to the tailstock that's what this is here now the Cup Center it just turns freely is not driven by anything it's just free moving and you got to think of it as it being like the front tire of a bicycle it just spins and it's going to support the back end of the spindle that we turn so this is a piece of wood we're going to turn it's called a blank and if you notice there are two diagonal lines with the center hole that's the center of this blank now I've drawn these two diagonal lines and that's fine to find Sarah for a small blank like this but for a larger blank you wouldn't want to use this this technique because it isn't the most accurate for a larger blank or a regular shaped blank you want to use a centering gauge okay so I'm going to mount the blank but before I do that I got to stress something and this is so important and that is inspect your blank for cracks because you do not want to mount an unstable piece of wood on a lathe that is rotating at a very high speed you've got cracks on your blank and you're going to try to turn it once you put that tool on the wood you create a very unsafe situation now we're going to remove the spur Center here so we can mount the wood now I've got this tool and I just insert it in the back and give it a little tap okay make certain that your blank is sitting on a solid foundation take your spur Center place it in that center hole like so and take a wooden mallet and drive the spur Center now you want to make sure you use a wooden mallet and not just a regular hammer because a regular hammer may damage the top of the Spurs Center so you want to take a wooden mallet you want to give it a good whack now I'm going to mount it now when you do this make sure that the lathe is unplugged now I'm going to take my tell stock here and then I slide it up and I'm going to make certain that I insert it in that hole now I'm going to lock it into place I got a lever here that will lock the TEL stock on the base this is the base this is the TEL stock this lever back here locks that tail stock in place because you don't want it to slide on you now it's mounted now I just need to tighten this up so it really drives the center in so that it's nice and tight so I'm going to turn that just a little bit there and now I'm going to take the lever and I'm going to lock that into place okay I've got my tool rest I've got it locked into position okay your toe rest is where your tools glide okay now I'm going to slide my banjo in that's what this is here your toe rest is attached to your banjo you get a lot of flexibility with this I'm going to move it in nice and close and I'm going to see make certain that my blank can turn freely and it does now I'm going to lock it down so we're all ready to go but let's do one last safety check does my stocks spin without interfering with my total rest yes is the tailstock this in place locked firmly in place yes is this locked in place yes is my banjo here locked in place it is what about the tool rest itself it's nice and sound I know we're ready to go now I'm going to turn it on and I'm going to listen and watch and make certain that it is centered I'll be able to tell if there's a little bit of wobble or not so you want to stand to the side I always stand to the side when I hit that switch just in case now that's perfect it's not wobbling it's perfectly centered now we can start tooling it so now that we're all set up I select the first tool I'm going to use now it's the square carbide cutting tool and what I want to show you it is the back side I want you to notice how the back side of the tool is flat it's this side of the tool that we rest on top of the tool rest and we move that flat side across not the rounded side because that's going to give you the most control I want to make sure that I hold my tool parallel to the floor I'm going to place it on our tool rest there and I'm going to slowly feed it in and it's very slow because you got to remember we want to round this off its Square right now so we'll get some resistance [Music] I started to show you that we're working it toward a cylinder but I also want to show you where I've got my hands on the toll rest I've got my hands on the tool rest its set its steadying the cutter I also have my back hand toward the back of the tool but the tool itself is parallel to the floor [Music] notice how I'm placing a tool on top that's let me know if it's round now the cylinder shaped if it wasn't would be bouncing all over the place we're going to cut it off and take a look and it is it's nice and cylinder shape now let's refine it a little more and we'll start using some of the other tools and that's the best way to become familiar with the lathe just experiment experiment with your tools figure out what they can do now let's try a parting tool that's what this is called and it's for fine detail working for parting the piece when it comes time to cut it off you'll want to part it and then just sawed it off I'm going to do that at the end notice how it makes thin lines and that's what I mean by it does detail work now we're going to use the rounded carbide bit and this is creates coals okay I've got the shape that I like now comes time to sand it so I'm going to turn it on got a piece of sandpaper here I'm using 120 grit you know I could start off with the lower grit but I've got 120 I'm going to work my way up a little bit so I'm just going to turn it on [Music] this is I'm going to hurt your hand well don't worry about hurting your hands okay this is a little higher tired red this is like the 340 uglies now I'm going to finish this off you have some finishing options some Turner's like beeswax to finish get a nice Sheen others like carnuba wax there are plenty of options I'm going to show you a trick that I use and it's a simple trick where you use sawdust so I've got a nice hand of sawdust it's going to buff this up real nice so to put a nice sheen on it [Music] [Music] now comes time for me to remove my project normally you would part this area a little more this this is what I'm pointing at this is always because you got to remember our Center is in there so we're going to take a song cut this off normally I would have more of a parting here and it would be deeper but because I'm working with such a small piece it makes that difficult so that's our finished project and I like the fact that I used olive wood for a pizza cutter you know it's an Italian thing as a matter of fact my father-in-law is Italian and I made this pizza cutter for him for Father's Day and that's what I like about a lathe you can make so many cool things you can turn bowls you can turn pans you can even make a pizza cutter now if you want to see more videos like this hey leave a comment below in the comment section say Lia Alessi some more advanced stuff or can you show us how to use that Chuck whatever it may be share in the comments below and as always I'll place a link in the description below to all the tools that you've seen in this video this is alia saying you can't do this see you next time

Channel: seejanedrill

Views: 349,928

Keywords: woodworking, beginners, lathe, mini lathe, how-to, how to, leah, seejanedrill, see jane drill, how to use a lathe, tutorial, lathe tutorial, wood turning, how to turn wood, how to make a spindle, turning wood, using a lathe, easy, guide, help, tips, tricks, tip, trick, lathe tips, lathe tricks, lathe wood, woodworking lathe, woodworking turning, beginning turning, beginner tutorial, for beginners, easy tips, wood lathe use, wood lathe, use a wood lathe, make furniture legs

Id: kWBzAgqeCmA

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2017