My Big Lathe

This is my favourite lathe and was in fact the first lathe that I bought though I didn’t use it straight away. I can turn up to 24″ diameter on this lathe.

I love the history associated with this lathe. It started life as a metal spinning lathe – something I’d never even heard of when I first had the lathe. It was in a poor state and I had to derust then paint it. There was no tool rest and when I was asking Huw to make one for me I really didn’t know what I needed. This tool rest can be moved at a couple of different points wich is very useful. The middle section being something that Huw had (in case it came in handy at some point, I should think!) and adapted for this.

This is a solid and heavy cast iron lathe. However, it is also firmly bolted to the concrete floor for turning Burr and otherwise out of balance big bowls. In many ways it is not as practical as could be. There is no hole in the head stock so I can’t put a centre in it. When I’m turning between centres I use the chuck shown with a centre bit in it. It is also rather short between centres for table legs (especially including the chuck and thread adapter). I am also thinking of getting rid of the front part of the bed. I had originally been reluctant to do this as it took some of the history away from it but now I feel the practicalities are more important. I would also like to make it variable speed. At the moment the lowest speed is 300rpm then it goes up to 850rpm which is such a big leap for a large out of balance bowl. So hopefully over the next few months there will be changes to this old E. G. Wilson.