My Workshop Lathes

Larry asked a great question…what kind of lathe (s) do I use in my rod building?  I use two older lathes, neither of which is/was very expensive.  First, I have an older Craftsman wood lathe that I use for making reel seats, sanding cork grips, and sanding down rod tubes.

My Wood Lathe

My Wood Lathe

The wood fixture on the right side of the picture supports the end of butt sections when I sand down cork grips.  Two notches with strips of leather chamois applied work pretty well to support the ferrule end of the butt section while the grip end is secured in a 3-jawed chuck in the lathe head.

I also have a small Atlas/Craftsman Mk 1 metal lathe that I use to machine small metal parts (winding checks, trim pieces, etc.) as well as turning down bamboo for ferrules and grip sections.

My Small Metal Lathe

My Small Metal Lathe

While it would be fun to have newer and larger lathes in my shop, I find that these two do just about everything I need.  By the way…things don’t normally look this clean and organized in my shop…I cleaned up for the photos.

4 thoughts on “My Workshop Lathes

  1. Dave thanks for sharing.
    I have the same Craftsman wood lathe bought used 15 years ago. I also recently acquired an Atlas Metal lathe after a good friend and fellow Rod make passed away. This Atlas is only equipped with a 1/2″ Jacob’s chuck and I haven’t figured out how to get the travel to work on the tool carriage. The 3 jaw chuck I see on your lathe, is it original or did you add it? Any info you can give on these ???’s would be appreciated. Thanks again
    Larry

    • Hi Larry,

      It’s interesting that we have the same wood lathe. Mine belonged to my father-in-law, and I picked it up after he passed away 13 years ago. It’s a great lathe to work on very long pieces…like rod tubes. For my rod tubes, I purchase the aluminum tubes in raw form. I cut them to length and then sand the outer surface smooth…which works great on this lathe. I have the brass caps machined at a local machine shop. The 3 jaw chuck on my metal lathe isn’t original, but I can’t remember where it came from. I purchase a lot of tools/fixtures from The Little Machine Shop (www.littlemachineshop.com). They have almost everything, and their prices are very reasonable. I picked up their Tool Rest Package (http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3514&category=) a while back, which really got me set up for tooling small metal parts. There is also a great lathe reference WEB page at http://www.lathes.co.uk/ . You can probably find some great info about your Atlas lathe there. Good Luck.

  2. I assume you use the same chuck on both lathes? Turning ferrule stations would require you to put the blank through the head to the chuck from the left, I think. If so, how is the end supported?

    • Skip,
      I have different chucks for each lathe but they about the same size. When turning ferrule stations, you’re correct, the blank extends through the head of the chuck to the left. I’ve built a simple wood support on the left side of the head that supports the other end of the blank while I’m turning it to cut the ferrule stations.

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