Go!
Rotate the stock by hand and move the cutter in and out, under the guard, to check clearances. If everything checks out, pull the cutter away from the stock, and turn on the lathe at low speed. WARNING: Wear your safety glasses at all times when working on the lathe. Also, turn off the lathe whenever you change the position of the table or the guard. Set the cutting tool back 1/16-inch to the ‘roughing’ position. Round the stock one section at at time, moving the cutter back and forth across the spindle. At first, feed the cutter very slowly into the wood to cut off the corners without splintering. A light touch is important during this operation. If you feed the cutter too fast, the wood will chip. As the flats disappear and the spindle becomes rounder, you can feed the cutter a little more aggressively. Once you’ve rounded one section, turn off the lathe, loosen the carriage lock and move the duplicator table to the next section. Be sure you move the guard too! Continue until you’ve rounded the entire spindle. (See Figure 4.) Tip -- If your spindle includes a square section, don’t cut the shoulder (where the spindle changes from square to round) during the initial rounding. Once the spindle is round, increase the speed of the lathe slightly (2-3 letters on the speed dial). Begin roughing out the profile of the spindle. Feed the cutter into the stock until the follower just touches the template. As must as possible, keep the follower perpendicular to the contours of the template, so that just the tip touches the template. (See Figure 5.) This will ensure that you leave enough stock on the spindle for ‘finishing’ cuts. If you don’t keep the follower perpendicular to the contours, you will cut off too much stock from certain areas of the spindle, particularly the sides of coves. Continue . . . |
