Thread: Loving Learning my Lathe

Well 2 years after making my first brush out of a pre-turned spindle I bought at Menards I finally have acquired a lathe. Its an old Craftsman lathe with the manual it came with being printed in 1972. It works well and the previous owner took good care of it. I purchased it almost exclusively for the purpose of turning shaving brush handles, I'm not terribly handy and would not consider myself to be a woodworker in any sense of the term. I got her set up and bought some turning tools and various blanks and other associated items and finally tried my hand at turning some brush handles. After about a dozen practice runs on some old pine I had laying around I bought a few nice pieces of wood and decided to have a real go at it. So here are the results of the first few!



I turned this first one out of some Olive wood and was rather conservative with the shaping.



This second one I turned out of Purpleheart wood. It turned brown when I was turning it but after letting it sit in the sun (or what little daylight we have through the clouds here in Wisconsin) for a couple days and it returned to its beautiful purple color.

I have turned a third also out of purpleheart wood but im waiting for it to turn back to purple before I post pics of it. Turning these handles is more fun than I could have imagined. I cant wait to start knotting and using these brushes!

Sounds good, waiting on the pics.

Very nice work, my lathe is an older craftsman as well! Enjoy!

Same here an Old Craftsman from about the same time 1972, the seperate motor looks much newer, but heck I snagged it and tools off of CL for $100 so I jumped in with both feet,, The new jaw chuck cost me more then the lathe

Looking good on the turning, I have been having a ton of fun with mine..

Ive had brush knots and turning blanks sitting here for some time now waiting to be turned into brushes. Life just doesn't give me enough time to get them done. The wife's to do list comes first, you know. . these look great. Lathe turning is a lot of fun and relaxing.

We Need Pics,Lathe porn Turning wood and metal is truley a great thing.
Glens right, the tooling cost way more than the machines.
Wanna see some great lathe porn? is a firm in Canada called oneway,ck it out.http://www.oneway.ca/
This is my old Rockwell 46-450,great old American steel.

I also found this craftsman on CL for just $75. It cost more for the tools than it did for the actual lathe, but I'm happy as can be with the lathe and the results.



Here is a shot of the old lady, she runs like a dream!

Same lathe here McJacob I like it, there are some issues to work around but I am having fun

Originally Posted by mcjacob71990

I also found this craftsman on CL for just $75. It cost more for the tools than it did for the actual lathe, but I'm happy as can be with the lathe and the results.


Here is a shot of the old lady, she runs like a dream!

Thats a sweet lathe,will serve you well,am thinking it came off of a shopsmith type machine with that long pipe attached.

I've got an old M-Power lathe I got at Rockler for turning pens. It does do a nice job on brushes and such I think.