Lathe Question

Randy9Ball

Randy9Ball

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hello,

Can someone tell me if a 48" Ridgid wood lathe will work for just tip replacements and shaft cleaning? I can get a good used one for $250.00. What if any additional items would I need to get for that lathe? I'm just looking to do tip replacements and shaft cleaning for now. Would appreciate any and all feedback.

Thanks,

Randy
 
Randy, we have this lathe on a heavy duty butcher block that would work for what you want to do.

You would need to buy a chuck to hold your maintenance pins and you will need some type of live center to hold the cue at the tip end.

We also have many old shafts you could practice on so you don?t mess up your good sticks. Looking for $150.00 for what you see



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In order to do tips, you need a lathe with a 'through' spindle and a chuck. A tool-post would be nice. What Waldo is showing you would be fine for cleaning shafts, particularly if that's a concave live cntr. in the tailstock. Try to envision doing tips on that machine and tell me what you see.
 
I have pretty much the same lathe as Waldo but without the sanding end.
It was meant to be used for ferrules and tips (by adding a chuck and a beefy steady rest together with a small XY table).
I made some cones which replaced the grip end of the lathe headstock and a "slip over" over the tails stock to hold the tip (tip end).

I use it only to do cleaning and even so mine is not a very stable setup. Wobble occurs due to the weak metal bed, but then for cleaning I could survive.
For tips the best would be to have a "hollow" head stock where you could slip the shaft through and do tips this way. I guess my initial idea of making a beefy steady rest and buying a small XY table (to hold the cut tool) could work for tips, but for changing ferrules I would guess this setup would be to inaccurate.
My tail stock is also not very accurate.
I guess a setup like this could be used for you're application, but when a customer comes with a blown ferrule I think you might have a challenge.
Please not that my judgement is related to my own lathe which looks 95% the same as pictured. If you find a beefy big wood lathe cheap, you could most likely get away with it by buying a small XY table and making or buying a beefy steady rest, possible with a small chuck on it.

Hope it helped.
N
 
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