Hooo Boy!

[Ronald Bergerson]

My son and I have a pretty nice woodshop and want to add a lathe. My son would like a metal lathe and I would prefer a wood lathe. Are there good combination lathes out there? We're looking at a nice, older Sheldon metal lathe that my son really likes. Three and four jaw chucks, 16 speed from 50 to 1600, 10 X 36. I want a wood lathe for bowl turning and we feel that we can install a jackshft from the 3-jaw chuck through a new tailstock and I can turn bowls off the lathe, the speed ranges are a beauty for this, the machine is heavy and well made and I can still turn spindles and smaller bowls direct. Your comments will be seriously considered and appreciated. Ron

Ask, be a fool for a minute, don't and be a fool forever.

 

[john lucas]

It can be done. I've seen 2 pretty famous turners who use them on at least one stage of their turning. But, they only use them for wood. As someone who is learning metal work, I would not. The tannins in green wood will rust a lathe in a hurry. If you keep it oiled then you have to be concerned about getting the oil on the wood. The dust would also get into all the little nooks and crannies and probably cause wear to the gibs.
One of the biggest problems is the tool rest. The metal lathe compound rest just doesn't give you enough room to work really well using a bowl gouge. You may be able to back it away far enough and rig up your own banjo and tool rest but that seems like an awful big hassle.
I did rig up a tool rest to do metal turning with wood lathe tools. I was helping an artist turn some aluminum shapes and the best way to do it was to rough them out with the metal lathe and then switch to the wood tools to fine tune the smooth rounded shapes.
Smithy sells a wood lathe combo machine called a super shop.that they say will turn metal. It looks like a heavy duty version of a Shopsmith. It might turn metal but I think a dedicated metal lathe would be miles better.

 

[John Jordan]

I wouldn't suggest it. They are very different machines, intended for different. Buy the metal lathe. Then get yourself a wood lathe. You can get a really nice Jet 16" lathe for $1500. If there's not a budget for that and the metal lathe, you can get one of the smaller mini-lathes for modest size bowls. I don't use the small lathes, but some of the other folks here can advise you.

I have a fairly complete machine shop, and if I had to woodturn on my metal lathe, I would quit. 🙂

John

 

[Steve Worcester]

I agree with John. I have a metal lathe (Southbend) and a Oneway, and if you turn wood on a metal lathe it gets all gummed up and things don't like to move. A metal lathe requires a lot of lubrication to turn and would cause at best contamination in wood use and at worst a bunch of parts that wouldn't move at the speed you want then to adjust when turning wood.

 

[Jim Carroll]

Have to agree with the other guys dont mix lathes

Metal work on a metal lathe and wood work on a wood lathe,

The metal lathe has a lot of gears and oiling points that need continual maintainance and adding dust and shavings to the mix will not help.

Metal lathes generally do not have a high enough speed for most spindle work as well.
You would spend more time cleaning the metal lathe than actually woodturning.

When set up try and keep the 2 hobbies as far apart as possible to eliminate any upsets from dust and shavings

 

[Odie]

Although I don't run a metal lathe, we have about ten metal lathes of various capacities in the shop where I work.

I'll have to fall in line with the others here.......metal and wood lathes are two entirely different critters! If you had to, you could make a bowl on a metal lathe, and proper metal working on a wood lathe would be darn near impossible......

ooc