Spheres with an assist from the lathe

Wood turning is done by hand.

There are industrial CNC lathes, and as with many machining tools like mills and routers, you can get affordable versions for hobby use.

The point to wood turning, however, is that it is hand-crafted.

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Some CNC lathe entertainment:

There are a couple of really fast and good hand turners in there too.

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Unfortunate title. Most of that is rotary axis milling. A lathe removes material by means of a fixed cutting tool (with the exception of knurling).

Edit - I see the full title is accurate - CNC milling. Doesnā€™t show in the embedded preview here.

For anyone unfamiliar with a lathe, they really donā€™t seem to make a lot of sense. Every other power tool in your shop uses a spinning tool to cut a (basically) stationary piece of wood. Router, saw, drill, etc.

Somehow (possibly while under the influence of tequila), somebody got this insane idea: How about we spin the wood at a 1000 rpms and then shove a pointy tool into it with our bare hands? I love my lathe, but it really is a tool for crazy people.

bowl-6_orig

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That is incredible!! How long does that take with the lathe?

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isnā€™t the opposite of that description that you hold the tool that is spinning around the stationary material at 1000 RPM? that might be even more insane.

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Lathe heck! Where did they get the wood!

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486 Segments.

Full story hereā€¦

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This is the only lathe I have experience with, though mine was not so robust. Getting both ends spinning on the same center is a bit tricky.

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Gorgeous @shogun !

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I was hoping that bowl was going to become a hot tub.

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I have wanted an outdoor ā€œofuroā€ since staying at a quirky hotel in South Florida that had one for every room.

Outside the scope of my Glowforge, I feelā€¦

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I once had a conversation with a local sculptor. His advice to me was start with a cast.

Find something that would be as tall and cylindrical as that tub and go from there.

I have an idea though it would be really small. Start practicing making your tub with one of those plastic garbage bins.

The more I think about this, the more I am amazed. Of course, I am familiar with a pottery wheel which certainly seems like the same concept, but when I have used one (many, many moons ago), or seen one used, one is constantly replacing clay when you ā€˜mess upā€™ until you achieve the desired look. Not really possible with wood.

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Just like carving from stone, you remove the excess material to extract the desired object thatā€™s already hidden inside.


(Clickspring video)

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Right. But if you mess up you canā€™t just slap some wood back on LOL.

Wood dust and superglue for small stuff but the real problem with any larger errors is that they tend to cause the piece you are working on to exit the lathe at considerable speed. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I watch a lot of Clickspring videos. Amazing talent.

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I worked on a potterā€™s wheel a fair amount, and while I would occasionally carve it thinner or to make a nice foot, I donā€™t know that I ever ā€œadded backā€ as one might in coil building, Even multi-walled pieces were thrown at once. Of course it is hard to take a lump of wood and squeeze it into a bowl as you might glass or pottery, but then I have always wanted to have a ā€œmakerspaceā€ for the primitive artists with pottery, glass, stone, wood, blacksmithing etc with equipment almost nobody could support as a lone artist but where each artist could combine several together and work as many.

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