"Toller" wrote in message
...
I cut a 18" crab apple log in half, sketched out an 12" circle on each, and
roughly trimmed it with the chainsaw. Unfortunately it was way too big to
fit on my bandsaw, but it would have bound anyhow.

I screwed a faceplate to the flat surface and ran the tail piece into it.

Well, the lathe shook like crazy, and thunked pretty badly each time a
high spot hit the gouge. (400 rpm, the lowest setting on the machine) I
have roughed out both the outside and the inside and the lathe seems to be
okay; once I got them balanced they spun just fine.
But I wonder if a lathe is designed for that? Without a really big
bandsaw I am not sure what I could have done to make it any better.

Not sure which lathe you have, but my Jet 1442 will actually run a bit
slower than the last detent for the speed control (for the Reeves drive)
allows. I simply retract the pin and set the lathe a bit below that detent.
I checked the speed with an optical tach and found it runs at roughly 280
rpm--much better than the 400 the bottom detent allows. This of course begs
the question as to whether this is hard on the Reeves drive, or if it is an
acceptable practice. No one at the Jet distribution center had the
slightest idea. But it works, and I'll probably continue to use this method
until I either damage the drive or learn from an authority that it's
deleterious.

One additional point--I bought a monstrous 2.75" roughing gouge from a
friend who used to fabricate such tools from high speed steel bar stock.
Mine was his personal gouge, as he is now 87 and has retired from
woodworking. Once sharpened, it holds its own against really rough turning
stock with a minimum of fuss.


On a completely different issue, the crapapple has pretty streaks of red
running though it, mixed with brown and white. Is that going to last?

I turned a bit of crab apple a while back, and the color, while persistent,
did fade a bit. It might have had something to do with my finishing
materials, however. I used mineral oil and beeswax on one piece and shellac
followed by wax on another.

Max