"Paulco" wrote in message
...

I have a chinese lathe with a 300mm swing but the lathe has a swivel
head for larger work.
I'm hoping to make a couple of platters at least 400mm.
I'll check out Darrel's site.
Cheers
Paul


I start with the outside, and that cuts rim to base, same as any spindle
turning. If you don't have a huge chuck, you'll probably want to try some
combination of short tenon into glue block. Glue won't hold well, but a
cross-bored pin through the tenon does firm things up pretty well.

Reversing to hollow, I'd keep my cuts gentle, more with the nose than the
wing of my gouge, due to the mount problems. You may use pretty much any
gouge you care to. I like flat forged types, but fingernail spindle gouges
also cut their way from center with good control. I do smaller stuff on
mine like that, but your leverage at 200mm from center is going to be pretty
strong, so keep that rest almost touching. If you find yourself picking up
grain as you work out, you can consider spritzing the working face with
water - or LDD, if that's your pleasure - to soften them and make them
easier candidates for cutting with a freshly honed gouge.