WOOD-TURNING LATHE MADE FROM A SEWING MACHINE 



By Harvey N. Bliss 



A serviceable wood-turning lathe can 

 be made from an old sewing machine. 

 The arm of the machine should be cut 

 off near the end and any fixtures re- 

 moved, leaving only the spindle, which 

 has a two-inch plate on one end and a 

 wheel on the other. The plate should be 

 drilled with three holes, as shown in Fig. 

 I. The center hole 

 should be tapped 

 out with a % -20 

 tap, to accommo- 

 date a screw center 

 made from an or- 

 dinary wood screw 

 the head of which 

 is cut off and the 

 shank threaded 

 with a %-2O ma- 

 chine thread. 

 When a live center 

 is required, three 

 points should be 

 fitted into the hole, 

 the outside two 

 having screwdriver 

 points and the cen- 

 ter one a tapered 

 point, as shown. 



Figs. 2 and 3 show the screw and spur 

 centers. The headstock is now complete, 

 and for the reason that it has a large 

 iron base it can be set firmly on the bed 

 of the lathe. 



The bed, which should be made of inch 

 boards, should measure about 4 ft. x 2 

 ft., with a 2-inch base running lengthwise 

 from the headstock to the opposite end. 

 Another layer of inch boards should then 

 be nailed on. These should be chiseled 

 out on the under side so that they will 



fit over and cover the large iron base. A 

 4-inch space should be left in which the 

 tail stock will slide. 



A wooden tail stock will serve very 

 well. It should be built up of boards 

 shaped roughly at first, then fastened 

 tightly together and smoothed. It may 

 be held at any desired place by a board 

 about 4 in. wide 

 and as long as the 

 tail stock. This 

 should be hinged at 

 the back to the bot- 

 tom of the tail 

 stock and provided 

 with a bolt having 

 a handle passing 

 through at the 

 front into an im- 

 bedded nut in the 

 tail stock. The 

 dead center can be 

 made of a bolt, 

 pointed at the end, 

 turning through 

 two imbedded nuts, 

 with a small wheel 

 or handle of some 

 sort at the head. The cross sectional 

 view, Fig. 4, shows the tail stock, the 

 groove in the bed and the method of 

 locking. 



The bed should be supported by the 

 cast iron braces of the sewing machine. 

 However, these should be placed about 

 3^2 feet apart and braced with several 

 YZ -inch iron rods. The old rod which 

 crossed the bottom will be too short, so 

 it should be cut in half and the two 

 pieces driven into a 3^2 foot length of 

 gas pipe so that only the threaded ends 



73 



