Experiment With a Bow Lathe - Part 2

Note: this post was written before posting part 1 of this series, so none of the comments I received in that earlier post were incorporated this time.  When I get back to lathe experiments, I plan to work more on an ad-hoc bungee spring lathe.

In part 1 I made the bow lathe and started learning how to use it.  The turning was rough.  Tools would dig in and gouge the wood.  I started thinking that one of my practice pieces was rather skinny and was flexing between the points.  Without some kind of "follower" to keep the wood from flexing, there was not much chance for a good result.

So I got an octagonal pine leg blank that I recently made for practice that was about 11" long, 1 1/4" diameter at the widest spot, tapering to 7/8" at each end.  My earlier practice pieces were about 17-18" long and 1" diameter.

The octagonal tapered leg on the lathe

This was working a lot better, as I seemed to have better control over the material removal.  Could be because it was more stable between the points or could be because of how nicely octagonal it was.

One side turned round-ish, then flipped end-for-end and ready to work on other side

I put pencil lines on the leg so I could gauge progress.  I also cut my tool rest in half from earlier experiments.  The longer tool rest wouldn't fit between the puppets when turning this shorter piece.

Using a gauge with some success

After I got the leg fairly round, I thought I'd try something a little different.  I've never seen anybody do this, so you be the judge on it.

Using a block plane to smooth the spinning leg

This actually worked OK.  It's not going to give me any fancy coves or beads, but for simply trying to smooth a round leg, it worked fine.  There's probably a reason I've never seen anyone try this, but I don't know what it is.

Also tried using a scraper

The scraper also worked, albeit very slowly.  I wasn't getting any fluffy scraper shavings - only fine dust.  Only a few millimeters of scraper are touching the leg at any time.  I also used sandpaper to help smooth the surface.

The result here was far better than my earlier attempts.  But the surface finish of the leg is still not very good.

The overall shape was OK, but that was probably because I had a perfect octagonal shape to start with

Here are a few closer-up views of the leg.  I would not use this on a project.

General roughness

Some of the gouged areas

More gouges

Well, this is exciting.  I got a far better result than I did with my first blog post on this lathe.  Gotta get back out there and keep at it.

I don't know that a bow lathe will be the answer to my desire to have compact turning capability.  But it was a fun experiment.  Eventually I'd like to build some kind of flywheel treadle lathe that I can attach to my workbench.  But for now, at least I'm learning a lot.

I'm off for a little R&R - catch you all on the flip-flop.