What can you make with a metalwork lathe?
You can make anything cylindrical in shape on a lathe providing it can be held safely in the chuck. It can be used to cut diameters, bores, faces and create tapers. With the use of a tail stock it can also be used to drill perfectly centred holes with minimal effort. Also on higher quality lathes diameters can be turned in or out of concentricity as the operator wishes with the use of a four jawed chuck. There is also no limit to what metal you can cut either as the spindle speed and feed can be altered to suit the material you are cutting from plastics to hard alloys. Examples of simple projects are hammers, plum-bobs , ashtrays and even fisherman’s priests to name but a few.
