Page 3  Turning The Legs

My lathe & duplicator: A person can spend $1000's of dollars on a wood lathe

and duplicator, but that's a personal choice for the turner and what his objectives are.

I paid $90.00 for this lathe in 1994 and $99.00 for the duplicator several years ago.

I turn only spindles and legs on this lathe. Sometimes I may have a dozen legs to

turn for a set of kitchen cabinets so I find the duplicator is much faster for me than

turning by hand.  Even though I use a duplicator, there are times when I have to

finish the leg with a turning chisel, file or rasp.

But, there's still nothing like turning a leg by hand with turning chisels.

In  

These two photos show my lathe and a view of the leg template mounted in the duplicator..

Notice in the left photo, I used a small hand plane to ease the sharp edges off the

turning blank where the leg profile will be turned. In the second photo I've started

turning the leg blank to round. 

Now that I've got the leg turned round I use a shop made gauge to check for the

actual widest dimension the leg calls for on the template. If I'm careful and have the

duplicator adjusted correctly then I shouldn't have to make any more critical measurements.

I 

I now have the correct measurement so I set the duplicator to follow the template.

The leg is now turned after 12 passes  with the duplicator.

I pre-sand the leg while it's still mounted in the lathe and once I remove the legs

from the lathe I carry them to the table saw to cut them to their final length.

It happened...on the last leg to be turned a knot that looked small on the outside 

was more like a tree root on the inside. I noticed the lathe was picking up a vibration

and my brain was telling me to run but my feet wouldn't move.  The leg broke and

went in opposite directions from where I was standing. Have you ever had this experience?

Next...I make the top for my table.