Frosty Posted February 27, 2009 Share Posted February 27, 2009 (edited) Oh Mike! I have grandkids living not far from you! Step grandkids maybe but Deb's been after me to visit them for some time now. I wonder if she'll mind leaving her here while I travel? Parafin will work as will bees wax or plain bar soap. The big tricks are: It has to lubricate under extreme pressure and you don't want to be wearing it so it needs to be pretty stiff and sticky. If you can stall your lathe now, gearing it up 3x might make it worse. Then again if you can work the steel at the right RPM there's actually less strain on everything so it might do it for you. A larger motor on a larger lathe is actually the way to go but a guy has what he has. If you gear it up like that, make darned CERTAIN nothing can come apart or slip out of the lathe! Pay close attention to the wood block between your tail stock and the blank. (the Following Block) It's a piece of wood with a wedge jammed into it under a lot of pressure. Think of turning an aluminum one compared to what will happen if the wooden one splits under the strain. Spin it up to the rim (I don't recall what it's called, it's been way too many years) but let the tool kind of ease over it without spinning the rim out. It will be pretty strong so it takes an effort to make it go away until it's backed against the die so you shouldn't have too much to worry about on that score. Spin thin stock, 18 or 20g spun in that configuration will be really strong, 16g is overkill and 14g would support a pickup truck. Frosty Edited February 27, 2009 by Frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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