Forget those two boring out a log to be a pump - it’s the lathe & the turning tools on the left that I’m interested in. Great detail in that carved panel, c. 1690s from Amsterdam. The pole lathe - as simple as can be. I don’t keep up very well with what’s going on in the woodworking world. I only see a small cross-section of woodworking. And most of that from the comfort of my own home, i.e. through this screen. When the subject is turning on pole lathes - most of what I see these days concerns bowl-turning. The first people I heard of turning bowls on a pole lathe were Robin Wood and Roger Abrahamson, and a little later Jarrod Dahl. I’d say Robin was the one who really spread the word. Long before he was a tool-maker, he turned thousands of wooden bowls by foot-power.
But where are the “spindle” turners’ pole lathes? Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, but no matter. I’ve used a pole lathe for my furniture work since forever. The first I heard of them was Drew Langsner’s book Country Woodcraft (1978). I didn’t build one then, but adapted (tossed the motor) a Delta lathe to run on foot power. I forget when I did that, but it was around that time. I was recently remembering the first pole lathe I’d seen in operation - it was the summer of 1980 and there was a large event on the Boston Common to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of that town. There was a crew there building a replica of the Jonathan Fairbanks house (1630s) and surrounding that project were booths with various crafts and other demonstrations. There, someone was turning stuff on a pole lathe made of oak - much like what was in Drew’s book. I learned in the last few years that that someone was Al Breed.
So much for background - I’m here to tell you that you can build a lathe easily enough. If I can do it, you can do it. Let’s first dispense with some of the nonsense about turning on a reciprocating lathe. People sometimes complain that “you only are cutting half the time…” or something along those lines. I’ve never heard that same complaint about a bench plane, a chisel or handsaw - those don’t cut on the backstroke either - for some reason people focus on the pole lathe as too laborious. It’s fine, really.
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