Having been focussed on my bowl turning the last few years, I've neglected to make sure I have a resident good quality spindle lathe to play on, to make things like mandrels and tool handles (for the bowl turning), chair parts and other items.
This underlying frustration has made me think about building a new spindle lathe which then got me thinking about making a separate set of spindle poppits for my bowl lathe bed. This means I can now change from bowls to spindles just by simply changing the poppits and treadle.
Before:
and after:
The poppits are made from some scrap oak that was lying around. They're three inches thick and planed down so they would fit snugly in the bowl lathe bed. The required toolrest supports were then just let into the poppits as on standard spindle poppits, and the same wedges have been used. The old spindle treadle is still needed, so I'm still happy using my natural hazel fork.
I tried the lathe out straight away and it was extremely sturdy, the lathe bed not moving an inch, as you would hope for. Having a lathe bed already set up to make bowls and yet often wanting to turn 'spindle style', I now don't have to put up a separate lathe which makes it all really convenient. My old spindle lathe was made from soft wood and about 15 years old, so was getting very rickety and was not a pleasure to use at all, so really pleased with this one. :-D
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