How To Build Your Own Lathe

diy_lathe

[bongodrummer] wanted to use a lathe to make some gifts for his family. Instead of buying one, he decided to make one and recycle some parts in the process. More info after the break.

[bongodrummer] scavenged a motor from a washing machine which is a great choice because these motors are capable of generating plenty of torque. To control the speed of the lathe he developed his own pulse width modulation controller. All of the parts were then mounted to some heavy steel plates and an enclosure was built around the belt-driven assembly. In keeping with his recycling goals, the tool rest was fabricated from tubing reclaimed from a junked bicycle frame.

This lathe is not a CNC machine, but judging from the wooden bowl he turned out we’d say this project is a huge success.

wooden_bowl

14 thoughts on “How To Build Your Own Lathe

  1. chris really this is hackaday,if everyone could just buy something off craislist we wouldnt need this site.secondly how many times have you seen a lathe on craiglist for 100 dollars?I look daily the lowest ive seen is 500 for a pile of rusty junk.

  2. I love this. Reminds me of when we needed to make a sprocket because we couldn’t find one in the pitch to match the chain we had, so we attached our piece of steel to a power drill to spin it up and attacked it with a grinder. Worked awesome. Two man job though.

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.