vwfence
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2013
Posts: 557
|
Post by vwfence on Aug 10, 2016 11:22:52 GMT -5
Does anyone here have any experience with turning lathes for stone for making bowl's , vases , candle holders ect.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2016 13:43:21 GMT -5
The Pakistanis have it figured out. Maybe Google for pics of their factories?
They turn boat loads of their green only. Bowls, cups, candlesticks....
|
|
|
Post by Rockoonz on Aug 20, 2016 13:45:13 GMT -5
This?
or this?
I really like this
|
|
SirRoxalot
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since October 2003
Posts: 790
|
Post by SirRoxalot on Aug 25, 2016 12:00:43 GMT -5
I have a small, precise, Taig woodworking lathe. Turning soapstone on it is much more fun than turning wood!
Epoxy on a sacrificial base of wood, to a flat clean stone face, screw that to a faceplate, and turn away.
You have to do this slowly; many wood lathes won't go slow enough. Very few RPM indeed.
High speed steel works fine for soapstone. Tungsten carbide will be better if you can afford it.
Stone, being much heavier than wood, will require you to have your blank roughed out a little more carefully. Bandsaw it into a cylinder or buy it cylindrical, and easy does it.
Vast quantities of very fine dust are produced, much finer than wood chips and dust, so you'll want to have lots of very-small-particle dust collection. The standard woodworking dust collector is ok-ish, but you'll want something better if you're doing lots of stone. A dust mask is a good idea, if you can find one that fits tight and isn't too uncomfortable. Eye and face protection is obviously required.
Soapstone is pretty cheap, and it turns with the greatest of ease. Anything hard, like granite, and you're into diamond tooling, water cooling, and the metal-lathe style of cutting, with the attendant dangers. Resist the urge to cut stones of unknown hardness on your tablesaw. I smoked a blade on a rock that is basically mica, a very, very soft mineral.
Hope this helps a bit. There is some decent info on the web, if you search it out. The TV show "How It's Made" had a neat segment on how the English turn their amazing fluorite, called Blue John. Lots of wonderful rocks out there to work with.
I'd love to scale up to a bigger lathe, but they're too damn expensive, so I'm half inclined to build my own. It really is a simple machine, you might want to look into DIY.
|
|
|
Post by mohs on Aug 25, 2016 22:32:58 GMT -5
let me just make few tweaks on my 5 axis Marchetti and I'll have my 5 billionth cab done does real nice profile grooves, also for your single wire wrapper
heck if thought about it I could get this machine to wrap to
|
|
|
Post by mohs on Aug 25, 2016 22:34:06 GMT -5
certainly when they make a inexpensive model no rock will be safe!
|
|
vwfence
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2013
Posts: 557
|
Post by vwfence on Aug 29, 2016 10:24:12 GMT -5
Mr Mohs , What does the machine you are talking about look like ?
|
|
vwfence
has rocks in the head
Member since January 2013
Posts: 557
|
Post by vwfence on Aug 29, 2016 10:26:20 GMT -5
What i am wanting to turn is pens and eggs so i only need a 3 or 4 inch swing with maybe a 10 or 2 inch center at max
|
|
minerken
Cave Dweller
Member since August 2013
Posts: 466
|
Post by minerken on Aug 29, 2016 10:45:47 GMT -5
|
|