Having a Good Lathe

To have a lathe or not to have a lathe - That is the question!

Wooden ships have masts and spars and to me these are among the first features of a model which are noticed. The books describe ways in which these can be tapered down using hand tool methods and a lot of sanding.

I have also tried putting pieces of dowel into the chuck on an electric drill and narrowly missed injury when a piece flew out around the room.

I took advice from a professional model maker who recommended that I look for a mini-lathe. It is immediately apparent that choices are limited and it came down to an Italian model which I will not comment on, other than to say it is powered by a 12V motor from a mains transformer. The other choice being the Proxxon DB250 Model Making Lathe manufactured in Germany.

This lathe has a mains powered motor with all the torque necessary to provide consistent turning speeds. The speed is a fully variable control and can be easily adjusted to different job requirements.



The unit comes as a single assembly on a rigid metal base. There are screw holes for fixing to a work surface, but I have found that a single G-clamp keeps the unit still, as shown in the picture.

The chuck is supplied with a number of collets up to a maximum size of 10mm.

Lengths of dowel can be put through the motor unit so that masts longer than the normal turning length can be accommodated.

The price does not normally include any chisels. I bought the Proxxon set which can also be seen in the picture which were not the cheapest I could get but have proved very good.

The only other requirement is 'skill'! Never having wood-turned before I scoured the internet and YouTube in particular to watch wood turning demonstrations and tutorials. After that it was practice, practice and more practice!

There are not many modelling stockists that supply Proxxon Tools. You can find out more and look at the other Proxxon goodies at:

Proxxon Direct

Stockist recommended by Zeptrader:

Hobbies supplied my lathe and provided a good service.

Hi,
Just new to the forum and having a look around the topics. I have a Chester Metalworking Lathe, and a Machine Mart woodworking lathe. With the builds I have at present, I have not reached the mast`s stage yet, so I was wondering about tapering the mast`s. There was no way I was going to use the chester lathe, being a purely metalworking lathe, so I have had some thought in the use of my machine mart lathe. I have had it for a number of years, I managed to get a 3-jaw and a 4-jaw chuck for it. The 4-jaw chuck is obviously more accurate than the 3-jaw, but I did an experiment with the 3-jaw chuck. I centred a piece of doweling in the lathe and proceded to taper the piece of dowel. The experiment was a success, so when I come to the mast stage, I should be okay with tapering the mast`s.
Martin

Good Morning Martin

Welcome to the forum.

It might be useful to put up a review of your Machine Mart lathe as a comparison with the Proxxon one, to help others thinking of getting something similar. Is yours a model still available from MM?

Mike T

Hi,
No, the machine mart woodworking lathe I have is an old model and no longer available. It is actually a full size woodworking lathe(I think between centres is 28inches). It takes up quite a lot of space at one side of my Shed/Workshop. There would be no comparison with the proxxon lathe. Machine Mart have actually brought out a small electronic woodworking lathe, based I think on the small metalworking lathe i have.
Martin