Speed - Proper Wood Lathe Speed

An excerpt from the DVD "I have a lathe. Now what?" by Ron Brown. This is a complete chapter on determining the proper speed depending on the diameter of the work piece. How fast should you turn a 10 bowl blank? A pen blank? a 3 inch table leg? This clip will tell you. More info available at www.coolhammers.com

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• lathe
• wood lathe
• turning
• woodturning
• speed
• rpm
• lathe speed

[vljenewein]

Thank you!!! Needing to learn lathe basics to turn Apricot 2" x 2" into a duduk.

[coolhammerman]

@vljenewein : Now I know what a duduk is! You are going to need a few different speeds depending on the particular cut you are making. For drilling the inside much slower, maybe 1,000 rpm. For shaping the outside between 2,000 and 3,200 rpm. If the wood is burning slow down, If you are getting chatter and vibration slow down a bit. Top speed on my Powermatic 3520 is 3,250 rpm. I often run close to 3,000 for small stuff and as slow as 100 for bowls. Good luck.

Ron

[adriannyasia]

Ahhhhh, what?!

[coolhammerman]

@adriannyasia

Are you asking a question?

[BernhardHofmann]

You should include the unit of measurement for the diameter (inches) in your formula.

You can invert the formula to get the recommended RPM range as being between 6000/d and 9000/d where d is the diameter in inches.

Nice lathe by the way - same as mine.

Also; very good points regarding consideration for imbalanced items.

[coolhammerman]

Good points Bernhard. Thanks for your comments.

Ron

[MrLeonard55]

Good info to know.

[printer10001]

As a total novice to lathe work, this has been of immense value to me. Thanks.

[mersyturning]

nice vid very helpful