The Young Mechanic / Containing directions for the use of all kinds of tools, and for the construction of steam engines and mechanical models, including the art of turning in wood and metal

by James Lukin

Chapter X.

We now enter upon the actual work of the lathe, which should be comparatively easy to understand after the foregoing observations.

Your raw material having been chopped or shaved into a rough cylindrical form, you have to mount it in the lathe. I may suppose it a piece of beech for a tool-handle. If you have the cross-chuck, you should use it; if not, you may use the prong instead. In either case, centre the wood as truly as you can, so that, when the rest is fixed near it, the piece may not be much farther from it, as it revolves, in one place than another. Mind and screw down the back poppit tightly upon the lathe-bed, and also the rest, putting the latter as near the work as you can without touching it. Now set the lathe in motion,—this is tolerably easy, but to keep it in motion will probably not be easy at all. It is one of those operations which require practice, because while your leg is at work upon the treadle, your body must be firm and still, so that you feel yourself free to use the tools without giving much attention to what your leg is doing. After a while you will do this with perfect ease. The wood is, of course, to rotate towards you, and the surface will come in contact with the edge of the tool as the latter is held tightly down on the rest. Now, this is, after all, the real difficulty, for every projection striking the tool tends to jerk it off the rest, and this has to be resisted with some force. There is, however, this advantage in hand-tools, viz., that they may be held rigidly yet be allowed some slight play, according to the peculiar exigencies of the work; and at first you will save the tool by allowing it to yield slightly until the roughest part has been cut away. Afterwards, there is to be no movement except that required to make it follow the curves or level parts of the work. Do your best first to produce a cylinder, i.e., a straight, even piece of wood, as long as the required handle, and as large round as the largest part proposed to be given it. It is the best plan at first to copy a well-shaped handle, and to turn as many as you want of that size exactly to the same pattern. This will give you such an amount of practice in copying form, as will stand you in good stead in after days; for it is not easy at first to turn even two things exactly to pattern and to size.

You must not expect to be able to run your tools along the work like a professional or old hand at the lathe; you must do the best you can. Hold the handle in the right hand, and with the left grasp both rest and tool together, and you will hold it firmly. Then you ought to run it along right or left at the right speed and the right angle, but you will be unable to do so yet;—never mind. Remember the principle I have laid down as to the position and angles of cutting tools, and trust to time and perseverance to make you a good workman.

The gouge is the easiest and best tool to use at first; and you can do a fair amount of smooth work with it if you know how, although smoothing and levelling is the special work of the chisel. The gouge, however, is used for all sorts of curves and hollows, and though the actual point will only turn a groove if held still, the side of the cutting part will, if the tool is steadily advanced, turn very fair surfaces indeed. I strongly advise practice with this tool before attempting to use any other. Your early work is of little importance, and you may make up your mind to cut several pieces into shavings and chips without very grand success, even though you use a chisel; so I repeat, stick to the gouge only for some time, until you can use it towards left or right, and with either hand grasping the handle.

With the chisel, far more care is required than with the last named. It is altogether a more difficult tool to use. Its position may be described as follows, but practice alone will render its use easy. Lay it first flat on the rest as you would the gouge, and let it point upwards at a similar angle, until it also is in the position the gouge would take, ready to cut the piece of wood in the lathe, already turned to the cylindrical form by the latter tool. You will find one point or angle of the edge, the sharpest, reach the wood before the other, and will see at once that this would be liable to catch in, if the lathe were in motion—and so it would. I shall suppose that this sharpest angle is on the right-hand side as it lies flat on the rest, and against the wood. Raise that angle so that the tool lies a little edgewise on the rest instead of quite flat, when the angle of the tool that is highest on the wood will be also raised off it; the lower angle and remainder of the edge still being in contact with it. This is its proper position, with the upper angle out of contact with the work. You may turn it over so that the keenest angle is the lower one, but then you must raise the other, which is now the upper one, for under no circumstances must the one that is uppermost touch the wood. The chisel, therefore, never lies flat on the rest or on the work, but always slightly raised to clear the upper point, and in this position you have to keep it, making it descend into hollows, and rise over mouldings, and cut level places, almost without stopping an instant; and for wood, especially soft wood, the lathe is always itself to be run at a very high speed, by putting the cord on the largest part of the fly-wheel and smallest part of the pulley.

To return to the supposed tool-handle. Having turned a cylinder, begin at the ferule, which you must cut off a brass or iron tube, or, which is easier, buy by the dozen or by the pound ready cut. You will want them three-quarters of an inch for your largest tools, and about three-eighths for the smallest, with some of half an inch, and you can then bore your tool-rack exactly true with centrebits of these sizes. Turn the place down for the ferule, and take care that you make a tight fit. Gauge with the callipers first of all, and turn almost to size, then try it on once or twice until it fits exactly.

If you use the cross-chuck, you have this one great advantage—you can take out your work to put on the ferule, and replace it exactly as it was before, and it will continue to run true. As, however, the piece in the present case is but partially turned, it can be replaced with sufficient accuracy upon the prong-chuck, especially if you mark the side of the chuck, and of the piece of wood, and take care to replace them in the same relative position. You must now try with gouge and chisel to imitate the pattern handle, remembering always to work downwards from right and left into the various hollows—(you cannot cut the fibres neatly if you try to go up-hill); and where the two cuts meet in the hollows, you must do your best not to leave the least ridge or mark. You will be sure to need a little glasscloth to finish off your work, but do without it as much as possible, because it spoils the shape of mouldings, rubbing off the sharp angles, which in many cases add beauty to the work. If the piece of wood is longer than necessary, cut it off with the chisel. In any case, you must cut off a piece at the chuck end; and this being the end of the handle which you will hold in your hand, the ferule being at the end next to the back poppit, you will cut it off neatly with the chisel in finishing it to the required shape.

You would hardly suppose it possible to turn off the end of a piece squarely and accurately with the gouge, but it is a good tool for the purpose. You must lay it on its side upon the rest, so that its back or bevel rests flat against the end of the piece from which the superfluous wood is to be taken; the edge or point of the tool is then allowed to cut the work by a slight movement of the handle. You can only do it in this way, with the bevel against the piece from which the cut is to be taken. Turned over to its usual position, it will hitch in and spoil the work in a moment. In the same way you can face up a bread-platter or similar flat work; but such articles as these are not mounted between centres, but screwed upon the taper screw-chuck or the flat plate with the screw-holes, so that you can get to the face of them. At first, however, until the work gets tolerably level, you may bring up the back-centre, which will prevent the taper screw of the chuck from being accidentally bent; and when all the rough part is cut away, and the rim turned down, you can remove the back-centre to finish the facing up. In this work, however, the back and face do not need much turning, because the platter is turned from plank wood, planed up truly on each side, and cut roughly into the form of a circle. If accurately planed, it will run true at once, and the small amount of facing may be done with the gouge held as directed. Afterwards it may be necessary to take a light scrape with a carpenter’s chisel, which answers well for this. Then finish up with glass or sand paper. Take care to make a neat moulding to the edge, which will be about an inch thick, and will therefore look very heavy unless turned off so as to thin it down. A platter is a very good and useful work for a beginner.

In turning a platter you will certainly learn one lesson in mechanics. You will find that it is very hard work to turn anything that is larger than the pulley of your lathe, and you will only be able to take a very light cut. Probably you will find it the easiest plan to set the lathe in rapid movement, and apply the turning-tool only for an instant, and then to remove it until the work has recovered its impetus, thus cutting it, as it were, by repeated brief applications of the tool, instead of by one continuous cut. I do not mean that the tool is to be removed from the rest, but only eased off for a second from the work. If the latter is very large, and the pulley on the mandrel much less in size, you can only work in this way, finishing with a very light cut. There is a tool for the face of such flat works, called a broad. It is like a broad chisel with the end turned up at right angles to the side, only the edge is a bevelled one and thick. They work well in hands accustomed to them, but the gouge and chisel are sufficient for your present need.

I shall sketch here (Fig. 49) one or two articles not requiring to be much hollowed out, which will help you to decide upon such work as is suitable to a young mechanic desiring, by steady practice and application, to become a proficient at the lathe, and as soft-wood turning will teach you more than that in hard wood, I shall direct all the following to be made of it by gouge and chisel alone.

Fig. 49.

These examples are not given as specimens of the rich work which can be done in the lathe, but as easy examples of elementary turning. No. 1 is a stand for an urn or hot water jug, and a slight recess may be made in the upper surface, in which a piece of cloth, or carpet, or oilcloth can be glued, which will make a neat finish. No. 2 is a bread-platter, showing how a little neat moulding takes away the clumsy appearance of the thick board necessary for this purpose. No. 3 is a candlestick. The lower part or stand is to be turned from a separate piece of thick board screwed upon the taper-screw chuck. While it is in the lathe, the hole must be made in the centre (or marked, if the piece is not very thick) by holding a pointed tool a little on one side of the centre, so as to describe a circle of the requisite size. Into this will be fitted a tenon, fig. 3 B, which is turned on the pedestal, and which is to be glued into its place. By and by you will learn how to cut a screw upon such a tenon, which is a far more satisfactory method of proceeding; at present glue will answer just as well. You can make the upper part separate, forming the junction at the line C (Fig. 49, No. 3), if you prefer it, or if your wood is not long enough; but as you will not hollow out the top, you may as well let it be cut out of one piece with the pedestal. Turn the top quite level, drive in a piece of stout wire, and point the end of it. Cut out a round piece of tin to fit, and make a hole in the middle of it to let the wire through; drop it over the point, and let it rest on the candlestick; a wax candle can be spiked upon the wire, and will stand firm.

Figs. 7 and 8 are drawings of tool-handles. These are the best shape to grasp in the hand, and they look neat in the tool-rack. Tool-handles with a number of mouldings, are not only absurd, but are uncomfortable to hold, and not at all suited to their intended purpose. 9 and 10 are other forms of mouldings, and are given merely to show how angular and rounded forms should be combined to produce a good effect. If these were to be made in hard wood, they might be turned with beading and moulding tools similar to those at A, B, C, D of this figure; such tools are bevelled only on one side, and being held flat upon the rest, cut the curves and hollows rapidly, and clean. Sometimes a number of these are arranged side by side, so as together to make up the outline of the intended moulding, and being held in position by a handle designed for the purpose, are presented all at once to the work as it revolves. In other cases, a flat plate of steel is filed into shape, and bevelled to form a compound moulding tool. Of course, such contrivances greatly help the turner, especially if he has to turn a number of articles of exactly the same pattern, such as the pawns of a set of chessmen, or a set of draughtsmen; but none of these tools answer upon soft wood, because, as already explained, tools which have to be held horizontally will cut and tear up the fibres of all woods that are not very hard and compact in grain.

Fig. 6 is a profile of a draughtsman, and fig. 6 B shows how they ought to be made, but for this you cannot use soft wood, and had better make them of box and ebony, or holly and ebony—(and, by and by, of black-wood and ivory). A cylinder is first turned, then marked off as shown with grooves cut by a parting-tool. The pieces are then separated with a fine saw, and a chuck is hollowed out to fit them so that each can be readily turned upon the face. The desired mouldings having been made on one side, the disc is turned over in the chuck, and the other side operated upon in the same manner.

It is quite possible, you must understand, to cut these out of soft wood, even pine or deal. We often see boxes of toys, children’s wooden plates and cups, turned very neatly of this material; but it is not worth while to use it if you can obtain boxwood. Moreover, box can be stained black to imitate ebony, and is very often made to serve instead of it.

Figs. 4 and 5 are ring-stands for the toilette-table—very useful presents these to mothers, sisters, and, last but not least, lady cousins, and other young ladies too, perhaps, who are not cousins. These can be made in a variety of ways, and give great scope for the exercise of your powers of design. The first is a simple pedestal on a stand, turned quite smooth in an elegant and simple curve. The stand is also made without elaborate mouldings, giving altogether a chaste and elegant appearance to the design. The extremity is tipped with ivory, and an ivory ring surrounds the bottom of the pedestal. If this is made in plain deal, and thoroughly well finished and varnished, it will look very well. The nicest soft English wood, however, for this is certainly yew, some of which is beautifully fine in grain; and as it will take an excellent polish, it always looks well; moreover, it can be turned entirely with gouge and chisel.

This ring-stand will be made in two parts; the pedestal being separately turned at one end, a tenon will have to be made as in the case of the candlestick, and just above it the wood is to be turned off a little as if you were going to make a larger tenon. Over this a ring of ivory may be slipped and glued on, and the two can then be turned together. A carpenter’s chisel will do for the ivory, which will be scraped into form by it. It may be polished with a little chalk on a moist rag or flannel. You can buy odds and ends of ivory from the turners in rings and solid pieces, which will come in for all sorts of decorations, and you should save all old handles of knives, tooth-brushes, and such like, for a similar purpose. Both ivory and bone smell very disagreeably when in process of being turned. To tip such articles with ivory, you can drill a small hole in the top of the pedestal with great care, and fit the ivory after being turned into it; or you can, if the work is larger, bore the ivory and slip it on the wood;—much depends upon the size and nature of the work.

The second ring-stand is of rather more elaborate construction. The baskets are made of little turned pedestals fitted into a round piece of wood to form the bottom, and into a ring which makes the rim. Baskets of this form (even apart from the ring-stand) are very neat and useful.

It is very easy to turn rings of any size. Mount a piece of board in the lathe on the taper screw chuck—it need not even be cut to a round form; then determine the size of the proposed ring, and, holding a parting-tool upon the rest turned round to face the work, mark two circles, and deepen the cuts, until the ring falls off. Take care that the outer one is cut through first. The ring thus cut may be afterwards placed upon a cylinder turned to fit it, and finished upon the outside, and then placed inside a chuck of wood bored out to suit the work, and neatly rounded off upon the interior surface. Of course, if you have to make rings of bone or ivory which are already hollow, you can at once run a mandrel or spindle of wood or metal through them and subject them to the various operations required.

Mandrels, or tapered cylinders of brass or iron, fitted as chucks to the mandrel of the lathe, are sold on purpose for this work, but a wooden rod answers just as well, and costs nothing. Turn such a rod a little tapering, and take care not to drive the work too far upon it, because, although at first you can safely drive it on very tightly, if it is of ivory or bone, you will frequently find your ring suddenly split and open when its thickness has been reduced to the required standard. If a number of equal rings are required, it is the best plan to turn a hollow cylinder and then saw off the rings as you are directed to saw off the draughtsmen. They will, of course, have to be finished in a chuck.

If you look round any fancy warehouse in which Swiss carvings are sold, you will see how beautifully soft white pine can be worked in the lathe by keen tools and clever hands. In Tunbridge, too, many thousands of soft-wood articles are manufactured yearly, some plain and merely varnished, and some curiously inlaid with coloured woods, so that you need not despise such materials as willow and sycamore and the various pine woods, which are all capable of being made into pretty articles of one kind or another. The varnish, however, for these is such as to coat them with a glassy layer which does not sink into the wood. Common rosin dissolved in turpentine or in linseed oil, kept on the hob so as to get warm, answers well for these deal articles, and is extensively used where the slight tinge of yellow is not considered important. There are many other much paler varnishes for works of greater value, or where the white wood is to be carefully preserved. Any of these can be had at oil and colour shops.

Fig. 50.

You will certainly find a difficulty in turning all exactly alike the little pillars of these baskets. You should turn several at once out of the same piece, separating them afterwards. Thus your pattern will always be close to the half-executed copy, which will somewhat assist you. Do your best in this respect, but be specially careful, at any rate, to make all exactly the same length. One pillar is shown separate, but you can design a pattern for yourself.

Begin by turning a long cylinder; then set off the respective lengths of the pillars. Turn one complete as a pattern, and set the callipers to the largest part of it. Then go to work upon a second, using callipers freely at all parts of it. As these pillars will all be slender, you will be in great danger of breaking them; therefore use your tools lightly, taking only a very slight cut. But with all your care you will find it difficult to turn a row of more than two or three of the size wanted for such little baskets. I shall therefore show you how to make a support to fit at the back of the bar you are at work upon to support it against the pressure of the tool.

Fig. 50 gives a representation of one or two such supports, which are often required in turning. The first is the most simple, and is the one most generally in use, because easy to make and to apply, and it answers tolerably well. A is merely a piece of wood, about three-quarters of an inch thick, cut as shown. This is stood up between the lathe-beds, like C, and fastened with a wedge before and behind. It allows the work in the lathe to revolve in the notch which is cut in it, as is evident from the drawing. One, two, or more such may be used if necessary. They must be carefully adjusted, so as not to bend the piece which is to be turned, and which is to be just supported, but no more. Where the back-stay, as this contrivance is called, comes in contact with the work, the latter is to be left of the size it was when this was adjusted to it as long as possible. It must then be shifted a little, and that part which formerly rested against it finished.

B is another simple form of back-stay, capable of nicer adjustment. The foot is that of a common rest, but if you have not a spare one, any wooden support is quite as good. Into this fits a turned part of the upright x y,—the upper part, y, of this being planed flat. Neither should be of deal; ash or elm is preferable. Thus the part x y can be raised and lowered at pleasure in the rest-socket. The top part is made of a half-inch board, about 2 or 2½ inches wide; a slit is cut in it, and it is fastened to x y by a short bolt and nut. Thus it is easy to raise and lower the end of this part, and to put it nearer to, or farther from, the work in the lathe, against which it can be adjusted with great nicety. Although there are several forms of back-stay, of more or less complicated construction, I know of none more generally serviceable than this last, which the young mechanic can make for himself. The notch should be lubricated with soap, or, if the blackness is not of importance (as when this part, which rotates in the notch, has finally to be cut away), with a mixture of soap and blacklead. This, remember, is always to be applied to wooden surfaces that are to work easily upon each other.

It will sometimes happen that you require to bore a hole through a long piece of wood, as would be the case in making a wooden pipe, flute, bodkin-case, and many similar articles. To hold these in a chuck only would be often impossible, because the hole in the chuck would have to be as deep at least as half the length of the piece to be bored.

For this kind of work, therefore, and for turning up a point on the end of a cylinder of iron or steel, like that of your back poppit, the following contrivance is used, which is called a boring-collar or cone-plate. It is represented in Fig. 50, D and E. This consists of a circular plate of metal, three-quarters of an inch thick, turning upon a large screw or pivot at its centre, by which pivot it is attached to a short poppit head, fitting between the bearers of the lathe as usual. There are six or eight conical holes bored round the circular plate, each of a different size; and these are so arranged as to height, or distance from the centre, that the top one (being in a perpendicular line passing through its centre and that of the bolt) is exactly as high as the axis of the mandrel. Thus, if it is clamped in that position, with the largest side of the conical holes next the mandrel, a piece of wood might be held at one end in a chuck, while the other might rest in such hole as was best suited to its size, not actually passing through it, but resting in the inside of the conical hole, in which it would rotate almost as freely and as truly as if it were supported by the ordinary point of the back poppit.

Sometimes it may be preferred to allow the end of such a piece of work to project through the cone-plate, a collar being turned on it to prevent it from going too far. A tool-handle, for instance, of the pattern before given, may be beautifully bored in the lathe by allowing the ferule to rotate in one of the holes of the cone-plate, the shoulder behind preventing it from going too far. The rest is brought round in front of the end of the handle, and a hole bored by a drill for wood; or, the point of a drill is brought against it, while the other end (having had a slight hole made by a centre-punch for the purpose) is allowed to centre itself on the point of the back poppit. The screw of the latter is then advanced, and the drill being prevented from itself revolving either by being grasped by the hand or a vice, a beautifully straight and even hole is rapidly made.

Fig. 50, F, shows the position of the various pieces. The drill is here kept from rotating by a small spanner, the handle of which comes against the bed of the lathe. A great deal of work, both in wood and metal, is always drilled in this way.

For wood, a small nose-bit, or auger-bit, or one of the American twist-drills, can be used, and this may be succeeded by a larger, until the hole will allow of the introduction of a finishing-tool of some kind, held in the hand. Of course the latter is not necessary in boring out handles for the tang of a tool, but only in turning boxes for pencils, needles, or other articles, which require to be neatly finished inside as well as out; all these are to be bored before the work is cut free from the superfluous wood out of which it was turned. You can even use the cross-chuck for this work.

It matters little, when using the cone-plate, whether you finish the turning of the outside before or after the boring is done. Very generally the box or other article is bored first, quite in its rough state, except that a short piece is turned down to fit into a hole of the cone-plate; and, keeping the latter in its place all the while, the wood is turned down and polished before removing it from the lathe. Sometimes, especially with metal, which is in no danger of splitting, the cone-plate is removed as soon as the hole has been made and replaced by the back-centre, the point of which, entering the hole, retains the work in its place while the outside is being fashioned. This of course insures the exterior surface being exactly concentric with the inside, which is often absolutely necessary in parts of machinery; but if wooden articles are finished in this way, there is great danger of their being split by the pressure of the back-centre as the work grows thinner and thinner under the action of the tools. Moreover, it must be remembered that the back-centre, being itself of a conical form, will injure the form of the hole in metal by making it wider at the mouth if used in this way, and sometimes this may be of importance.

There is a fault in the cone-plate which boys will understand, and men, too, I imagine. It costs money! Therefore I shall now show you how to make a substitute, which will cost something under a shilling, if you do not mind a little trouble; but, if you do, you will never make a good workman, nor will you be good for much, I fear, in any way! A metal cone-plate for a 5-inch lathe costs £2 at least.

I shall suppose you want a cone-plate in which to bore your tool-handles, for it is not easy to do this with a gimlet, so that the tools, when inserted, shall stand straight in their handles. If you have a 5-inch centre lathe, i.e., a lathe in which the central line or axis of the mandrel is 5 inches from the lathe-bed (in which case you can turn anything nearly 10 inches in diameter), cut out of a piece of beech, 3 inches thick, a short poppit 3½ inches high, of some such shape as seen in the fig. G; and in the lower part (which must be cut to fit between the lathe-bearers, and must be made square at the sides and true, so that the whole will stand squarely across the lathe-bed), either cut a mortice, a, for a wedge, or bore a hole for a screw, which must have a plate and nut to fasten under the bed like other poppits. Near the top, and exactly in the centre, bore a hole to receive the bolt K, similar to that in the metal cone-plate already described, and which will be tightened by a nut at the back. This supplies the place of the short iron poppit, and now you have to contrive something to replace the circular plate of holes. Cut two or three strips of any tolerably hard wood, H (beech will answer very well), 6 inches long, half an inch thick, and 2 inches wide. Cut in these a slot and a round hole, which must be carefully made with a centrebit. This hole is to be for one of those in the usual round plate, so be careful in making it. Work thus: Plane up the piece from wood rather more than the half inch required; draw a line exactly down the middle of it on both sides e, f; choose a centrebit of the size you require; put the point upon this line, about 1½ inches or more, according to the size of the required hole, and bore steadily a little way into the wood. Then turn it over, measure carefully so as to get the precise spot right, and finish from that side. If the centrebit is sharp, and the wood sound, you will now have a neat round hole. Let the slot be also cut from both sides of the piece of wood with a sharp chisel, taking care that the centre of it agrees with the line that you made for a guide.

Three or four of these should be made, each with a different sized hole, or more if required; but you can add new ones at any time. The bolt, K, is to be made with a large head flat on the under side, and the upper part, above the screw, is to be square for three-eighths of an inch, and the slot in the pieces of wood must just fit this squared part. Now, as this is three-eighths only, and the thickness of the wood is four-eighths or half an inch, it is plain that the nut will draw, and the head of the screw clamp this tightly. You can, if you like, however, make the hole in the poppit square also, and then let the squared part of the screw be long enough to reach almost entirely through both pieces. Then slip a washer (an iron plate with a hole in it like L) over the end of the screw, and fix all with the nut. Thus you have a boring collar with one hole, and this you can raise or lower the length of the slot so as to get it exactly the right height, and when it is so arranged, one turn of the nut at the back will fix it.

This you will find a very simple form of boring-collar, easy to make, and of practical use. If you really take all the care you can, and follow the directions I have given, I do not see how you can possibly fail in constructing one. You should have a sliding-plate with a hole for each size of tool-handle ferule used, as you will frequently be making these.