Wedding gift

This project is a little off topic from metal working but it has been just as fun. I've been busy building a table for my daughter who is getting married soon. The table measures 4ft x 8ft. The legs started out 5in x5in. The fun part was turning the legs on an old Walker-Turner wood lathe that I restored for my dad several years ago.

That is a sweet table. Sure to become a family heirloom in the future. Is the top slod real wood or is it laminated over something else. Real wood is expensive these days but make such fine furniture and last forever. If you ever get a scratch in a real wood top you can sand and refinish it good as new, cant do it with MDF! Hope the daughter gets a ton of use out of it and has a bunch of grand kids for you to enjoy later on.
Bob

Looks great from here---- Poplar--????? You did a great job on the legs.

Was the steel weight bad-??--- you have it hanging under your lathe----:thinking:

What are your plans for a finish???

Very nice job Phil, She's gonna love it

Thanks Rebeckett, Gary & Charley.Yes it's all solid wood. What started it, was I built my wife a 4x8 table out of solid oak about 7years ago. When my daughter started college she would spread out all of her medical books on the table to study. This went on for a couple of years. I would come home from work & we would have to pick a small unused portion of the table to eat off of. The running joke was I would have to build her own table to study on. I promised her that when she got her own home I would make her one. The time has come & kids never let you forget! I'm very proud of her & her fiancé, they are both great kids. Gary the wood is European Beech, which is imported from Germany. I bought the lumber from a local lumber dealer just outside of Nashville, (Summers Lumber).
Gary,sharp eye noticing the weight hanging on the end of the lathe. The lathe is not fastened to the floor & when you start spinning something long & heavy the lathe will develop a torsional whip in the right hand side of the lathe causing it to start dancing around the shop.the weight didn't cure it all,but it allowed me to finish the project. As for the finish,this is going to be my wife's contribution. Gary I've seen some of your amazing looking wood turnings so I might need some advice on finishing it if you don't mind me asking.
Phil

This is a very interesting thread to me as I am a wood worker first and machinest/mechanic second, though I really don't consider myself a machinest, just a hobbiest. Wood working is my escape from the world and what I do for fun, my lathe restore is fun too! I chainsaw mill my own lumber and air dry it for years. I also turn wood, I've got about 300lbs. of sand on my lathe to help keep it from walking across the shop when I chuck up a large chunk of out of balance wood. Thanks for showing the table, it looks great, well done! There are a lot of wood workers here, it seems that guys that like to work with their hands tend to do other things as well.

Beech is a very good wood to work with.
I built Margie a PC desk out of Beech and just went with a clear Polly finish, no stain.

Nice job there phil.
I like tung oil for a good durable finish on furniture.
Thats a nice looking lathe there, What does the handle on the headstock do?

Cheers Phil

12bolts said:

Nice job there phil.
I like tung oil for a good durable finish on furniture.
Thats a nice looking lathe there, View attachment 44313 What does the handle on the headstock do?

Cheers Phil

Click to expand...

The handle controls the rpm through a couple of variable size pulleys often referred to as a Reeves drive. When you turn the handle it changes the diameter of both pulleys.Just to the left & down is the mechanical RPM gauge. I'm not sure the vintage of this lathe. I'm guessing from the 1940s. The lathe had been sitting in the weather for some time before my dad got it at an estate auction. It was a rusted hunk of junk but luckily it was able to be saved from the boat going to China. The spindle bearings were shot.I started trying to find replacement bearings & found out the bearings were proprietary.The od of the bearing was a standard size but the ID was some kind of name calling size that none of the major bearing makers had ever heard of. I inquired about having some new bearings made to fit the shaft & decided that after the quotes it would be cheaper to make a new spindle & install some standard size bearings. I turned a new spindle & cut the 8 tpi threads on both ends myself but I chickened out on the #2 morse taper in the center of the shafts that holds the center drive. I sent it to a real machine shop to have that done.