This is the first part of the jumbo lathe that will eventualy be about 22 feet long and will handle pieces (hollow ,light weight wood and foam stock)  16 feet long X 4 feet in diameter .I am building it to do a batch of roman fluted columns for a house in Clarksville .More on that later ...


http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/JumboLatheHead.jpg

The first project was to create a convex semisphear for a logo sign for my brother's company ,see the whole finised product and details at SignalysisLogoSign
http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/ConvexDiskForm.jpg
The machine may look scary but it is only turning at about 1 turn per second from a dryer motor that can bearly handle the torque .
http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/ShapingTool.jpg   The shaping tool is a piece of an old wieght lifting bench press I found in the pile of stuff I got from the warehouse moveout .I have 4 inch X 2 inch steel C beam for a tool rest and coat the metal with alot of grease .It takes awhile working back and forth but the perforated aluminum is fairly plyable so it makes it easier .  

 = Fluted Column Test = 
This is the first test section of the fluted column .First I make the planks by ripping a bevel cut on each side ,followed by a dato groove on each side .Normaly I would glue up the assembly on the lathe and turn it till it was round and smooth to the outer dimention and then cut the flutes but for this test I just wanted to see how fast my ripping was going to take .I also wanted to get a sample of how deep the customer wanted to go with the flute so I cut the flutes before assembly with a 1 " inch half round cutter in several passes .Customers have a hard time seeing things in 3 dimentions looking at a picture so I hope this helps .

http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/ColumnPlank.jpg

http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/ColumnTestSegment1.jpg  

Back to BrooksColeman http://www.robotgroup.net/brooks/BackToBrooks.jpg