It's nice to have a metal lathe and some time to do my own projects.

1-2-3 Block Dogs:



Parallelogram Dog:

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Steve Adams, Qwas Products

Sure, rub it in!

Those look great! Keep it up and you're going to have to start hiring employees and setting up a production schedule and..................

Steve, I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have a metal lathe. I haven't done much machining before, but I think I could learn.

If I could make my own Qwas Dogs, the money I'd save would pay for the lathe in no time.

The lathe I've been looking is pictured below. If you were going to replace your current lathe, what machine would you choose? And would you recommend the same for a beginner?

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John

1 Toolie, 2 XL Festool Polos

Well our economy has gone to the dogs and if it takes (bench) dogs to bring it back, I'll sure try.

I'm not sure I will be making these available for sale yet. If there is enough interest I might. I'm really getting discouraged of the MFT as I keep finding new holes sizes in different ages of the MFT.

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Steve Adams, Qwas Products

Boy that's a tough question that I haven't really explored yet. The first question is how big of a piece are you planning on turning. That will determine the size of machine to start looking at. Next, pay attention to mass and weight, especially around the carriage. This is necessary to stop chatter while cutting.

It's not that hard to learn how to use it. Like anything, it takes some practice. Buy some cheap cutting tools and have at it. Later, you can learn how to grind your own, or buy some nice indexable carbide tools.

You can learn on any machine just like you can learn woodworking with Festools. I've been very happy with the mini-lathe from Cummins. Mini Lathe: ToolsNow.com. It's dirt cheap and you will learn a lot with it's limited capabilities and constant tuning.

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Steve Adams, Qwas Products

One more thought, John. Start your practice with aluminum. It is more forgiving and easier to work with than most things. Once you mastered the tool bit height and angles then you can try your luck on steel.

My first attempt was cold rolled steel. Came out looking like crap. I thought it might be beyond the capabilities of the machine so I started doing nothing but aluminum. Last night I went back to the steel and it came out as good as the aluminum pieces. Come to find out, I had the tool bit height wrong.

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Steve Adams, Qwas Products

Thanks for the input, Steve.

That's always the problem with purchasing new equipment, especially equipment you've never used before. Buy bigger than you'll ever need and you're wasting money and space. Buy too small and you can waste money by having to upgrade too soon.

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John

1 Toolie, 2 XL Festool Polos

I'm really getting discouraged of the MFT as I keep finding new holes sizes in different ages of the MFT.

I know this is kind of heresy, but isn't there someone out there that has access to a computer controlled router (is that the term?) that could take a piece of MDF and punch a bunch of equally sized and properly aligned holes?

Seems like there might be a market for such a product................ and then you could standardize the dog size to fit.

Jay

That's a possibility but Festool may see it as infringing on their copyrights to the top.

With the Walko coming, perhaps an MFT replacement top out of 1 inch bamboo would not be considered infringement? But, I really don't want to step on toes of Festool and walk any thin lines.

Les Spencer has an excellent solution of sanding the holes bigger.
http://www.talkfestool.com/vb/showthread.php?t=749

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Steve Adams, Qwas Products