I am intersted in hearing suggestions on lathes and turning tools for foam, cork, and wood. The main use would be for turning round and square stock eva and hypalon. It would also be used for cork grips and even some turning of wood fishing plugs. The longest grips would be around 14-16 inches. I am also curious to know what the best tool is for drilling the center hole in square stock foam, lathe or drill press? What tools are must haves for the three different materials. What other suggestions can you make? Thanks in advance!!!

I can't help you about working with eva and hypalon, but I do know wood and cork. I have a Jet mini lathe that will supposedly turn 14" between centers. There's an extension bed you can get that will extend that to around 36". The Penn State Industries Turncrafter Pro with bed extension would also work. I personally wouldn't spend the extra money to get a variable speed lathe. I takes me less than a minute to change the belt on mine.

Working with cork is fairly simple, you only really need one tool, a file. I don't know what it's called, but it's about 8" long, flat on one side and convex on the other and doesn't have a tang for a handle. Lowe's and Home Depot both carry it.

As for working with wood, you might just get a lot of recommendations here that you need a spindle gouge. As someone who turns wood nearly every day, I can tell you that you DO NOT want a spindle gouge. If you want to turn spindles, then you should get one, but if not, don't waste the money. When I first got my lathe I got that same advice from a DVD that was otherwise very good. Thanks to some very accomplished turners, I got straightened out on what tools I really needed, but not before I had already purchased three spindle gouges. Those gouges are now in a drawer under my lathe where they rarely see the light of day. My working tools hang on the wall next to the lathe, a 5/8” skew, a 1” round nose scraper, a ¼” flat nose scraper and two parting tools, 3/16” and 1/16”. That’s all I need for reel seat inserts, pens, bottle stoppers, lidded boxes and bowls.

For making plugs for fishing, you probably only need a skew and a parting tool. I highly recommend the Crown Pro-PM 3/4" round edge skew. It's available from Craft Supplies USA in Provo, UT. The price in their catalog is $51.99. A skew is made for working "with" the grain, which is what you would be doing making fishing plugs. If you ever wanted to turn burl wood, you need a 1" round nose scraper, because neither a spindle gouge nor a skew is very good at turning burl. The other big advantage of a skew over a spindle gouge is that it is tremendouly easier to sharpen. Gouges are difficult to sharpen correctly without a special jig.

The only other tool you need is a parting tool. Craft supplies sells them starting at around $25.

You could also order a whole set of lathe tools from Harbor Freight. They won't be great but I know quite a few turners who have used them for several years and they're not terribly expensive.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, email me directly.

Wow Gerry, what a wealth of information! I will for sure be in touch via email. I am curious though, do you feel a parting tool or a skew will work on the foam?

I have absolutely no experience with the foam. The parting tool might work, but I really doubt that the skew would. The file might though.

Gerry,

It's called a four in hand file. It has 2 parts that are rasps, and 2 that are bastard cut files. For the foam I would reccomend the flat and convex 3M body filler shaper blades. They would get you down close, then finish with drywall sheets or sandpaper.

Bill in WV



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2006 12:56AM by William Bartlett.

4 in 1's? We've got those! We've got a variety of files & rasps. 4 in 1's run about $3.

As far as wood turning tools, the quality of the tooling out there varies GREATLY. I agree with Gerry on the Harbor Freight tooling being a deal and you can get a good variety for not a lot of $$, however you might be better served with a with a couple of quality turning tools from a manufacturer such as Robert Sorby. One of his tools would cost you more than an 8 piece set of Chinese tools, but it will last you the rest of your life. There's a HUGE difference in the quality of the steel and after selling Sorby for twenty five years (another business) I NEVER had a handle come loose, which is a claim the Chinese can never make (at least not w/o crossing their fingers behind their backs).

An EXCELLENT source for a variety of turning tools often at bargin prices are "The Woodworking Shows". This is a traveling circuit that makes 26 stops around the country each year. There are some serious deals to be had depending on the city it's in too. The bigger the city, the more vendors there are and the more vendors there are, the deeper the discounts run. The two that hit the L.A. area (my market) each year usually turn into a pricing "blood bath" by day two or day three. If there's one in your area, try and wait until the third day to visit. That's when you'll generally find the deepest discounts. This link will show you the cities & dates where it will be ---> [www.thewoodworkingshows.com]

As for turning EVA & Hypalon, they're a different animal than wood. The tools used for these are the same, but they "work" differently. Hypalon is actually an extruded rubber that (IMO) is tougher than EVA. I have to "lean" on the tools harder to remove material than I do EVA. I use a 4 in 1 to rough the piece, then use 80G followed by 120G mesh drywall paper as Bill mentioned to remove any tooling marks. I only shape Hypalon after it's glued up on the blank. It's so tough that I'm not sure a mandrel in a lathe chuck would get the job done. In fact, I always make sure I have a spare drive belt handy for my wrapper if I have much shaping to do, because it WILL stretch the belt to the point of slipping. The manufacturer that I get my Hypalon from grinds it to shape with aluminum oxide stones which are shaped to form the 50+ profiles they offer.

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California

Hey Mark, great stuff! I am actually waiting on a reply from Colleen on blank prices, so I'll bug her for more info when I get a reply. I would say more often then not I am referring to creating grips out of block EVA stock. Combining colors to create patterns and such. Much less work will be done with Hypalon, more shaping and such. I presently use a variety of papers as well as different grit screens. I assumed I would need some other tools to rough out the shapes of a block and could sand to finish using the methods I already know. So, that said, it sounds like I need a 4 in1 to start with. Any suggestions on tools for radical patterns suck as finger grooves for heavy offshore grips? Wood working will come later as the rod projects are building up fast and take priority. Unfortunately that woodworking show has come and gone in my area already.

How about lathes? Is one better suited to this then another? How about tool rests, does one shine above the rest? What horse power and rpm should I consider?

Thanks for the help!

ST

Shawn, you need to "unhide" your email address.

In general I would agree with Mark about the Sorby tools, but the Crown Pro-PM tools will hold an edge a lot longer than the Sorby tools because of differences in metalurgy and a Sorby skew will give you a lot more grief than the Crown round edge skew.

You can do everthing you need to do with a Jet, PSI Turncrafters Pro or Delta lathe with the bed extension. Don't buy a lathe with less than a 1/2hp motor. Lots of people will, out of ignorance, recommend you get a Variable Speed model so you don't have to change belts. That simply isn't true. The VS models all have speed ranges and when you move into another speed range, you still have move the belt. The Jet VS has three ranges and I think the others are the same. Any lathe you buy will come with a tool rest, tailstock with revolving center and a drive center for the headstock, but that's it. No chuck and no tools.