At some point, a turner will want to go beyond spindle turning. Legs, baseball bats, spoons, and bottle stoppers are fun but there is more out there. Bowls, hollow vessels, off set turnings challenge the turner’s abilities, and offer a wider range of projects. These types of turning, however, usually involve the addition of a faceplate to the turning arsenal. Most lathes have a faceplate as part of the initial package; most often in the 4†or 6†size. These faceplates are designed to fit your specific lathe- matching the head stock spindle diameter, length, and thread count.

So what is the problem? Well, the faceplate diameter may be too large or too small for your project. You may have several projects in the works and changing the faceplate, during the turning process, can introduce off center errors- this is especially true if you have several homemade lathe jigs. Your project may not lend itself to mounting with the faceplate screws.

The solution- make your own wooden faceplates. It is easy and relatively inexpensive.

 

My lathe has a 1†x 8 spindle so I needed a tap to match. I went to a local machine shop and they had some used, dull taps. For a couple of bucks, I was on my way! Checking the Forstner bits, I had a 7/8†bit which gave a 70% bite- perfect for wood! Taps for headstock spindles can be purchased from Woodcraft- http://www.woodcraft.com/product/2020109/19445/beall-spindle-tap-1-x-8-tpi.aspx

My recommendation, for a faceplate, would be a hardwood. The pictured one is Red Oak. I was surprised how well it took threads. Just a tip about threading wood- my first attempts were to thread into the end grain. That was a disaster- the threads pull out, chipped, and looked terrible. Thread into the edge or side grain. It works much better!!

The pictured faceplate has a piece of sacrificial pine glued to it. This faceplate is used for glued paper joints for turnings. If damaged, the pine is just refaced or part it off and glue on a new piece.

Some other uses of the faceplates-

The above picture shows a shop made, Longworth turning chuck. Here is a link to how you can make one- http://blog.woodcraft.com/2012/04/how-to-make-a-longworth-chuck-with-ron-thompson/. The Longworth Chuck is very handy for holding a wide range of symmetrical turnings. By changing the “holding†hardware, to can adapt just about any size/shape project.

One final note- with ANY faceplate type of turning, PLEASE purchase one of these

http://www.woodcraft.com/product/2021098/24738/antilock-lathe-spindle-washer-1.aspx

Don’t ask me how I know!

Have you made any faceplates? How about showing us what you made!

Safe Turning!

 

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Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time traveler. Purveyor of the world's finest custom rolling pins!

Great info lewis. Thanks for posting.

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