Making wooden handles on a gunsmithing metal lathe

[Clark]

I have been making bolt handle knobs, file handles, hammer handles, and a lot of chisel handles.

Every day I wake up with a saw dust hangover.

[RP]

Nice work another reason to have a lathe.

[country gent]

I make handles on my wood lathe. But recently I wanted to see what 38-56, 38-50 rem, and 22-15-60 actually looked like, so I got the dimensions from cartridge conversions book and a piece of wood dowel and turned them up on the metal lathe. Made a dummy round without brass or dies.

[Green Frog]

Turning wooden parts on a metal lathe isn't that much of a stretch as long as you shape and sharpen your cutting tools appropriately. Going the other way and trying to cut metal on a wood lathe is not likely to be as successful. I've got some Osage Orange handles on a couple of schuetzen accessories that were turned up by an old friend on his Heavy 10... he regarded those OO handles as a sort of trademark.

Froggie

[W.R.Buchanan]

Good idea to cover the ways so you don't get Sawdust under the slides.

Also wear a mask as some types of woods are poisonous to inhale. Cocobolo and the Ironwoods are particularly noxious.

Randy

[Clark]

But Ironwood and Rosewood are some of my favorites


I have to vacuum the lathe a lot.