Awesome Lathe

The Chiefs might have walked away from this year’s Super Bowl with the Vince Lombardi trophy, but that award has nothing on this handmade trophy by artist Blake McFarland. He crafted this beautiful scrap wood football sculpture for his pals who beat him at fantasy football. While he’s an expert at carving, Blake used the project to learn how to turn wood on a lathe.

When you cover things with resin and let them harden, they can be carved on a lathe, just like wood. In this video from Wood Workshop they show how combining blocks of wood with stacks of colored paper can produce an eye-catching work of functional art.

We’ve seen jawbreakers face off against a blow torch, a hydraulic press,and a sanding belt. But Ben’s Worx used his power (tools) for good not evil, turning a Monster Jawbreaker into a work of art by turning it on a lathe, coating it in resin to preserve the design, then turning it again to form a new sphere.

Maker Peter Brown once made a handle for an ice cream scoop out of moldable thermoplastic, but it didn’t last. So he decided to retrofit his brass scoop with something more appropriate. He took a big batch of colorful sprinkles, submerged them in resin, then turned the block on a lathe to form the handle.

The TIE fighters from Star Wars are some of the most intimidating spacecraft in the history of science fiction. Scott’s Mini Workshop celebrates the Empire’s starfighter by encasing it in resin, then turning it into a perfect sphere on his lathe. He’s also made an X-Wing fighter sphere using the same technique.

We’ve seen lots of beautiful and unusual items turned on a lathe, but we’ve not seen a woodworker use the method to create a model of a jet airplane engine until now. Gao Wood Lab used walnut, magnolia grandiflora, and red cedar wood to create this wonderful miniature engine, complete with a spinning turbine fan.

A while back, My Mechanics machined a sweet stainless steel 8-Ball. In this video, he makes a unique display stand for it, using a lathe and a rod of brass which he turned into a helical shape by gradually offsetting the piece before cutting. We wonder if he could create a double helix with a similar technique.

Artist Ray Whitby shows how he created a unique cylindrical jigsaw puzzle. He first designed and 3D printed the pieces using wood PLA filament, sealed them with superglue, and filled them with blue resin. He then attached the pieces and turned them on a lathe. Using latex to protect the pieces from excess resin was key.

Maker Nick Zammeti shows us how something as simple as a stack of handkerchiefs can become a work of art. Watch as he creates a small bowl from a stack of the cloths saturated with epoxy resin. As he works through the layers on a lathe, various colors and marbled patterns emerge from the pile.

Friction welding is the process of joining two metals together by spinning them rapidly until they heat up enough to meld together. Anni, Lauri, and his dad Timo from the Beyond the Press channel show how rigged up an old manual lathe to join two hammers together by rapidly spinning one while the other was stationary.

We always enjoy watching craftspeople turn objects intended for one thing into something entirely different. In this clip from My Mechanics, offers up one off the more impressive transformations we’ve seen, reworking an ordinary stainless steel bolt and a brass rod into a working combination lock.

Artist Mr. Zhou presents a wonderfully satisfying crafting video. The clip features ample doses of woodturning, pouring colorful epoxy resin, and then shaving the whole thing down to reveal its finished form – an accent light that illuminates with the colors of the rainbow. Sadly, it lost one layer along the way.

Woodworker James Garwood last wowed us with his 2000-segment pen. For his latest project, he challenged himself by crafting a wooden cube, filling it with resin, then painstakingly turning and sanding the blue material to create a perfectly shiny sphere. Support James on Patreon for a chance to win this unique plaything.

Woodworker Frank Howarth likes to celebrate Christmas by making his own ornaments. This year, he took some wood from a maple tree and turned it into a segmented sphere on his lathe. He then used his CNC mill to cut the “X” pattern into it. The 6″ wood ball has a smaller wood ball inside that makes a rattling sound.

Embedding things in clear resin, then carving them allows for the creation of all kinds of unique objects. In this clip from Wood Workshop, he shows off a neat vase he made using cut up pieces of drinking straws, resin, and walnut that he shaved down on his lathe.

Peter Brown makes all kinds of neat things in his workshop. After numerous viewer requests, he decided to try and make popcorn bowl where the bowl itself is made from the tasty snack. We were concerned that the wet resin would deform the popped kernels, but it turned out better than we thought it would.

Woodworker Matt Jordan takes us through the process of transforming a small log of apple wood into a beautiful coffee mug. We love the organic look of the burled wood, and the pewter-accented handle. He coated it with multiple layers of pure tung oil, which is both waterproof and food-safe – though each coat takes 4 weeks to cure.

Maker of cool things W&M walks us through the painstaking process of milling a set of teensy brass chess pieces, and crafting an elegant wooden board on which to play the game. The pieces are so small, the game needs to be played with tweezers.

Woodworker Matt Jordan shares an immensely satisfying woodturning video, in which he transforms a lumpy hunk of apple tree trunk into a beautiful work of functional art – though the final piece wasn’t exactly what he planned to make. The fillers are a mix of blue mica dust and ground coffee.

When we want to crack into the delicious lollipop treat known as Chupa Chups, we just usually tear into the wrapper by hand. But it can be a bit frustrating at times, so Japanese YouTuber なんとか重工 (Somehow Heavy Work) turned to an industrial lathe to handle the task for him.

Woodworker Carl Jacobsen made quite the mess in his shop for this experiment, in which he decided to turn a bowling ball on his lathe, chiseling away the ball’s outer surface and inner core to produce a surprisingly pleasing bowl. Carl says the biggest issue was the smell its core made.

Frank Howarth knows a thing or two about making spheres, so we couldn’t help but be transfixed as we watched him turn an ordinary block of walnut wood into a beautifully-smooth replica of an 8-ball. The round clamp he built for holding it on the CNC table is ingenious.

Builder Peter Brown takes a hunk out of a log of worm-eaten walnut wood and gradually lathes and shapes it into a beautiful work of art. The defects in the wood make working with it much harder, but result in a stunning organic look to the finished piece. Needles to say, it won’t hold cereal milk.