I turn a lot on a pole lathe. Great video and welcome to the club! It can get addicting quickly. A few suggestions to make your life easier: 1) get some bungee cord and attach it to the ceiling across a good 6 to 8 foot span and clip your cord to that with a carabiner. 2) make your pedal as long as you can so that when it comes up all the way it’s at the height of your stock. Those two things will get you spinning much faster and more turns per stroke. Anything less than say 5 revolutions is really inefficient. Third, HSS tools don’t really work on a pole lathe very well. Find yourself some regular carbon tools. You don’t need the long handles (in fact, they tend to get in the way with a pole lathe as you have to cross your body frequently). Typically just carpenters chisels are what are used and these are easy to find used. The only “new” tools I’m aware of are the Ashley Iles carbon pole lathe turning tools, if you wanna spend that kind of money. Sharpen them with shallow bevels (25* or less) and keep them razor sharp like you would your bench chisels and then keep a strop nearby.

Hey everyone! I hope you liked this super detailed build video. I filmed 5 hours of footage, and the whole project was like 25+ hours and a lot of learning. Would you mind liking, commenting, subscribing, etc.? It would really help a lot, and many other people can learn how to make this amazing machine! Thanks!

Very good job and thanks for posting. Liked your tool holder - I extended the bottom of mine to cover the sharp ends of the tools to keep kids (and myself) from contacting the sharp ends.

Wow, pretty cool. I watched highland woodworker interview a traditional turner in his shop. He makes chairs. Ingenious really. Can’t wait to see you turn those legs.

Great video! But even better seeing the lathe in person 😉!!

I need one of them books for that

Well done

Amazing lathe! I love it 😍😍

hell of a work! Wonderful job!

Love it! Please make more videos...I love your style and this project really “spoke” to me!

Love it!

Thanks so much for this video! I loved how you showed all the failures and the successes! All the advice at the end was really useful. Cheers!

I loved this have been thinking about building one for some time. Will probably go treadle lathe though. The continuous motion seems more practical to me. Either design looks simple to add a drive motor to if powered turning is desired too.

Yeah, more videos! Keep up the good work.

I waited until the end to comment, but I was going to say that you would be wanting a hardwood tool rest. Walnut is ok, but I made mine out of hickory, and it still got pretty worn after 2 summers (my lathe is outside). It's definitely good to make the tool rest out of the hardest wood you can get, and maybe add some metal to it. As for tools, I've made them all myself, I made single and double bevel skew chisels out of an old 12" Hiller bastard file, and those hold their edge really well. I don't have a gouge, but the single bevel skew works really well for roughing. I've also made some scrapers out of high speed steel machinist's tool bit stock. If you have a bench grinder, it's not hard to do. I also made a parting tool out of another old file. And then you can turn your own handles for them and make them how you want, and make the ferrules out of 3/4" copper pipe. I originally made them out of steel conduit, but I didn't like how they looked so I went out and got copper. Anyway, have fun with your new toy!

Roy has the overhead rocker arm beam (which can indeed hit you on the head) but that does increase the relatively small movement at the end of the poles (under the lathe) due to the lever action. You end up with much more movement to counteract that of the foot treadle. You can then use a longer treadle. Roy suggests 4 ft.

TheEnglishWoodworker has plans for another very simple option of a lathe that can be clamped in the vise. $15 and 2-3 hours and you're ready to go.

I see self-isolation for the benefit is coming.

Your crafting is improving well. I'm not sure that lathe has much future considering the floor space it occupies. Set up in another place looks to be particularly finicky and difficult to get just right. Good luck.

Were can I get that book at

Given your shop isn’t the biggest, have you considered constructing as a top of the bench add on?

So, the whole reason l watched this was to see how you had determined the height for the centers. 😢