shlonkin
I've been wanting to try wood turning for a long time, but a proper lathe costs several hundred dollars. That could be a huge loss if I ended up not liking the craft or was no good at it. So I decided to try building one. Actually, many moons ago I tried something much more complex with closed loop speed control and a fancy interface. That's a separate project here: https://hackaday.io/project/1918-fancy-lathe-made-from-garbage .
That project never produced a useful tool, so this time I tried focusing not on the electronics and features, but rather on what's actually important for a wood turning lathe. And you can see the result here:
Of course this is not even comparable to a lathe you could buy, but I don't think I spent more than $5 on it and it lets me experience at least an approximation to wood turning.
I'll update once I find time to play with it more and make something.
CriptasticHacker
Douglas Miller
Rory
Please please please - CLAMP IT ALL DOWN to a solid work bench. I am all for doing things from scratch, but ask any of the physics geeks how much potential energy is in your lathe set up. A wood lath is typically set at an elevation that you can work on it standing, but soild, no vibration. Your gear is bouncing all over the place mate, so get it stable. Other than that, and please, clamps are cheap, kudos and keep on with the DIY ethic.