More Wood Turning on the New HF Lathe

So far I'm putting the new/old wood lathe to good use. Ok, maybe not "good" use but it is getting used. I've had the lathe for almost a month. I've made three bowls, a candle holder, a dried flower holder, and two pens. This first photo is the latest, a candle holder. Next to it is a fused glass piece my wife made in her studio.

My First Woodturning Pen Project on the HF Lathe

New tools in the basement usually require new accessories. My new/old Harbor Freight wood lathe is no exception. Just setting up for pen turning required $56 worth of stuff: metric drill bits (yes, I've gone 60+ years without a set of metric drill bits), pen mill barrel trimmer, cyanoacrylate (CA) glue (so-called super glue), and glue activator. And then there's the pen kit. That was another $22 but I opted for a better quality pen.

Central Machinery (Harbor Freight) Wood Lathe - Making a Spindle Handwheel

I noticed folks online talking about these Harbor Freight lathes not coming with a handwheel on the left side of the headstock spindle. They'd mention that the Jet JWL-1236 lathe had an available handwheel that might fit this HF lathe. After more searching, I did find in one case someone took the chance and actually did buy a Jet handwheel to see if it would work on their HF lathe, which it did. That was back when the handwheels were $33 shipped. Today (2023) that same handwheel is somewhere around $90 to $140, if you can find one. That price is out of the realm of most people buying one just to "see if it fits". Fortunately someone did the legwork back when they were cheaper. This first photo is a stock photo of the Jet handwheel that I grabbed off the net.

Central Machinery (Harbor Freight) Wood Lathe T34706

Yes, I just got done saying in the last blog that I was keeping the ShopSmith wood lathe. Then this shows up in my basement.....