No Lathe? Build Your Own

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If you need to make round things, you probably need a lathe. Can you build one as nice as one you can buy? Probably not. But can you build one that will work and allow you to do more things than having no lathe at all? [Mikeandmertle] say absolutely! You can see the contraption in operation in the video below.

The build is decidedly functional-looking and only requires a few parts. Most of the components are unremarkable, save for a threaded bar, a metal pipe, some bearings, and a few threaded inserts. Well, there’s also a drill chuck and two lathe centers. Those don’t have to be very expensive, but they may well be the bulk of what you have to spend to make this project.

The optional drilling of the wrong-size holes and subsequent repair made us laugh, but we suggest you skip that step. We thought this lathe would be like many we’ve seen and use an electric drill as a motor. Instead, this lathe uses an angle grinder. It does look easy to mount and, of course, has plenty of torque.

In the video, it looks like there is a little runout, but that isn’t particularly surprising. It still looks useful for something thrown together from mostly spare parts.

You probably can’t use this lathe for anything heavy-duty. You could graduate to a cheap lathe and upgrade it. If you do attempt the build, you might look at a few other projects and mix and match the best parts.

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