Portfolio

Mini Wood Lathe

As a part of our Mechanical Design course's final project, my team and I designed, machined, and assembled a mini wooden pen lathe with 6 adjustable speed settings. Our project was broken into the following subsystems: Structure, Headstock, Transmission, Tool Rest, Tailstock, & Electrical.

Link to Project Site

Responsibilities

For this project, my responsibilities included the design and CAD for the Tool Rest and Structure subsystems, as well as machining several components for multiple subsystems using a manual mill and manual lathe. I also worked on our project's website design.

Tool Rest Design

The Tool Rest subsystem is a

multi-axis adjustable support

and guide which sits on the

bed for wood lathe tools to be

held against for stability when

turning. Our design locks its position

on the bed into place using a CAM locking mechanism.

The hand/tool rest piece was designed with ergonomics, function, and ease of machining in mind. It is the perfect length for turning pens with the mandrels in Olin’s shops and was machined out of steel for extra strength. The retention of the rest piece was also designed to allow for rotation and height adjustment.

The Structure subsystem comprises of the bed, ways, sheet metal enclosure, and support beams for the transmission and motor mounting.

The main bed has steel ways that allow the tool rest and tailstock to move closer to or further away from the headstock. It is bolted to the rest of the structure to allow for realignment. We also added feet to the bottom beams of our structure with slot clearances to allow users to bolt the lathe down for extra stability when in use.

The headstock and transmission are supported by a plate at the wider end of the structure, which also supports the motor.

We have designed our structure with the motor mounted to a plate, which rotates to tension and de-tension the belt in order to switch the transmission between different speeds.

Structure Design

Below are a few videos of our lathe in use!