I bought a small harbor freight lathe for 200 something and never had the money to buy all the tools I wanted for it. so I started creating them as I went. hope you are inspired.

Step 1: Drill Chuck.

1. take apart the drill. this took me about an hour... sadly I found that my drill had a snap ring hidden in the plastic housing... anyway... once you get down to just the chuck and the rod, continue.

2. glue the rod into the wood. I used oak for this drill chuck. I drilled a hole and epoxied it in.... then I cut off the excess length.

3. mount the chuck. One of the hard things is getting the drill chuck lined up perfectly in line with the head and tailstocks. I accomplished this by first spinning a small spindle blank on the headstock, and attaching the drill chuck right onto it. then, give it a spin and put the tailstock in to hold it secure while you turn it down to size.

4. create the taper. when it is all lined up straight start cutting away. I got down to a rough shape, then just eyeballed it, tried it in the tailstock, then made adjustments. luckily I had an MT2 taper from my pen jig to use for reference.

5. finish. once you are happy with the fit, sand and oil. the oil I used was olive oil.

Step 2: Tailstock Jig.

this jig (whatever you want to calm it) tailstock cone... holds things which have been bored out. see picture 8. I used it on my salt and pepper shakers.

1. chuck up a piece if wood. turn it to a spindle just wider than your live center.

2. fit to live center contour...

when making this part, you can't just bore out the whole diameter of the outside of the live center. I needed it to fit around, but also apin square to the center, so I put a lip on the inside to hit the flat face of the center so it spins square. see picture 5 for what the tailstock looks like.

3. turn the outer profile. when you can fit the live center into the wood all the way without any wiggle room, keep it in while you turn the outer contour you desire. I like a tapered cone to fit into a hole, as pictured. someday I'll make one with a flat face to hold things onto a tenon on the headstock.

Step 3: Tenon.

so I bored out the salt shaker, shaped the outside and inside, and then cut it off. now to mount it the other way to turn the top of the shaker! (without a jaw chuck)

1. cut a tenon. I just used the extra end of wood I had just cut off my shaker from to form a tenon. cut it to a bit bigger than the inner diameter of whatever you want to mount, then use sandpaper to make it smaller from there. check the fit often. too far and you have to start over. just press on tight, and you're good to go :)

2. I use the live center cone I made on the other end to hold it so it doesn't fly off. when I want to work In the middle on the end, I just hold it with my hand gently. when it is mounted like this, be sure to keep it spinning fast, and work very gradually.

picture 4 is what I did with the tops of the shakers while maunted in this way. the next step shows how I cut veneers in tiny circles.

Step 4: Cutting Veneers.

1. turn a flat face on the headstock.

2. squish some sticky tack onto the middle of the face

3. press the veneer onto the sticky tack.

4. cut a circle. I use the tip of my skew because it's really skinny. the good thing is, you can cut right through unto the blue tack and the extra won't fly off. it will still stay stuck to the sticky tack.

5. for bigger pieces I used double sided tape, but I think sticky tack works much better for small stuff.

Step 5: Center Screw Faceplate

I don't like waiting for glue to dry for me to start turning, and I don't like a weak hold. so I made this face plate.

1.this one is simple enough but very useful. drill a pilot hole into your workpiece center to be mounted, and then screw in to it from the back of a scrap the 2×4 mounted to the faceplate. there is also a pilot hole in the center of the 2×4. picture 3 shows the sink hole I made for the head of my screw because my screws were too short. this is completely unnecessary If you have longer screws. I was just too lazy to go buy some.

2. tighten it down, superglue the edges, and hit it with accelerator, and you're ready to turn! 2 minutes flat. or less.

I love how stable it holds things against the face plate to turn things like a sal shaker far from the plate without the tailstock. This helps with boring out the center. one caution is that there is a chance if you hit it hard enough it will unscrew a little because the lathe turns in the direction opposite the screw. The fix would be to find some reverse threaded screws.

Step 6: Other Tips.

1. I cut a small piece of leather as a cushion between the faceplate and the headstock spindle so it can't bind on me. makes it so much easier to remove. see pictures 3 and 4.

2. picture 2. one thing I've learned as a lathe worker is to work the end farthest from the headstock first. as with this top, if you do it right, it won't fly off before you're finished.

3. always finish sand and oil as much as you can before cutting off your piece from the lathe. save yourself the time.

Step 7: Pictures

all the tools made for my lathe so far helped me create this salt and pepper shaker. from boring to cutting tiny circles on the tops, even making tight wooden caps for the bottoms using the tenon method.

when I got my lathe, I hardly used it because it was a cheap lathe with no attachment or jaws.. once I got into it I found it very rewarding making my own tools and jigs to get.my projects done.

hope you found it helpful! post your own homemade lathe tools and techniques, I'd love to see them!