5 items you can make using the drill powered lathe

Recently I made jig for my electric drill, that converts it into a mini lathe. You can find more about that here.

In order to show what it can do, I made 5 items using it.


1. Bottle cap

I used a scrap pine piece for that. I used my caliper to measure the outer and inner dimensions of the bottle neck's cylinder.

First I rounded over my piece using my rasp. Then I used a pencil to mark my lines. I used an ordinary flat chisel to do the rest of the turning.

After I was done, I used a piece of sand paper and sanded on the lathe.

I cut the finished piece with a saw, and I am ready to go.


2. A chess Pawn

Same stuff here, I begun with the rasp, then chisel then sanding.


3. Tool handle

The process is the same again. After the handle is ready I drilled an end grain hole on it, on my drill press. Then I cut the end of a huge nail with my hacksaw.

I placed the nail in my handle and I had made a marking tool.


4. A giant tooth pick

I just wanted to turn something long. So why not.


5. A spinning top

Who doesn't love spinning tops. So I made one. The tricky part here was that I wanted to make it's point on the lathe and my chisel was to big for something so small. Anyway it came out nice and with a bit of sanding everything is OK.


Ofcourse this mini lathe, the rasp and an ordinary chisel aren't the best case scenario when it comes to wood turning.

A proper lathe and a set of real wood turning tools can take someone's woodworking skills to the next level.

But if you need to make something small in the shop and don't have a lathe around. A drill can do the job pretty nicely for you. There are many people who have make drill powered lathes out there you can find some links below hoping I am not forgetting someone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCaGW9z4blM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGu0SLWoayY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSrI3yAC0L0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evr-IZwzyz0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzSkQT-NUXc

I would also like to say that try this at your own risk and try to wear eye, lungs and face protection when you do this.