# Turning speeds



## crquack (Oct 10, 2008)

I had a look at a few wood lathes on the web. I am interested in the speed range. I think the lowest I have seen advertised is 400 rpm. The smaller lathes go seldom lower than 700.

I am reasonably happy understanding turning speeds when working with metal, but how does it work with wood? Presumably there is the same relationship between the diameter and hardness of the material but I cannot find any actual examples either on this forum or Googling in general.

Say you want to turn a 10" cherry bowl. What speed would you use?


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## Bob N (Oct 12, 2004)

The larger and more out of balance the blank, the slower the speed you would want. The cherry bowl you mentioned would be nice to start at around 300-500 for example. Many mini lathes go down to around 500, but to get lower you would most likely need to go with a larger model geared toward larger blanks.


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## crquack (Oct 10, 2008)

Thank you.

This is interesting: 300-500 rpm is a higher speed than I expected. When I looked at the recommendations for, e.g. Forstner bits, they told me to drill hardwoods over 1.5" at 250 rpm.

With metals I tend to use the same surface speed whatever the procedure - turning, milling, drilling - and adjust the rpm accordingly. Is there a difference with wood? Is it because one tends to burn the wood rather than the bit?


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## BernieW (Sep 12, 2006)

Bob is right that a 10" to 12" bowl fairly balanced (blank cut round) 300 to 500 rpm is fine. When I turn a big 16" piece of cherry with the corners cut off to make it more rounded I will start at 100 to 200 rpms. When turning pens or spindles such as chair legs I will kick it up to 1800 to 3000 rpm. So it is going to depend on what you are wanting to turn. If you are going to be turning mini birdhouses, lidded boxes, ornaments, pens, peppermills, goblets or say a 10" to 12" pretty balanced bowl blank a lathe with a low speed of 500 rpm is probably fine. I have a midi Rikon which will turn a 12" bowl and the low speed is 430 rpm. With the bed extension it will turn up to 40" long spindle. I also have a Nova DVR XP which go from 100 rpm to 3500 rpm but will turn 16" inboard and 29" outboard. Hope this info will help.


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## chippypah (Dec 24, 2007)

There really is no set speed for turning, except as Bob said slow very slow for out of balance pieces. You will just get the right feal for cutting and adjust the speed to what you are doing.
Cheers
Pete


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