Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)
Although there's a Jet mini lathe in my shop it belongs to my wife. She got hooked on making pens and small bowls a few years ago. It was a great excuse to buy a lathe, a bunch of turning tools and accessories for her. She took lessons too but the thrill has passed. It mostly gathers dust.A Navy buddy of mine needed a projectile turned for his 120 MM shell casing. He gave me a long chunk of a white birch tree trunk that he had carved on thinking he could make it without benefit of a lathe. It didn't go well. You can see his efforts on one half of the trunk in the second photo.The mini lathe bed wasn't long enough to turn the projectile with a slightly smaller diameter base for insertion into the casing. I turned the projectile as one piece using a face plate and live center. I then turned a maple base which was attached to the projectile turning. My portion of the trunk still had all its bark. It flew every where when I hit it with my 1” roughing gouge.His efforts didn't go to waste. I used his half to fix a three legged chair !