lathe slowing

[dahlia1]

Hi,
I am reasonably new to turning, as I cannot go to my club, I have purchased my own Axminster lathe to
 use at home, I am turning  a 6 in diameter elm bowl for my daughter, I have a blank, when making it circular with a bowl gouge, getting rid of pva with sbowl gouge, I find that the lathe slows down when I apply the gouge, going back to normal speed when I remove the gouge, the speed is set to approx 1000rpm,
I don't remember this happening before.
Is this normal?, Or should I increase the speed
Any help would be appreciated
Peter

[malcy]

If it is a new lathe, it is probably a slack drive belt. Open up the headstock and check the belt and tighten it up as much as you can anyway. I assume you are not digging the gouge in too hard. Take just gentle cuts and see if that makes a difference. Hope this helps.

[dahlia1]

Thank you for that will check tomorrow

[Tim Pettigrew]

The other thing to consider is which set of pulleys the drive belt is operating on (assuming that the spindle of your lathe is driven by a drive belt on one of a set of pulleys).  If the belt is on the fastest pulley set (large pulley on the motor drive axle to small pulley on the spindle axle) then it will run fast (useful for spindle turning) but may not have enough torque (turning force) for turning a bowl blank.

If you change the belt speed setting so that the belt runs on one of the smaller motor spindle axle pulleys and the corresponding larger spindle axle pulley then, although the overall speed is slower, there is a significant increase in torque and it should reduce the stalling that you are experiencing.  If the lathe is equipped with variable speed then on that slower belt setting you can increase the speed of the motor to compensate.

I hope that helps and makes sense.

Tim

[Bill21]

It would be helpful to know what model of lathe you have, Axminster sell quite a few different ones.

[dahlia1]

My lathe is the ac305wl , it has two speed ranges 500-2040 and 1000-4080,
Advice to tighten motor seems to have done the trick, thx
However still confused on what speed range I have, manual vague
Headstock is on small pulley, motor on large pulley
Is that the low speed range?

[dahlia1]

Pic of belt

[Twisted Trees]

My lathe is the ac305wl , it has two speed ranges 500-2040 and 1000-4080,
Advice to tighten motor seems to have done the trick, thx
However still confused on what speed range I have, manual vague
Headstock is on small pulley, motor on large pulley
Is that the low speed range?

You are running on high speed range, (multiple turns of the spindle for each turn of the motor)

[fuzzyturns]

I would recommend that for most things you should work on the slow speed range (small wheel on motor, large wheel on headstock), as speeds of up to 2000rpm are quite sufficient for almost everything you will do, and in this setting you will get much better power transmission from the motor to the spindle. This is not a terribly powerful motor (550W DC) and if it has to operate at the lower end of its speed range it will not have 550W, but substantially less, and then a heavy cut even on a small 6" bowl can stall the motor.

[dahlia1]

Many thx for that info, will change over to slower setting