Wood lathe

The wood lathe is the machine dedicated to artistic and functional wood turning: the workpiece is mounted between centres or on a chuck and rotates at high speed while the turner hand-feeds cutting tools—gouges, scrapers, skews—directly controlling the resulting shape. Unlike the metal lathe, there is no mechanical feed carriage: form emerges from the operator's sensitivity, making the wood lathe as much a craft instrument as an expressive medium. Sizes range from mini desktop lathes for small bowls and handles to full-size bench lathes for pieces up to 50–100 cm; for large work like platters or hollow forms a faceplate is used. It is one of the most common tools in FabLabs and woodturning courses.