Let’s quickly cover some basic safety rules about the lathes so that you can make sure you’re safe when you're using the machine. First is RPM. It’s very, very important that you have the correct RPM selected for the machine before you put the work on. You’ll want to refer to a speed chart and make sure that based on both the size and the length of your spindles or bowls, you’ve got the right speed set up on your machine.

Also, you want to be certain that your lathe has the work secured. So, between centers, I want to make sure that I’m firmly engaged on the spur center and the tailstock center on this end. If I'm using a faceplate, I want to make sure that I’ve got screws that are plenty substantial through the faceplate into the bowl to hold everything in place for me.

Let’s have a look at the tool rest that’s very, very important. You want to make sure that the tool rest is always as close as it can be to your material without actually touching. Before I turn to lathe on, I’m going to spin that piece to make sure that if its missing on one corner, its missing on all four corners, so if I'm just a little off center, I don’t have a part that’s going bang into the tool rest. So, you want to make sure that that’s set up just right.

For you personally, there are a couple of things that you need to do. All the jewelry should be off, no rings, watches or bracelets. We don’t want anything that can get caught here. If you’ve got long sleeves on, they should get rolled up to your elbows, even better short sleeves that you don’t have anything dangling over the machine.

For personal protection, a couple of things you want to do, whenever you're working on the lathe, you should have a full face shield on. The chips are going to fly here, especially I think more so with bowls than with spindles but there’s always a lot of stuff flying off. Safety glasses are good. Full face shield is better, that way you’re fully protected.

A lot of stuff is going to get airborne certainly when we’re sanding but even when you're using a chisel, so a dust mask is a great idea so that you don’t inhale that stuff. The more dust you breath in, the more susceptible you become to becoming allergic to it, so you really want to protect yourself right from the start. We can roll these two ideas into one by using a product like this. This gives me a full face shield plus it’s a self-contained air filtration system. There's a battery in here, so when I have this on and I turn it on, it’s filtering the air that is pumping over my face. This is a great idea for when you re working on the lathe or even just in general, when you're working in the shop.

Those simple tips are going to help protect you and keep you safe when you're working on the wood lathe.