Woodturning/Copy turning

Copy turning is carried out on special lathes that control the cutting tool in some manner to produce identical items.

The copy lathe uses a template to guide the cutter. They are capable of creating good quality components for little expense in patterns and setting up. Sanding is usually carried out by hand.

Fully automatic lathes may use rotary tooling, profile tools, or CNC driven cutters to produce the shape. They are capable of producing work quickly and to a good quality finish, but these machines usually rely on machine sanding which will not always retain fine detail. They require special tooling and considerable set up for each job.