Much ornamental turning work depends upon the ability to rotate the workpiece with respect to the tooling, about an axis which is not coincident with the axis of the lathe itself. For many tasks, the work is locked in this axis and the cutter is mounted in the lathe spindle. The DB1420 Ornamental Turning Device performs this function and may be considered as the heart of this OT system.

The DB1420 mounts in the adaptor on the compound table and provides a rotating spindle, the axially rotational position of which is governed by a 24/60 hole indexing plate, and an M33 x 3.5 mm thread to allow a chuck or faceplate, for instance, to be mounted on the spindle to hold the workpiece. Also provided is a cutter carrier which mounts on the main spindle of the lathe and which has a series of mounting holes for the toolholder, allowing it to be set at various offsets from the axis of the lathe spindle (hence the tool tip describes a circle about the lathe axis as the lathe spindle rotates). By progressively rotating the workpiece held on the DB1420 spindle, and locking it in position at discrete intervals using the indexing plate, decoration etc. can be applied in a regular pattern around the workpiece using tooling held in the headstock spindle-mounted toolholder. The exact planes of intersection between the workpiece and the locus of the cutter can be adjusted by moving the DB1420 by indexing the compound table along either of its axes of freedom.