[Woodworkers] Best Lathe

gcw804 at aol.com gcw804 at aol.com
Sat Jul 9 19:11:23 PDT 2022


 
Chuck,

Sorry I'm late to the party but here's my take on lathes.

It really depends on what you are planning on turning. If bowls and big burls are what you are going to be turning then just buy a bowl lathe. There're beefy and take up less floor space than a convential lathe.

If you're planning on turning other things then a good traditional lathe would be the way to go.

I've got a 50's Delta 1460 with cast iron legs. It's considered a 12" lathe but in reality you can turn about a 10" diameter bowl because of the height of the banjo.

Even with cast iron legs and bed it will jump around with a large off centered piece of wood on it. I think the speeds without a jack shaft are 900-3000. I can turn table legs or posts up to about 32" long on it. I've turned table legs, newel post, bowls, and balls for the top of banister post on mine and 16" column bases on the outboard side too. They are belt driven so you have to stop the lathe and change the belt in order to change speeds. 

You can find them on Craigslist and FB marketplace anywhere from a couple hundred bucks to five hundred bucks with the cast iron legs. They're readily available. I buy and resell them all the time. Replacing the bearings is easy to do if the need arrises. If 32" long is the longest you're need then they are great little lathes which will last a lifetime.

Gary Williams

     On Saturday, July 9, 2022, 05:20:40 PM EDT, chuck.steger--- via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> wrote:  
 
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   At the first of the year I jubilantly declared that I had cut a burl at Christmas and was going to turn my first burl. I prepared the burl to a rough diameter of 14” and it weighed around 25 lbs. (it’s now around 17 lbs.). I knew I had to slow my lathe down for something of that size and weight. I have a Grizzly G0462 that is supposed to go from 600 rpm to 2400 rpm. I bought it used and, quite frankly, it never went below 1200 rpm. I wasn’t doing bowls so my speed range worked. Now, however, I need it to go slow. Several calls to Grizzly and several builds and rebuilds since then and I can’t slow it down. Now obviously I haven’t worked on it non-stop since January (this thing called life) but I just tried by last hail-Mary after talking to Grizzly. We both agreed if this didn’t work, it wasn’t going to work. It didn’t and they can’t tell me why.

   So, I’m on to plan B – a new lathe. I bought it used for $250 so I figure I can sell this discounted for $100 with a full disclosure that it will only drop to 1100 rpm (I did manage a 100 rpm drop 😊). Does that sound fair?

   But my main question is what lathe to buy? I always said my next lathe would be my last lathe so I’m willing to spend the bucks. When I first got into woodworking (many moons ago), Oneway was the king of lathes. But now I see Powermatic is good. Scott Phillips uses a Rikon that looks pretty cool. Anyway, what say you? If you wanted the ultimate lathe, what would you buy? I’m willing to dish out some cash if I think it’s worth it. I see where Powermatic sells one for $10,500 but it would have to turn the wood for me 😊. 

  

Chuck

  
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