[Woodworkers] Best Lathe

[John McCaskill]

Top quality large bowl lathes

Oneway 2436 24” swing x 36” centers 30-3050 RPM
Powermatic 3520 B or the more recent C model 20” swing, 16-3000 RPM. VFD
Robust American Beauty standard or long bed 25” swing capacity  x 28” spindle length on standard bed VFD 50 - 3000 RPM
Vicmark VL300 Short bed EVS 10 - 3000rpm, 600mm swing x 550 mm spindle length


I have the American beauty long bed and love it. I’ve turned on a Vickmarc and it’s great as well. I have friends in my turning club who swear by either the Oneway or Powermatic. Stuart Batty is high on the Vicmark.

Of course I talk to myself, sometimes I need expert advice.

A life? Cool! Where can I download one of those from?


> On Jul 9, 2022, at 10:20 PM, chuck.steger--- via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>    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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