General Maxi Lathe (25-100 M1)

Moro I still have my CTC lathe that is like yours only black. Great rig and I use it a lot. Mine has had little breakage except for the belt and that is just regular maintenance that no one should complain about. On the other hand I just finished roughing out 3 14" diameter bowls on my 15" Craftsman. It is is likely 11" over the tool rest banjo but no problem. Just position the banjo so it is not under the bowl.

"Moro Grubb of Little Delving" wrote in message news:snCyf.236524$2k.74237@pd7tw1no...

I'm sure others have, but the fact remains that small turnings are possible on a larger lathe, where large are impossible on a smaller. It will be a year come March that I brought my used 3000 home, and I have turned perhaps fifty pieces which are greater than the 12" capacity of Old Blue. I've done as many ornaments, and they rarely exceed 4" diameter. Nice lathe does both.

You have a lathe to play with. Shop for used, save some bucks, get one of the sturdy 12+ types. Or not. Just telling you what I did.

I am currently borrowing this very lathe from my local woodturning club and I love it. I was interested in doing small hollowing and "smaller" turning projects that doesn't require a larger lathe and this is everything and more. I am able to turn bowls as well up to about 9.5". The lathe is heavy for its size and very smooth....no vibrations.

Here is a link to an article depicting many of the mini or midi lathes available. You will need adobe acrobat reader to view the page.

"Moro Grubb of Little Delving" wrote in message news:snCyf.236524$2k.74237@pd7tw1no...

"Moro Grubb of Little Delving" wrote in message news:snCyf.236524$2k.74237@pd7tw1no...

Many thanks for the input.

I've drilled out the bolt holes on my current banjo, and tapped in thread for larger bolts, so The Ugly One is once again operational.

I agree with George, that I'd miss the larger capacity if the General Maxi was my only lathe. However, it wouldn't be, because T.U.O is: a) seemingly unkillable, and b) probably unsellable

So it looks like its here to stay. In fact, last night I brewed a plan to dump the tubular bed, and construct a new bed with channel steel which will give me an extra couple of inches of swing, and allow me to set my toolrest a little lower. (Its currently almost plumb dead center of the work, which makes removing the little centre nubbin a bit of a contortion).

So I'll still have capacity for larger items. However, I'd really like to try my hand at smaller, more delicate work (boxes), which will require a tailstock in the same general workspace as the headstock. And I've turned enough keeper items to squeeze the budget for the General Maxi past SWMBO...

Of course then I'll need another chuck (the spindle sizes are different), and more scrapers, and hollowing tools, and ....

But we'll take it a step at a time ;-)

/M

"Moro Grubb of Little Delving" wrote in message news:cz9zf.372007$ki.166014@pd7tw2no...

It's too bad CTC got rid of the cast-iron bed, rotating headstock lathe. It had a 1"x8 thread headstock with MT2 and was a fairly good machine for the money. Before you go chasing off on doing a rebuild have you looked at the Busy Bee offerings