HArbor Freight Lathe

The Rikon minilathe goes for about $250. Not as big as the HF, but a lot better. And you can get a bed extension later if you want to turn longer stuff.

Hi Cyrille,

If you are talking about this one,

it's a nice lathe. My buddy has this one and works great. It has a 1"X8" spindle thread so it's a standard thread size for acc. like a chuck or face plates. It works well for spindle work and I have turned a bowl on it to show him how to turn bowls. I always recommend the HF tools set You can't beat this set for spindle work. It's the same set several other dealers carry for about 1/2 the price. For bowls you normally need a bowl gouge. If you get just one I would recommend a 1/2". Nice general application sized tool. Good luck. Dan

Oh, man, I hate to get in these discussions. I know there are people who argue that there are good values to be had at HF--that if you buy a cheap tool for only one or two uses and get that out of it, then you've done well. I never have and never could subscribe to that philosophy, although I suppose maybe I've been more fortunate than many in that I've usually been able to get better tools for my projects over the years.

Anyone who thinks that HF is just an outlet house selling the exact same tools as Woodcraft or Rockler but somehow, magically, at a lower price, is living in a fantasy world.

Lathes need to hold wood, turn wood, support tools. There's not a lot of science in that. I made my own lathe once that was able to accomplish that. The HF almost certainly will, too--to an extent.

HF's problem is always about quality, durability, and reliability. Let's start with electric motor--you're taking a chance. It's not going to be a Baldor or a Marathon. Next, bearings--you're taking a chance. Pacific rim bearings aren't Timkens. How about the quality of the castings--you're taking a chance. There's a large variation in casting quality among Pacific rim suppliers. Don't think that HF's castings come from the same foundry as Delta's.

Do you have $200 to throw away on this experiment? If you do, fine, but consider it lost money. For a little more than that, you can have a Jet Mini, which aces the three categories mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph, and will handle probably 75% of the turning you are likely to be doing in the first year or so you have it. Then you can get almost all your money out of it by selling it, and you'll have the market to yourself, since few Jet owners sell their Minis. That should tell you something.

One big difference between this lathe and the Delta (later model, very similar, 46-701, which I have) is that the splay on the legs on the Delta is much greater. Unless there is a lot of distortion in the photograph, that stand appears potentially unstable, almost unsafe.

The ad shows five tools (not a gouge in site), but lists eight. The box looks big enough for five, but not eight. I have a HF about ten minutes away--I may run down there and take a look to see what it actually includes--the ad is certainly ambiguous since it doesn't really say how many are in the set.

And of course nothing here stated addresses quality. In my view, I already know the answer to that question, but there are some who may find them good value. Chisels can be considered consumables, depending on how much turning you do (and if you do enough to make them consumables, the HF lathe isn't going to stand up to it anyway), so perhaps they won't be complete throwaways.

You'll need it. There are very, very few things at HF that I would throw any money at. I bought some casters from them for my clamp stand. I don't know what the wheels are made of, but they stink to high heaven. I can close my eyes and find my clamp stand anywhere in the shop in seconds. At around $20, I can afford to have them fail early and replace them with better ones. We'll see how they do. I wouldn't take that same chance with a piece of machinery.

All you HF lovers may proceed to pile it on.

Well said HF is strictly for casual use! jl

Forgot to mention I got this one for $65 on a sale a few years ago. Current list apparently $135. Finally used it. It works - the plan was to buy the real thing if I liked turning. No legs - I just screwed it onto my bench.

jl

Hi Cyrille

I'll make it short and sweet as what my opinion is of that lathe in any color or any name, POS.

Go get the 5 speed Jet/Delta/Ricon/ etc. for $300.-- or less and you get a decent lathe for the money, and if you want to sell it again you will axually be able to do that and get your money back, most people that upgrade do keep their Delta/Jet/etc.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

cyrille de Brebiss> hello,

I own two. Get the extended warranty and make CERTAIN that you jump through their stupid warranty registration hoops.

The lathe is a good deal.

A point worth noting: If the Reeves drive is stiff, it's bad. A good Reeves drive operates smoothly.

The lathe comes with what you see in the picture. That's it. Lathe, stand, spur and live centers.

You'll want a scroll chuck, tools, and some way to sharpen your tools.

I strongly recommend the HF tool set that frequently runs about $40. No nifty brand name, no cachet, but I've been using mine for nearly two years and they've stood up to the abuse this newbie has imposed. With practice, they will turn bowls as thin as any other set of tools. I made two bowls today from spalted box elder that you could use for lamp shades if need be.

If your wife is going to turn bowls you'll find a lathe-powered sander very useful.

Get a decent respirator for both of you. PRONTO! HF also has these for about $25. They are not top end ... top end runs about $300 ... but they do meet the relevant gov't. standards and a $25 respirator today is worth more than a $300 respirator next year -- when you can hardly breathe.

You're new to turning. If this lathe is the best you can afford just now ... start here. To my way of thinking, it is better to make shavngs on a low end lathe than to wait until you can afford to jump in at the deep end of the pool only to find out that you don't like making shavings after all.

I hope this helped.

Bill

Hi All,

As I have watched this thread, my thoughts come to this.

Each of you is right. There really is no wrong answer. But it seems like most of you have forgotten something.

I will use myself as an example: I have a very cheap, and I do mean very cheap wood lathe. It is a Grizzly, so cheap that it is the next thing to nothing, It's motor is a 1/2 inch hand drill which also holds the drive center. Why? Because that is all that I could afford, it cost me less than $100 and no, I could not even dig up another $50 for their mini wood lathe which sells for $149.95. You see, I am on a very fixed income, and I had to make a choice of either what I bought, or NOTHING.

It is just as simple as that. Being that cheap, it is indeed a piece of crap, hard to use and very sloppy, with turnings limited to between centers. I recognize its limitations, but let me tell you what my alternative is, and that would be to make my turnings for wood gear clocks and model trains to be what I could make with a saw, chisel, files, sandpaper and 100 times the work to make each part.

So while I, like many others would love to have that $10,000 lathe and twice that in chucks and tools, it is something that I will never have in my life, unless one of you fine gentlemen chooses to donate all of that to me. But even so, there are others out there who would deserve it better than me, people who cannot even buy what I have, so give it to them.

I tell all of you out there these things because some of you with super deep pockets and those with medium deep pockets tend to forget that when a man tells you that he has only $200 to spend on a lathe, that he just cannot spend more than that unless he stops eating, or stops buying his medicine. Some of us do not even have a pocket. It becomes useless to tell him that he should spend $100 more for a better quality lathe. He knows, just as I do, that is true. But being that he cannot spend it, just as I cannot, that it would be kinder to recommend the best that you can in HIS price range.

As I said at the start, each of you are right, And I do appreciate your descriptions of your fine lathes, and the problems and fixes for them. You see, 50 years ago, I too had a fine wood lathe and good tools for a while, But how could I have that now after I retired 20 years ago on $400 a month pension?? My pension has not gone up. And SS is a joke. I, like many who write in asking questions, do the best we can with what we have, just as all of you do.

All that I ask is that you remember us poor ones when you give your good answers. Please do not put down the poor guy who built and uses a pole lathe because that may be all that he could afford. And always it is better to have something than to have nothing.

Thank you for listening, I do learn much from your answers, even after all these years. And who knows, perhaps one day one of my sons will surprise me with one of those expensive wood lathes, and all the tools that I could only dream of.

Zap

snipped-for-privacy@rogers.com wrote:

Well said, and I can sympathize. Being on the other end of the relative age scale, I clearly remember eating nothing but potatoes (the only other viable option was Ramen noodles, and I hate those things) for over six months when I was 18, and trying to pay the rent and keep the lights on with a minimum wage salary. I do a lot better for myself now, but those were days when my only woodworking was done with a pocketknife and some determination. There were no options, just the willingness to do whatever I could with what I had- and I still have some of the things I made back then- they're not any worse (and sometimes even much better) than what I now make with a shop full of tools.

I do try to keep it in mind when suggesting ways for other people to spend their money.

Well, hope your wish comes true- but in the meantime, if you have the inclination, you could use that little Grizzly drill lathe to try your hand at making a couple of pulleys, and maybe work your way into a larger lathe. I know I'm currently working towards adding a machine shop to my capabilities, but have a budget that will buy scrap, but won't buy a mill- so learning everything I can, and making them myself is the name of the game.

Cyrille, This is the exact lathe I bought 2 yrs ago to do all the work you see at this site:

The best feature of this one is the cast iron bed. It is very sturdy and the spindle housing mount to the bed is secure as well. I have turned and bored out some fairly large vessels, with my own heavy duty boring system. Once I even pulled a vessel from the chuck mountinng when I was boring the inside, and there was no harm at all to the lathe.

This is an exceptional value for its price.

Of course this directly benefits China, but what are we to do when we have limited funds? I could not afford an expensive Nova DR like I wanted, but this lathe has turned out to be very satisfying.

After you look at my art work I think you will be convinced that it is not the machine and the tools that are the majority of influence, but the passion and talent of the artist that affect the final outcome of the work.

I would recommend, you save enough m> hello,

Cyrille,

Get the lathe and the warranty. Buy the HF set of chisels and add buy better ones as needed. Also get a cheap 6" grinder to sharpen your tools on. You might be able to check out turning videos at your local library or woodturners club.

Lots of guys get their start on cheap equipment.

My first lathe was the old Craftsman mono tube model. Not knowing better I turned the corner posts for my bed out of 6" X 6" fir. The posts at the headboard are 5' tall turned in two sections. The foot board posts are 36" long. I used the cheap craftsman chisels when I turned them and not knowing better only sharpened the chisels once during the whole project! I also turned a couple hundred pot pipes. I was only 17 and my wife and I still sleep in the bed 25 years later. I turned a lot of stuff and had a lot of fun with that piece of crap lathe.

I have a friend who made his own lathe. The tail stock does not even line up properly. When I first met him he had a 3/4 hp motor on it. He was turning vessels over 24" He had to spin the bowl to start the motor because the motor was not strong enough to start on its own with a large bowl blank. He also had to use a light touch while cutting so the motor would not stall. The grinder he used to sharpen his chisels was about $25.00 new. Most of his chisels were home made. No fancy scroll chucks just home built face plates. At that time he was selling his turnings in the $500 to $4000. range. He is still using the same cheap equipment except ( I bought him a 3hp motor) and his turnings have sold as high as $10,000 He is doing Ed Maulthorup(sp?) type stuff through Galleries in Scottsdale, AZ and other southwest galleries.

He helped me build a 50" bowl lathe with no tail stock. I turned bowls up to

30" on it from start to finish without a tail stock or any fancy scroll chucks. I didn't like turning large so I sold it and now have a vicmark mini lathe.

So my point is you can have fun and learn to turn without spending a lot of money. You don't need a slow speed grinder, sorby chisels, scroll chucks or other expensive bells and whistles to have fun turning.

Some people on here have never been poor.

cm

hello,

Can you enlighten me here? what is a "Reeves drive"? and how to I test it?

I imagine that I should have a 3 or 4 linked jaws chuck, the HF one, with 4 independent jaws is probably not a good idea, isn't it? Do you have advices on a cheap OK chuck?

HF has 2 set of tools, one with a wood handle and one, $10 more or so with a deep burgondy red color handle and steel that look thiker.... they apear to be of better quality... which one do you advise?

Yep, will do...

Thanks, cyrille

Hi Cyrille,

This tools set is the one to get,

It's $35 and you can catch it on sale occasionally at $29. You are correct in not getting the HF chuck. Penn State has this chuck for sale , the Oneway and Nova are very nice chucks as well. But they will cost almost as much or more than your lathe. Dan

When I bought mine years ago, the ugly burgundy handles were the high speed steel ones - that's the ones you want. In case the color has changed, look for "HSS" stamped on the blades.

A good first turning project is some replacement handles :-).

I've used the HF laths, and as long as you don't expect to use it everyday, it will hold up. My only grip is that the tolerences in the bearings on the head and tail stock are sometimes a little sloppy.

My advise, buy what you can afford; put the money away and save up for a better brand.

Art

ago, the ugly burgundy handles were the high speed

What I have turned on my cheap throw away Grizzly lathe.

for those who may be interested, that much can be done with even the cheapest of lathes.

All the round parts were turned on Grizzly's hobby lathe ($44.95) 6 inch swing, 24 inch between centers. that uses a 1/2 inch drill motor for the head. (Use your own drill motor) Just to show that it can be done.

Zap

What I have turned on my cheap throw away Grizzly lathe.

for those who may be interested, that much can be done with even the cheapest of lathes.

All the round parts were turned on Grizzly's hobby lathe ($44.95) 6 inch swing, 24 inch between centers. that uses a 1/2 inch drill motor for the head. (Use your own drill motor) Just to show that it can be done.

Zap

SNIP

Wow! Nice job! Did you make that from a plan, or did you work out the measurements yourself?

You are perfect proof of what I tell the guys that work for me.... "don't worry, if you actually get as good as that tool, I'll buy you a better one."

I still remember when Ruth Niles used to participate frequently on this group, and all she had was an old Sears monotube. When she went full time as a turner, she used the lathe until she could afford the infamous "General".

I like your choo choo a lot.

Robert

I've been using a Grizzy 4-jaw scroll chuck for two and a half or three years- while it may not be as good as a Oneway or similar chuck, it hasn't let me down yet.

Here's the link:

It uses tommy bars for tightening, and not a key, but as long as you're careful to make sure the wood is sound and you've got it seated properly, it does the job pretty well- and it's under $50. They've got a few different thread sizes to choose from. A few notes on using a cheaper chuck like this-

Try to make the tenon or recess close to the size of the chuck when it is closed- the closer it is, the more metal is actually gripping the workpeice once it is clamped.

Set the workpiece flat on a bench, then set the chuck (unscrewed from the lathe) on top of it to allow gravity to seat it while you're tightening with the tommy bars. If you try to do it while it's on the lathe, you're going to struggle with it.

Make the tenon long enough (or deep enough, in the case of a recess) to ensure that the end of the tenon seats firmly against the jaws. This will really help if you need to remove the piece and remount it later.

Don't crank on those tommy bars too hard- after a certain point, you're just damaging wood and bending the bars. If you're having trouble with grip, see the first tip.