My thoughts exactly. You can get an 8" bowl out of a midi lathe- 3600 rpm would whip that sucker around hard enough to rip my small lathe off the cabinet it's bolted to- if it even had enough power to get the thing turning to begin with!
That being said, I finish turn that fast- but roughing? You must have some guts for that.
Does Jet have a 10" lathe? I looked them up, and they call the 14" a "mini"- Delta calls it a "midi". They're almost the same machine, though.
To get back on track with the thread, I love my reeve's drive on my
12" Delta gap-bed lathe, but it changing pulley settings was never all that difficult on my Delta Midi, as the motor is so light and there isn't all that much lathe to fiddle with. Even going back to play with the Midi, which I still do every so often, I don't notice a signifigant problem with the speed changes. If I were to buy another midi (or mini), I wouldn't spend the extra $$$ for the variable speed, personally- they're still fun without the frills.
Reversing makes a lot of sense for power sanding. I find that I like the sandpaper to be heading down and the wood to be going up. Gives better control. If I'm doing the inside of a bowl, I have the lathe in forward, and the drill holding the sanding disk in forward (i.e., the direction you would use to drill a hole) as well and sand in the upper right quadrant of the sanding disk.
To do the outside, I reverse the lathe and leave the drill as is. The weight of the drill counteracts the lift resulting from contacting the bowl which stabilizes it. If I were to leave the bowl spinning in forward, I'd have to counter both gravity and the downward force exherted by the bowl against the sander.
It's also more comfortable to sand by hand as the sawdust shoots away from you when sanding the top of the vessel. Easier to see what you're doing as well...
...Kevin
If we're talking about the same beast, I assume the 10" refers to the swing, and the 14" to the bed length. My Jet mini swings 10, but I've never paid attention to the distance between the headstock and tailstock but 14" sounds about right...
...Kevin
Of course it is. If you're rotating in forward, the direction the grain lays down is dependent on that direction. It may be 'uphill' on one side and 'downhill' on the other, but as soon as you reverse the bowl your uphill side becomes downhill and your downhill side becomes uphill. If you reverse a bowl, any given spot you're sanding will by definition be sanded in the opposite direction that it was previously...
...Kevin
Prometheus, Jet calls it a mini, Delta a midi, and the Turncrafter is also called a midi, they all have a 10" swing and approx. 14" between centers.
here a couple of links, one of the Jet VS mini, one Delta Midi, and one of the Turncrafter midi thats on sale now for $179.95 US$
Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo
Guess I have to put those links in right if I want you to be able to see them, just a goof up on my part. I'll try this again.
Couldn't say- I've just got the Delta Version, with an 8" swing over the bed. I think it's 16" between centers. When I looked up the Jet mini on Amazon, it said 14"- though it wasn't really specific about what that referred to.
Anyhow, I guess the point was that when I was deciding between the two quite a while back, I noticed that the same size lathe was a Midi for Delta and a Mini for Jet. Just a matter of terms.
I hesitate to reply to this size thing - beating a dead steed and all - but I want it to be clear to those who may come across this thread in the future.
The Jet Mini and Delta Midi are both 10" swing lathes - the between center distances vary by a couple inches as I recall, but when speaking of lathes, most folks cite the swing dimension -- especially given the fact that both the Mini and Midi have extension beds available that would change the reference dimension if we kept citing between center distance.
I originally wanted to clarify the 14" reference Mac made to his lathe because Jet does make a 1442 lathe with a 14" swing but the discussion was about the Jet Mini with the 10" swing.
wow.. they really have gone up! My mini is a year or 2 old and was $225 on Amazon!
(We saw one at woodcrafters for $300 with a "free" chuck...)
New ball game, now... after spending Friday and Saturday in my shop, he wants a
12" or 14" Jet VS... and a vacuum chuck....lolMac
Might be confusing because I have the mini and the 1442VS, Owen... I probably don't separate the 2 enough when I'm comparing them here.. Mac
The mini (Jet) is a 10"... that's the swing over bed... My Jet 1442VS is: 14" swing, 42" between centers, variable speed... I think the one my brother is likely to get is the jet 1236VS Mac
Yeah.. that's always made me wonder what the Delta mini would look like! I guess in marketing, they can say "midi" and seem larger that Jet, because it's only a "mini"...
Kind of like buying custom condoms that have "giant size" printed on the package.. Mac
IIRC, you got your mini about the same time I got my midi (I think it was two years ago), and the Delta's price hasn't changed noticably- I think you just got a good deal at the time. I paid something in the $260 range for a display model that was discounted from $300 or so, and that was without the VS.
That could be, my mini will be 2 in June.. (well, to me, it might have been new for 3 or 5 years)
I think that the list price at the time was about $270?? Mac
That's exactly my opinion as well. For the small stuff like pens run on top speed. For bowls down to the other end for roughing. Belt changes can be minimal. billh
Have the JET VS mini/midi. Here are some specifics
5" from bed to centers' center lines.Variable speed uses three pulleys on head stock shaft, three on the motor.
The the speed varying dial shows numbers 1 - 5 but it's not click stops but continuous speed changes. Note that the speed changes are not linear RPMs Low Med Hi 1 500 1100 1700 2 580 1200 1800 3 680 1400 2050 4 900 1850 2750 5 1200 2600 3900
Having dial controlled variable speed is handy. You can chuck up a rough - square block of wood, mini-logette, etc. and take the speed up 'til unacceptable vibration begins - then back off 'til it stops. This lets you work at the maximum "non wobbling bench" RPMS as you go - increasing RPMS as the piece is roughed to round. When cutting in fine details like small beads or grooves, slowing the RPMs down for cutting them in, then back up for other cuts is quick, easy and controllable. Not so with shifting a belt from pulley to pulley.
Varying the RPMs with just pulley changes is in steps and sometimes being able to go between the steps can be handy
If the Reeves Drive is the mechanism that uses tapered shafts with a belt that can be slid along them in either direction - you get continuous variable speed - without stopping to change pulleys several times to go from lowest to highest RPMS. But the belt tension is critical. Get some stretching or wear and "ideal" and "real" start diverging.
The "Fourteen Inches" is between the stock centers. Use a big STEBB CENTER on the head stock end and live center with inset tips and you could be down to 13" or less. Add a SuperNova2 chuck and your down to maybe 10".
As for the price - got the VS for around $350, the non-VS model being around $250 then but I've seen it for $229. Only drawback to the JET is that I haven't found a commercial center support for it because they seem to start at 6" centers to bed. But it's not hard to make a "string support" that sort of works.
charlie b
Just want to throw it in for posterity's sake, since it's usually new turners looking at these.
The 5" distance from bed to center can be a little deceptive- the tool rest posts on the mini & midi aren't that thick, and they come with a
4" rest. I made some longer toolrests for mine, but they have a tendancy to vibrate a lot, so I don't use them much. For a lot of projects, you need to be able to get the banjo under the piece so that you can use the tool rest. Anybody who already has one probably knows what I'm talking about, but I never was able to get anything larger than a 8" bowl out of my midi. Could have got a 10" plate or something, I suppose- as long as it was less than 2" deep, with a flat bottom and minimal mounting hardware.Like I said, nothing most turners don't know, it's just a head's up for someone looking at getting into the hobby.
Hi Charlie
The VS on those minis would be nice if not for the drawback that you have the least amount of power when you should have the most.
The other thing is if you turn a "large" that is as large as possible say a 10" platter and you're cutting with your tool from the edge to the center, do you keep changing your speed ?? or keep the speed that is safe for the size ??, this gets much more serious when turning say a
20" bowl or platter.In most cases when turning a certain project the whole machining part of the job can and very often is done with only one or two speeds, like spindles, pens, at the high end and larger bowls and platters at the lower end of the speed range.
The sanding is certainly done best at the lowest setting for bowls and platters.
For a commercial steady for a 10" swing lathe Pennstate carries one.
Most turners know how to turn outside, reverse to inside, which pretty much means the toolrest isn't in the way and never needs to go underneath. One of the last things I'd worry about is the swing over the toolrest (banjo), unless I was turning something ten inches deep.
If your toolrest is vibrating, you're overloading. That's an audible warning. Then there's the stick-shaker - the tool chattering because you're at a bad angle, or the entire lathe/stand moving because you didn't make your piece as close to balance as possible prior to mounting. Correct the condition.
Ol' Roy Underhill has been using that oak toolrest for years. I used a spruce one 8' long for pillars. You don't need a banjo if you want to push the poor lathe to its limit.
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