I am interested in purchasing a mini-lathe for my basement Jet or Delta what's your opinion. I have a Jet 1642 in the garage and like it very much. Larger lathe is in garage and diffcult to work at night time. I think a small min-lathe will offer the time to turn at night time in te basement
JET!
Go for the Jet Mini. I think the quality is better. At least it was when they were made in Taiwan.
Barry
Can't speak about the Jet as I've no experience with one but I've got the Delta mini and doubt I could be any more pleased with another brand than I am with the Delta. Its outstanding! Sorry for the paraphrase. Actually I have used a Jet at club demos, it's ok, but not as easy to use as the Delta, I'm used to having the power switch up high where I can hit it fast.
I liked the Delta-mini so much I bought the Delta 1440 for my larger work horse.
mike
John DeBoo wrote:
Yeah... what John said... I like my Jet a lot..
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
Mike... now that you mention it, that's the thing that I found strange on my Jet mini, but I thought that it was because I'm used to the shopsmith, which has the switch on the headstock.. (and I'm left handed) I have it plugged into a power strip and use that for the switch... seems funny that they run the wiring from the head stock to the tail stock, just to put the switch there.. I noticed that the bigger Jet lathes have them on the head stock..
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
Delta, but opinions are, well, everyone has one. I doubt you would go wrong with either
I've turned quite a few full-capacity chunks on my Delta midi for upwards of 4 years now. I certainly push the little machine on a regular basis but it keeps on going. This past summer I decided to replace the bearings after turning some acrylic, polycarb and the like for my vacuum chucking needs. The plastic had a tendency to wrap around the spindle and get pulled past the seal and into the forward bearing. After the plastic job was finished, I decided to just replace both bearings given the hard use I've given the lathe. I don't recall where I got the replacements, maybe MSC, but I chose the premium, electric motor grade, Japanese bearings and I don't think the pair cost more than $20 or so. With just a slight bit of shade-tree mechanic, the swap is quick and painless.
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