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Mercury Minilathe - no guts

Hi, all,

My spouse asked sme time back which minilathe I liked best. Given that most use the same spindles and swing, I opted for variable speed (yea, I've since seen the new Jet) and said the Mercury. Several months later, it arrived as my birthday present.

Overall, its a nice piece of work (I may be prejudiced - I regularly turn on a Nova 3K), but as soon as I started using it , I discovered it has NO guts. I can stall it turning a 1.5" maple top with a sharp gouge. Did I do something wrong in the setup? Is their something I can do to improve things? As is, I'll end up with an expensive, variable-speed goblet buffer.

TIA

Ron Williams Minn-Dak Woodturners Moorhead, MN

Reply to
Ron Williams
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Ron, It seems that I heard about this situation a while back. The person who wrote said they contacted Teknatool and they sent him an adjustment procedure that helped a lot. (Of course, your's could already be adjusted correctly, and you're just accustomed to more power.) You might try contacting them and see what they say about it. Good Luck,

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

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Reply to
Ken Moon

Ron,

I'm afraid the only fix for your little machine is more horsepower. I have an old Jet with no variable speed and seldom have a problem with lack of power.

Barry

Reply to
Barry N. Turner

Hi Ron,

There was a thread at some point in the distant past about the problem of power on this lathe. It seems that some of the lathe motors sat too low. Belt was to long I think. The belt or the pulley would rub on the bench. This was fixed by adding a thin spacer under the lathe.

I don't remember all the details, but a quick search on the google groups should give you some more info.

Just a possibility....

Good luck, Dave

-- David Peebles Lyons, Ohio Revolutions Woodturning

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Reply to
Dave Peebles

This may be a silly question, but have you asked the manufacturer? A solution may be a phone call or email away.

Reply to
Mike Patterson

Hello Ron,

I've had a Mercury mini-lathe since they first hit the United States. Originally, mine was a 1/4 hp unit and was pretty well underpowered, but I was still able to turn a lot of things on it with no problems. I purchased it as a demonstrator lathe and it performed quite well for that purpose. I later updated to the 1/2 hp motor when it became available. I did have to shim under the lathe to raise it off the bed so that the motor did not hit the lathe bench when the belt was tightened. Is it possible that you need to shim the lathe; i.e., does the motor bottom out on the bench. Is it possible that you got one of the green Mercuries which had the 1/4 hp motor and many people complaining about the power?

Fred Holder

Reply to
Fred Holder

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 20:58:28 -0600, "Ron Williams" wrote: Make sure you have it set on the slowest belt speed in order to get the best torque.

Reply to
fipster

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