Right on Derek! Due to pecuniary insufficiencies, I am still turning on a
1994 Sears Craftsman tube lathe. I have invested in a 2hp 3phase motor and a frequency controller, plus some link belt and find that I have no problem with the lathe, except its 6" throw. Ruth was faithless to her Sears Craftsman tube lathe and either sold it or secretly disposed of it with the arrival of the General. Now she is reaping the whirlwind of her ill-considered decision. She created a bad machine karma and thus she will suffer for her actions! *G*
I for one am not sure why they designed the lathe such as they did system for the tailstock and that washer where you adjust the motor belt tension... Well, I do know... engineers who have never used a lathe designed it. The Jet and Delta and others are knock offs of the Vicmarc (least I saw the VL100 two years before I ever saw a Jet mini), so I imagine they copied the Vic and made what changes the engineers thought were appropriate for manufacturing, not for actually using.
Whenever I go to the AAW symposium or to a woodworking show I always look over the lathes in the dealers room and at demos. You can always tell when the lathes were designed by someone who actually uses a lathe, or by a bunch of engineers.
I mean why would they design a lathe where you have to reach over the top of your turning to get to the on/off switch? Case in point the Delta lathes have the switch behind the headstock. Sure, you are supposed to use your left hand from behind the headstock to hit the switch. But all it takes is one person to get reckless and use their right arm, with a rough blank mounted between centers and then that person gets a nasty hit on the elbow. Lawsuit waiting to happen if you ask me. And yet, they did it on thier big lathe as well. Which I saw at the Delta booth at the Pasadena symposium this year - where they had some reps from Delta and Rowlings turning baseball bats. And get this... they were using standard woodworking gouges and chisels to turn with, not turning tools. Then one of them was trying to turn a bowl using a spindle gouge and wondering why he was having a problem.
Jet, on their new 16" lathe. I took a good look at that when Steven Russell was demoing for the woodworking shows. Not too bad a lathe, but you don't want to change the belt from one pulley to another too often unless you have small hands. They do give you an access window up front, but it was maybe
3/4 the size of the opening you have on the mini lathes, if that. Add in the fact that its a much larger belt, and it might not be so easy to manage. And the handwheel provided? Considering where they placed the motor, you only have a handwheel no larger than maybe 2" diameter.
Wouldn't it be nice if the companies made the engineers go out and use the products they design and become familiar with them so they can see the advantages and disadvantages to their design? Same for the Quality Control people as well. Have them use the machine for several hours a day and then see if they like the problems the consumers face.
I faced similar pitfalls with my first Delta lathe. I loved learning to turn and knew I wanted to turn more, but after a year or so, I saw the problems I was having and while some of them were my own doing. I fixed the lathe up as best as I could, and it did reasonably ok, but I soon wanted something better. So I was much more careful from then on in my selection of lathes and even other tools like my bandsaw.
Leo wrote: " I believe you should get rid of both of your present lathes, and get a treadle lathe"...snip... "get rid of your clocks and watches, and get a sun dial or hour-glass."
**************************** Leo, I'm this "l l" (fingers held 1/2" apart) to doing just that; getting a treadle lathe. I used to sew on a treadle machine so how hard can it be?
As to the clocks and watches, I stopped wearing a watch 20 yrs. ago when I quit my last "job" and every clock I own (3) is set at a different time! One year I went 3 days before I found out I didn't move the clocks for daylight savings time; now my son makes sure he calls me on that weekend to tell me it's time for the change! honest
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