number of companies still making wood lathes

Vicmarc in Australia is still a going concern. Not sure if Woodfast is sti ll a real Australian company or if it is now a Chinese company. It might b e part of Jet/Powermatic/Rikon/HF/Grizzly now. Nova is also a separate lat he company. I think General International makes lathes. But they may be p art of the Jet/Power/Rikon/HF/Woodfast/Grizzly mess too.

So my contribution is: Vicmarc Stubby (sort of, kind of, maybe they still exist) Woodfast (maybe) Nova General International (maybe)

My understanding is that General International has gone belly-up. It used to be the Taiwanese arm of General (a revered Canadian company). A mainland Chinese guy took it over and had to relinquish any deals with Taiwanese factories. Graham

other poster says general is kaput

I think they are the same. Like Powermatic/Jet are the same. Woodfast use d to be a real made in Australia company on par with Vicmarc lathes. Diffe rent lathes, but they were pretty similar in being 20 or 24 swing and 36 le ngth fixed headstock lathes. The traditional old style lathes. Both were sort of similar to Delta and Powermatic in the USA. Old time companies tha t started 50 to 100 years ago. Now Woodfast is no more really. It may sti ll have machines with its name on it, but they are all made in China now. Not Australia. And the name is owned by a Chinese company.

I once found the website of that Chinese manufacturer and they showed a large number of different lathe models that they manufactured from big to benchtop, sans labels. So you could order a model and have it painted in your colours and it would be identical to some other importer's except for the colour and logos. Among the models was one identical to the Woodfast

till a real Australian company or if it is now a Chinese company. It might be part of Jet/Powermatic/Rikon/HF/Grizzly now. Nova is also a separate l athe company. I think General International makes lathes. But they may be part of the Jet/Power/Rikon/HF/Woodfast/Grizzly mess too.

not sure what is manufactured down under anymore

i know automakers all pulled out of there

australia started seeing too many asians for their liking

australia seems to have a fear of mass migration and rightly so if they want to not become a country of 500 million out of india china indonesia etc

i think they still ship all the blue gum trees off whole hog and do not even fetch a very good price

not sure what keeps them afloat i guess it must be their colonial status

Your response prompted me to look up Australia on Wikipedia. 25 million pe ople. 26% immigrants/foreigners. 12th largest economy in the world. Says services, tourism, education, finance are 70% of GDP. Lots of natural res ources. Iron, gold, coal, wool, wheat.