# Need help selecting a lathe



## nickelanddime (Feb 9, 2015)

I'm looking for a bargain lathe that can handle large diameter wood. I know this is a contradiction, but I have an endless supply of mature cherry, oak and walnut, which mostly gets burned. I do chainsaw/angle grinder carving, and thought I'd try my hand at turning. How much do I need to spend to do say 12" and bigger bowls? Am I better off buying a vintage machine, or a new one with variable speed? How important is having low rpm settings, assuming I can rough out and balance any large pieces by chainsaw before turning? Any advice would be appreciated. -Thanks


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

Where are you located? The first thing you need is to find a local turning club. You will never be happy with a small lathe trying to turn bowls. Low speed is very important. Before you spend any money find somebody local with a large lathe. Most turners would be glad to have you come to their shop, and help you turn a bowl. Most turners would also be glad to have some of that cherry, and walnut.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

If you look at prices of new lathes that have a 12"+ swing, you'll be shocked how much they cost. 

I'd look into used. Some newer midi lathes have a 12" swing and variable speed. 

Most midi lathes, bench top models, have a 10" swing and up to about a 20" spindle capacity. 

Make sure you account for the added cost of the required turning tools, chucks/ faceplates and maybe different tool rests.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

nickelanddime said:


> How much do I need to spend to do say 12" and bigger bowls?


 A lot of money. 

If you'd said "up to 12 inches" instead of "12 inches and bigger", well that's a much more economical picture.

But that's not what you said. So yeah, a lot of money.

This needs to be said. Turning bowl work 12" diameter and bigger is not entry-level woodturning. The real smart move (and in the long run the least expensive) is to learn how to turn smaller bowls first, on a smaller but decent quality machine. Once you get the hang of that, and if you then find that doing it really makes you drool after going big in the work, *then *start looking for what you'll need to make that happen. If the first "starter" lathe you bought is decent quality you won't have any trouble selling it without taking much of a financial hit.

And by the time you get to that point, you'll kinda know enough about the process, and about your own emerging style and preferences, to make informed choices about what you'll need.

For big work (12"+) you don't necessarily need a brand new machine, but you do need a strong and heavy one with enough clearance over the bedways to accommodate what you want to do, and you do need slow speeds and plenty of horsepower. 
Electronic variable speed is the best game in town and it can be retrofitted to older machinery if necessary.


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## nickelanddime (Feb 9, 2015)

I live near Pittsburgh, and it seems like old machines like the Delta 1460 come up almost daily on CL for a couple hundred. The local shopfox dealer has a new lathe for 800. I really don't want to mess around buying something, selling it, buying something else...As for trade...hmm... how much is a half ton of cherry rounds worth?


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

nickelanddime said:


> I live near Pittsburgh, and it seems like old machines like the Delta 1460 come up almost daily on CL for a couple hundred.


 A 1460 can be made into a very serviceable machine capable of turning all kinds of things reliably.
But it's not going to work at all for bowls 12" *and bigger*, which is what you're saying you want to do. 

If what you want to do is turn big bowls, you need a big lathe, and big lathes are not inexpensive. I have no idea what the shopfox dealer has on hand for $800, but it's sure not going to be something that will handle bowls 12" and up.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

9thousandfeet said:


> Turning bowl work 12" diameter and bigger is not entry-level woodturning. The real smart move (and in the long run the least expensive) is to learn how to turn smaller bowls first, on a smaller but decent quality machine. Once you get the hang of that, and if you then find that doing it really makes you drool after going big in the work, *then *start looking for what you'll need to make that happen.
> This was my plan. I didn't even plan to turn bowls, but then I was hauling firewood from a local sawmill. The loader operator loaded 3 large cherry logs on my trailer. I had to turn them. I can't burn good wood. I turned them and I was hooked. Now I love to turn big stuff. The little pens, and such just don't cut it for me. I am in the process of building a bigger lathe.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

nickelanddime said:


> As for trade...hmm... how much is a half ton of cherry rounds worth?


Around here not much. A local sawmill gives them to me by the trailer load.


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

nickelanddime said:


> ..... How much do I need to spend to do say 12" and bigger bowls?


Well, I spent around eight grand, but the sky is the limit. :laughing:

The good news is that I can turn things larger than I would ever want to turn. The thing is ... I like to turn. Some say that I am a turn-a-holic. I say, "not so, I can quit whenever I want to -- I just don't want to right now, but I could if I did want to quit." Really! At least I think that I could. Well, so what if I can't quit turning? That doesn't mean that I'm hooked on turning. Does it?

Honestly, a 12 inch bowl is pretty big. A much more reasonable size is about 10 inches. If you want to do bowls under ten inches then you could get a mini lathe for about $450. Add about another $300 for a lathe with a 12 inch swing. If you know what you are doing, you can get a used lathe for less, but most likely you won't know the pitfalls until you've been turning for a while.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

In theory it is possible, but turning a 10" bowl on a 10" lathe is pretty hard.


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## David Delo (Aug 22, 2013)

Next meeting for your local chapter is Sat. Feb. 21st at the Society for Contemporary Craft in the Strip District. Doors open at 9 a.m. and meeting starts at 9:45. Will have a hands-on session of roughing out bowl blanks on 6 or 7 different lathes with the Delta your speaking of being one of them along with some larger lathes like Jet 1642 and PM 3520B. Good opportunity to view and use possible candidates for your purchase and learn a little bit about the process from experienced turners. Feel free to call me with any questions at 724-480-7361. Thanks, Dave.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

nickelanddime said:


> I live near Pittsburgh, and it seems like old machines like the Delta 1460 come up almost daily on CL for a couple hundred. The local shopfox dealer has a new lathe for 800. I really don't want to mess around buying something, selling it, buying something else...As for trade...hmm... how much is a half ton of cherry rounds worth?


If you could find a floor stand you could turn your larger bowls on the outside side of the Delta 1460 lathe.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

Steve Neul said:


> If you could find a floor stand you could turn your larger bowls on the outside side of the Delta 1460 lathe.


 Depends on your definition of "could".
It's a lovely floor stand in your photo, but the lathe is a big Vicmarc with a powerful motor and electronic variable speed. It's a machine, in other words, designed to turn big work, and it's a beauty. But it's in $6000+ category.

Your post is recklessly promoting the idea that the only thing preventing a 1460 from handling large work is the absence of an adequate tool rest for the outboard spindle. 
You say nothing about the 1460 being simply too light for that kind of work and nothing about the necessity to modify the 1460 transmission to permit low enough turning speeds.

Once again here you are talking to someone who describes themselves as a complete beginner when it comes to turning, but yet you persist in making suggestions which sound simple enough but which won't work as advertized without a whole lot of extra work and expense that you neglect to even mention. 

Why am I following you around being an obnoxious nuisance by picking holes in your comments? 
Because you're flying a "moderator" badge, and that lends extra weight to the validity of your remarks even if you don't want it to. 
You have an extra level of responsibility to ensure that your suggestions don't misrepresent reality. 

Suggesting to a beginner (ie, someone without the experience necessary to evaluate the full context of your careless proposals) that if only they conjure up a decent outboard tool rest they can start happily turning large work on a 1460 is irresponsible.
It's baloney, and it's inexcusable.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

9thousandfeet said:


> Depends on your definition of "could".
> It's a lovely floor stand in your photo, but the lathe is a big Vicmarc with a powerful motor and electronic variable speed. It's a machine, in other words, designed to turn big work, and it's a beauty. But it's in $6000+ category.
> 
> Your post is recklessly promoting the idea that the only thing preventing a 1460 from handling large work is the absence of an adequate tool rest for the outboard spindle.
> ...


I'm just speaking from experience. At one time I had a homemade lathe and a floor stand. I was able to turn large bowls on it by loading bags of cement on the bed of the lathe to hold it down. Not everyone has 8 grand to put in a lathe and sometimes you have to improvise solutions. The 1460 lathe could be weighted down and pulley sizes modified to turn large bowls if a person was willing.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

Steve Neul said:


> I'm just speaking from experience. At one time I had a homemade lathe and a floor stand. I was able to turn large bowls on it by loading bags of cement on the bed of the lathe to hold it down. Not everyone has 8 grand to put in a lathe and sometimes you have to improvise solutions. The 1460 lathe could be weighted down and pulley sizes modified to turn large bowls if a person was willing.


 Sure, and that's my point.

If you'd mentioned all those necessary components of your suggestion from the start—the weight and mass problem, the horsepower problem, the spindle speed problem—I would have said nothing.

Your experience tells you those things are all necessary. The beginner doesn't have the experience to know that they're necessary, so leaving those details out when we're talking to someone who describes themselves as a beginner is misleading. 
That's my whole point.

What I'm saying is let's be real careful not to steer someone in a direction which will ultimately cost more time and money than the way we represent it. 

If we say, "oh, you can just get a floor stand and turn outboard" without mentioning all the other stuff, and someone buys a 1460 on the strength of that suggestion only to find out later about all this other stuff they have to spend time and money on, then I think the forum is failing to do what it should be doing.
Can we agree about that, at least?


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## nickelanddime (Feb 9, 2015)

Heh...I'ts amazing how valueless fine hardwoods are in a state whose name means "forest" ;-)

I might be new to turning, but not to woodworking in general. I'm good at improvising, and technique research. For example, if I got a 1460, I know I'd need to find a jackshaft to slow it down to 360 rpm (which still seems kinda fast for something big and unbalanced.)

Cement bags? Can't you just bolt the thing to the floor? 

In the past, I have gone the route of start small, work your way up. But every machine I've ever bought, within a couple months, I'm pushing it past its limits. Whatever lathe I get will be too small eventually, so I just need to find a good price/performance breakdown, which leads me to think old iron

You've convinced I need something that can do very low rpm, but how important is hp? Specifically, is it only important in overcoming the inertia involved with a large mass? Let's say I have a bunch of 50lb burls I want to turn. Could I just remove most of that mass with my powercarving tools, then finish the piece outboard on the lathe? TIA


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

You might get lucky and find a 1460 in good condition and which comes in full dress uniform.
Here's a photo of a lovingly restored unit with just about all the gee-whiz widgets that were offered at the time. It's a handsome machine, no question, but it's a medium-duty machine, and you're asking about bowl work in excess of 12", and that's a heavy- duty lathe application.

You'll notice that some 1460's came with a jackshaft giving the machine 16 speeds, but for big outboard work I'd probably still want to slow down the minimum speed quite a bit.
A series of workable low speeds is absolutely essential for large work. Totally essential.

Horsepower starts to matter a fair bit once you get up to 10". It's not just a matter of overcoming inertia, which takes longer with low HP obviously, but it's not difficult to bog a 1 HP motor down with bowls that big. Once you get above 12" even a 2 HP motor will stall out with a heavy cut. But by turning gently and taking very light cuts, bigger work is certainly possible with lower HP, albeit much, much slower. OK for a hobby context, probably, but hopeless in any realistic production situation.

Another issue with bigger bowls, especially if the wood is exceptional, is what to do about the material removed from the inside of the bowl. It's possible to get at least two more bowls from the interior of a 12" one by coring rather that just turning the whole thing out and making it all into shavings. 
Extracting an 8 or 9" or so diameter bowl out of a 12" diameter one really does need a stable heavy lathe and a fair bit of power. My lathe is 3HP and I've stalled it out a couple of times when coring a real big piece. I don't like to turn big chunks of real pretty wood into shavings if I can help it, so coring out the centers of big bowls matters to me. It doesn't have to matter to everyone, of course.

As a practical matter, a 1460 will be pretty inconvenient for regularly turning anything much above 10" over the bed.

Bigger work can certainly be turned outboard with a toolrest stand (you can just barely see the end of the foot of the outboard toolrest stand that was available as original equipment on the extreme left of the photo) but again, you'd have to work real slowly and carefully.

I've tried it twice, with two different machines, and I've never had good results bolting woodturning lathes to the floor. That does stop them hopping around, but for me it's always created higher frequency vibrations that are intolerable. 
Adding mass, like with bags of sand or whatever, has always worked better for me.

I see no reason why you could not do a fair bit of heavy lifting with removing most of the mass, especially unbalanced mass, by other means. 
I sometimes chainsaw protrusions and gnarly crap I don't want from a real big blank while the piece is mounted on the lathe 'cos it can be quicker than turning them off. So yeah, all kinds of workarounds are possible.


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## Bill Boehme (Feb 9, 2014)

nickelanddime said:


> ... Whatever lathe I get will be too small eventually, so I just need to find a good price/performance breakdown, which leads me to think old iron
> 
> You've convinced I need something that can do very low rpm, but how important is hp? Specifically, is it only important in overcoming the inertia involved with a large mass? Let's say I have a bunch of 50lb burls I want to turn. Could I just remove most of that mass with my powercarving tools, then finish the piece outboard on the lathe? TIA


Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. Some of us older guys have a soft spot in our hearts for old machines, but when it comes to woodturning lathes, the old ones really never were all that great. There are various reasons such as not many home shops had lathes and in the few that did, they were mostly relegated to sitting in a corner and occasionally used to turn some spindles such as chair or table legs and rungs, but certainly nothing comparable to the woodturning interest that exists today.

The evolution of turning tools were basically in lock-step with lathe development. Up until about 25 or 30 years ago, tools hadn't progressed much since the early 1900's either. There were basically four different turning tools -- that's it, just four: skew chisel, scraper, diamond point tool, and gouge. And, the gouges were just flat bar stock rolled into a shallow U shape. There were no chucks ... period. You could turn between centers or use a faceplate. There were no live centers for the tailstock -- just a cup center that you put some beef tallow in to lubricate it so that it didn't catch the wood on fire. Those wonderful old lathes were machines to be both feared and sworn at.

A used modern lathe in good condition can be a great way to go as a first lathe. It won't be your last lathe unless you decide that you would rather do something else. Some of the most expensive newer lathes have three horsepower motors, but really two horsepower should take care of anything that you would ever want to turn. In fact, you can get by with one horsepower for perhaps 95% of what you might ever turn. Turning a 50 pound burl on a lathe with a 2 HP motor is no problem at all. The motor won't even break a sweat.

Stay away from lathes with Reeves pulley drives (mechanical variable speed drive that uses split sheaves). A few of the really old ones were good, but parts are no longer available. Parts are available for some of the new Reeves drive lathes, but the quality and durability of these newer ones is not good. I have one so I know.

Step cone pulleys vs. electronic variable speed: On a mini lathe, I prefer the step cone pulley drive. On a full-size lathe with at least a 2 HP motor, I prefer electronic variable speed drive. Both types of drive have their strong and weak points.

Your thought about rough shaping a turning with your power carving tools and using the lathe for final turning is basically what woodturners do when they use a bandsaw to cut round turning blanks. The problem is that the center of mass and the geometric centers are rarely at the same point. In many instances they are considerably different. This is because wood is not a homogenous material. This means that a lightweight lathe may shake all over the place and walk around your shop with you chasing it despite the fact that the piece is geometrically centered. Now imagine a situation where you lathe is doing the jitterbug while you are using a freestanding toolrest that isn't moving. What do you think might be happening to the surface of the piece of wood spinning on the lathe? That's right, you will be cutting a scalloped pattern which will cause the piece to become progressively more-and-more out of balance and progressively more and more scalloped. Well, you get the picture, and it ain't pretty. I'm sure that you've seen footage of Galloping Gertie. You would have the same thing on a smaller scale. If you're going to use an outboard toolrest then you need to start with a solid heavy duty lathe.

I have owned several different lathes ranging from bad to best and have turned on quite a few (even including a foot pedal operated Velocipede). Right now, I own three lathes, but primarily use my Robust American Beauty. My wife told me that I should get it when my work started attracting serious attention ... and besides, if she says that I ought to get it then who am I to argue that I don't need it? :icon_smile:


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## David Delo (Aug 22, 2013)

As a follow up, here's a link to the Pittsburgh chapter website with information about what's going on next Saturday. http://www.turnersanonymous.org/


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## NCPaladin (Aug 7, 2010)

nickelanddime said:


> I'm looking for a bargain lathe that can handle large diameter wood. I know this is a contradiction, but I have an endless supply of mature cherry, oak and walnut, which mostly gets burned.


First, by "bargain" I assume you do not necessarily mean cheap.
I have a Nova 1624 and still consider it a bargain. It runs about $1250 new or typically on sale 1-2 times a year for about $1000.
It is belt with a low speed of about 200, 1.5 HP, 16" swing over the bed. For only $1000 more ($2250) you can go to the DVR XP with electronic speed control and 1/4 HP more. I have never changed the speed for spindles and typically only once for bowls/platters.

The lathe you mentioned, unless you use a speed reduction will probably be too fast for bowls (950 rpm?) and the specs I saw were 1/2 HP. You can rough out the blanks prior to turning but it will take quite a bit of time to get them "balanced" before turning, just mho.

How much your wood stock is worth I can't say, a big drawback is the cost of shipping if the blanks are very large as well as your time in prep work.


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## nickelanddime (Feb 9, 2015)

Thanks for all the info. That tip about the reeves drive is relevant, because a WalkerTurner just came up on CL... Also A Powermatic 90, which seems like overkill, plus it's 3phase... 

Your input has helped me zero in in what I need... now, its just a waiting game until the right machine shows up!


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

On a lathe there is no such thing as overkill. The bigger the better


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## Quickstep (Apr 10, 2012)

I bought a used Powermatic 90 a few years ago. It had been harvested from a school shop. It turns 12" over the bed and something like 16" or 17" over the gap. It also has an outboard spindle for those who might be brave enough to use it


It was (is) three phase. I kept the three phase motor and added a Variable Frequency Drive. The VFD gives me nearly infinitely variable speed as well as the ability to run in reverse. I sometime use reverse when sanding. The VFD also gives a digital readout of the speed. The only downside to the VFD setup is that it loses torque at low speeds, but this can be compensated for by raising the speed of the motor and lowering the speed by using the original variable speed pulley control. It is heavy, really heavy; which is good, but it was very challenging to get into my basement shop. Just something to think about.


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## BigJoe16 (Feb 20, 2012)

Quickstep said:


> I bought a used Powermatic 90 a few years ago. It had been harvested from a school shop. It turns 12" over the bed and something like 16" or 17" over the gap. It also has an outboard spindle for those who might be brave enough to use it It was (is) three phase. I kept the three phase motor and added a Variable Frequency Drive. The VFD gives me nearly infinitely variable speed as well as the ability to run in reverse. I sometime use reverse when sanding. The VFD also gives a digital readout of the speed. The only downside to the VFD setup is that it loses torque at low speeds, but this can be compensated for by raising the speed of the motor and lowering the speed by using the original variable speed pulley control. It is heavy, really heavy; which is good, but it was very challenging to get into my basement shop. Just something to think about.


I bought a PM90 nearly 2 years ago and it's great. 

Mine has a replacement 1 hp single phase motor. People always say the lowest speed, 500 rpm, is too fast for bowls, but the 900 pounds of steel keeps it steady. It's a great lathe, how much are they asking? I paid 900$ for mine?


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## nickelanddime (Feb 9, 2015)

1000 obo on Pgh Cl. But the point about moving big stuff is a factor. Hey, if anyone wants a 60" × 150" black cherry blank they can come get it...if they have a chinook helicopter.


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

nickelanddime said:


> Also A Powermatic 90, which seems like overkill.


 Just to be clear about my own sense of what's going on here, I'll just say this, then I'll back off. 
You probably don't want a Powermatic 90 for a number of reasons, no parts availability for one thing, and a Reeves drive for another (though there are workarounds possible if all the cast iron is there and in good shape), but that said, a lathe the size and weight of a Powermatic 90 is NOT overkill for the kind of work you're describing that you want to do.

In fact, lathes in the Delta 1460 class are very much underkill. You mentioned that "... every machine I've ever bought, within a couple months, I'm pushing it past its limits...." in a previous post.

I promise you that if you want to consistently turn large work in excess of 12" diameter, _you'll be pushing something in the Delta 1460 class past its limits right out of the starting gate._ 
I think that what I've said on this topic so far makes it clear that's my position, but it never hurts to be sure. 

Good luck.


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