Just received my ShopNotes and was pleasantly surprised to see a shop built mini lathe. Have been looking at getting one for a few years. What is the wrecks' opinion?
Last post for the night, I promise
RJust received my ShopNotes and was pleasantly surprised to see a shop built mini lathe. Have been looking at getting one for a few years. What is the wrecks' opinion?
Last post for the night, I promise
R
Years ago, I decided to build a lathe. I had a good motor and some pulleys and a belt from a treadmill. I bought some lathe tools on eBay. I never found any Round Tuits..
I finally used the lathe tools for the first time, after five or six years of watching them collect dust. I bought a lathe, and tossed that stupid treadmill out of my shop.
I needed a small lathe for my small shop, and the small work I intend to do on the thing. The JET mini is in transition now. You can buy the old model with manual belt changes for $199.95 (exactly that if you go for free shipping from Amazon.com), or the new model with VS for somewhere closer to $400.
At $199.95 this is one hell of a nice little machine. Light years ahead of anything I could have made myself, and built much better than any of the cheap full-sized machines.
Depends on what you want to turn though. This isn't a big lathe by any stretch, and $200 is a long way from free. It was more than I had budgeted, but I'm glad I ponied up the extra $50 for this thing, and didn't miss my shot to get such a solid hunk of cast iron at that price.
Ron,
Like you, I looked at the Shopnotes lathe and contemplated building one that would be easily transportable. Several negatives come to mind:
My opinion, take it for what it's worth, is that the Shopnotes lathe is nice to look at, but the precision required might be a bit out of some people's skill levels, and the whole process might be better off spent buying a decent basic lathe and spending the time turning. I think Shopnotes is getting desperate not to repeat past articles by creating items like this.
Jon Endres
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I just got my #73 copy today so I see what you're referring to. Go for it. Build a super cheap lathe and see if you want to continue with turning. It's much cheaper than buying a lathe and building tools can be a lot more fun. Free motors can be had from dumped washers and dryers. A sheet of baltic birch ply is $20, and hardware another $20 or so. Have fun!
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Anybody wants it, I have a treadmill motor, two pulleys and a V belt. Only one speed. I think it ran off a variac originally, but I don't have the electronics, so I hard wired it. Ran it as a huge ass belt sander for awhile, which was cool, but hard on expensive belts.
Good motor. I'm never going to get around to doing anything else with it. You pay shipping.
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