taket he lathe survey

[Electric Comet]

they make a real nice top of the line lathe but are considering a ~3000 dollar model

[russellseaton1]

Not sure where you got the $3000 comment. The questionnaire does seem to i ndicate Robust is working on making a mini lathe. Seems odd to me. It doe s not fit their company. Oneway made a mini lathe. Maybe one or two peopl e on earth own it. Maybe. I am sure it is of the highest quality mini lat he. Problem is a mini lathe does not really need to be very high quality t o be very functional and good. Oneway probably sold 10 or 100 times more o f their $7000 big 2436 lathe than they did of their $2000 mini 1018 lathe. Doubt there is even much market for Oneway's 1224 small lathe either. Its $2500 or so. I would think Robust would be smart enough to look at their competitor and see how it failed. Mini lathes probably outsell the big lat hes 10 to 1 or more. But the Chinese companies have the market cornered on mini lathes. And being cheap, there is not much profit margin on each lat he. Volume selling is the key. And again with mini lathes, there is no re ason to spend much money. Lathes are pretty simple tools in general. Its pretty easy to make an acceptable lathe. Not fancy, but it works fine, for cheap. Why spend 5 times ($1000-$2000) more for a nice mini lathe?

Not exactly comparable. But its kind of like hammers. Every kid and adult needs a hammer of some kind. You could get a cheap Chinese one that will fracture and put your eye out. Don't do that. But Stanley and Vaughn and Sears all make decent 16 ounce claw hammers. Good enough for starting out as a kid or for people who do not really need a hammer except to pound a na il into the wall to hang a picture once a year. No need to buy one of thos e titanium hammers. Like mini lathes. Why spend thousands on a simple sma ll lathe when a $400 mini lathe will do fine?

[Electric Comet]

from their home page link to the survey their target is sub 3k but not a mini or midi they are moving into a more competetive space but looking forward to seeing what they make

[russellseaton1]

Will be interesting to see if they come out with a different lathe. Seems like they have a lathe for all markets now. By competitive space I assume you mean a different product market. A different lathe category/type. All the questions on their questionnaire seem to reflect mini midi lathes in s ize and function. 12" swing, 24" between center, 1 HP, bench mounted, bed extension. Sounds like a perfect description of a midi lathe to me. I am going to stick with my previous comments. I don't see a market for a high end, precision, wonderful small lathe. That costs $2999. I am sure it wil l be wonderful if Robust makes it. Especially at $2999. But who would buy it? There are many OK, good, fine, dandy small lathes now for $500 or les s. If a turner is spending $2999, they want size, function, capability the y cannot get on a $500 lathe. The quality cannot overcome the lack of abil ity.

[Electric Comet]

no i meant that they go down into a different price range and target a different customer

that is a price range that is more competitive but read below

i think you are right about the target being a midi and i agree that it makes little sense

they are trying to increase market share but doing it all wrong i read over the survey too quickly i think

[russellseaton1]

I think we mean the same thing by competitive space, different lathe catego ry/type, different price range, target a different customer.

I had never paid much attention to the Robust lathe models and prices excep t for the American Beauty. Their lathes are the following:

American Beauty $6795 Liberty with legs $5895 Sweet 16 $6195 Independence $6495

They do not have any lower priced lathes at all. Maybe an analogy would be there are no low cost Rolls-Royce or Ferrari cars. The Liberty is kind of a small Beauty. But its priced almost the same. The Sweet and Independen ce are sort of specialty lathes.

I can understand the desire to expand their market to more lathe buyers and become a bigger manufacturer. They made an attempt at that with the AB an d Liberty. Same lathe but smaller. But the price is hardly any smaller. So they are going to try this again by making a MUCH smaller lathe, a mini/ midi lathe, and see if they can get the price a lot lower.

But I do not think there is any market to capture in that $3000 price range with a small lathe. Lathe buyers seem to fall into two categories. Low c ost mini/midi lathe owners who are happy with their cheap but highly functi onal lathe. And big time fanatical lathe turners who want BIG and expensiv e.

Powermatic/Jet might have a good circle around the lathe buyer. PM makes i ts huge 4224 lathe priced and functionally the same as the Robust AB. And the PM3520 priced at $4000. A step down in function from the biggest, but more than functional enough. Lower priced than any of the Robust. Jet mak es a 1642 smaller lathe priced around $2500. Similar function but smaller. Jet also makes a smaller lathe and its midi lathe. Jet/PM covers all lat he buyers.

[Electric Comet]

they are made in usa so that is a selling point and some still care about that but it is hard to care so much as to spend 3-4 thousand more

agree that they should not bother but i still look forward to whatever they come up with if they do decide to pursue this

just a spectator i do wonder what the wood lathe market is though

[russellseaton1]

Oneway sells their 1224 model for about $2500 now. Its a Big mini lathe mo re or less. Made in Canada. Not exactly the same as Made in the USA. But I expect many would not complain about Canadian made. Wonder if Oneway se lls many 1224 lathes. They apparently did not sell enough 1018 lathes to k eep making it after they came out with the slightly bigger 1224 model. The 1018 had the same capacities as the cheap mini/midi lathes but was 3-4 tim es more expensive. And just a little cheaper than the 1224. The 1224 is j ust a bit bigger than the mini/midi lathes in capacity. It is comparable t o the old standard spindle lathes that turned 12" diameter and 36" between center.

Will be interesting to see if Robust produce another model of lathe. Looks like Robust is going to make a lathe to compete directly with the Oneway 1

224 model. Maybe Oneway is selling a lot of the 1224 lathes and Robust wan ts to take some of the pie from Oneway. I have never even thought about th e Oneway 1224 lathe. But maybe there are lots of people out there who want a small/standard size lathe of very high quality and are willing to pay a price for it.

[Electric Comet]

i doubt they sold many of those at that price maybe to the military

glad it costs nothing to be a spectator

would guess that it is a small market and not worth it to go after but they do anyway so must be something that i am missing

wonder what r&d costs are for introducing a new lathe to market

it has to be in the thousands at least

i would guess at least 50 to 200 thousand in r&d

[Bill]

50,000 wouldn't even pay for 1 engineer for a year.

[graham]

I would hope not, given the amount that Canada buys from the US. It's the export of jobs to China that I object to. Powermatic appears to be the only maker of high quality machines left! Graham

[graham]

Of course with Oneway and Robust lathes.

[russellseaton1]

???? ALL of the Powermatic/Jet lathes and woodworking machines are made in China. Powermatic is a US company in name/history only.

Regarding the comments about the research and development costs of making a small lathe for Robust. I doubt the costs would be very high at all. Rob ust already makes its American Beauty (Big) and Liberty (Medium) lathes. S o to create a new small lathe they would just reduce the size of all the pa rts used on the other two lathes. I would not think that would require too much time, money, or even skill. Just make every part half size and you h ave the new small lathe. Costs as a concept would come in when you try to figure out if the cost to make a part half size equals 50% less price. Not sure about that. I doubt making all the American Beauty big parts half si ze would equal paying half price by Robust. Thus they probably cannot make a small, half size lathe, for half the retail price. Whether its a good b usiness decision to make a small lathe costing $3000 is still to be determi ned.

[Electric Comet]

for robust they have their partners lined up and ready

with cad things can be changed and iterated over very quickly

yep we are just spectators in this

[graham]

I should have been clearer. I meant that PM appeared to be one of 2 US companies actually making their machines in the US from US made parts.

[russellseaton1]

Powermatic is a US company in name only. Below is what I found on the Powe rmatic website. Assume Tenex is a holding company. The website says there is a large Powermatic facility in LaVergne, Tennessee. But I doubt many o r even any Powermatic machines have been built in the USA for the past 30 y ears or more. Powermatic "making their machines in the US from US made par ts"? No.

"In October of 1999 Powermatic was purchased by WMH, who already owned Jet Tools, and Performax Products. These three companies along with the Wilton Tool Company were grouped together to form the WMH Tool Group. In 2014, Pow ermatic was purchased, along with its sister brands by Tenex Group and are now grouped together to form JPW Industries Inc., as they are still known t oday."

[graham]

Pity! A great pity! I once was in the market for a table saw and compared a General (a superb machine when they were made in Quebec) with a US made PM. The trunions on the PM made the General look light duty! The General foundry has closed and the trademark is stuck on Taiwanese machinery.

[J. Clarke]

lathe. Costs as a concept would come in when you try to figure out if the cost to make a part half size equals 50% less price. Not sure about that. I doubt making all the American Beauty big parts half size would equal paying half price by Robust. Thus they probably cannot make a small, half size lathe, for half the retail price. Whether its a good business decision to make a small lathe costing $3000 is still to be determined.

But they aren't.

If you want power tools made in America by Americans, try Original Saw, Marvco, Northfield, Ellis, Robust, Vega, etc.

[dpb]

On 02/19/2016 4:55 PM, graham wrote: ...

Powermatic was sold back in '99 to machinery importer Jet Equipment & Tools. In 2002 Jet became part of the WMH Tool Group, which includes Powermatic, Jet, Performax and Wilton.

The McMinnville, TN, facility is long gone; a rubble-strewn vacant lot now, and as far as I know there's nothing in the US but distribution.

My Model 66 was purchased new direct and I drove over from Oak Ridge to McMinnville to pick it up in spring '82. At that time the foundry was in full operation and the shops were a great tour. There were piles of castings in the yard aging that must have been 20 feet high...

But, no longer...I've not seen the new PM 2000 or any other post-Jet PM product to be able to make any direct comparison other than that they aren't US-produced any longer.

[graham]

Shows how out of touch I became over the last 19 years:-(