I actually bought this lathe back in August.
It's my first lathe, so I can't compare it to anything else. Here's what I can tell you:
PRO:
- It basically works. I gave up changing the belt on the pully and just run it at top speed most of the time. It runs "okay".
CONS:
- When the first lathe (yes, first lathe) arrived, it had been dropped off the truck and the bed was busted clean in half. PSI stated they've been having issues and have had a lot of these lathes returned. PSI sent a 2nd lathe and assured me it would be double packed the next time. It wasn't. came with a broken belt cover plate. PSI sent me a new one. PSI also arranged for pickup of the first lathe. UPS picked it up. 2 weeks ago, PSI sends me a letter saying they didn't get it and wants to charge me for another lathe. We straightened that out.
- In cold weather, the lathe motor speed runs really slow for about 4 minutes while it warms up, it then speeds up to full running speed. I live in California. It doesn't get that cold. I have a shop full of power tools. None of them have this issue. The bearings are all lubed and fine, the belt isn't too tight, etc.
- The lock-down for the tail stock has gone soft. I haven't been rough with it either. Doesn't hold well. As soon as I'm done with Christmas projects, I'm going to fix it and, hopefully, improve it.
Conclusion and advice:
If I had to do it all over again, I would not have bought this lathe. I would have opted for the Jet mini. I bought this lathe because of the hp for the price. I've got a lot of $$$ sunk into this lathe + a bunch of accessories, so this lathe and I are doing our best to get along and will need to until I completely wear it out.
<u>No offense intended </u>to anyone who might have this lathe or who really likes doing business with PSI, but I had to get the VP of PSI involved to get all the issues resolved and then the lathe wasn't all that.
Normally don't like to post a message like this, but I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if someone else on this forum ended up going through what I went through. Please forgive me if it's inappropriate.
Hope anyone else who owns this model has had better luck.--Den