att hilltopper46

[Robert Taylor]

I have an old PowerKraft (Montgomery Wards) lathe that has a 5/8-inch round shaft at the headstock. I wouldn't even try to turn pens on it. I've thought about trying to adapt the headstock to a Morse Taper, but for the price that you can get a reurbished Delta Midi lathe (~$200) or a new TurnCraft from PSI, I wouldn't even begin to mess with it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Rozendaal
East Troy, WI

Some day, I'm gonna turn a pen like that!
http://www.omanopa.com/asp/recent.asp

did not want to hijack the other thread

for lathe with a 5/8" plain spindle you would be able to use many "shopsmith" accessories to increase your lathes capabilities. you can find drill chucks, face plates and even nova and oneway chucks to fit it. penn state has pen mandrels and a 5/8" plain to a 1" 8tpi threaded adapater for less than twenty bucks. hope this info helps, bob

 

[hilltopper46]

I know about the 5/8 adapter. I don't have a lot of confidence that between it and the 5/8 round head on the PowerKraft, that by the time you tighten the set screw (that I suppose is how it clamps to the spindle), that it will still be with in a couple thousandths of concentric. I use the MT-2 collet on my Delta or an R8 collet on my multipurpose tool (not ShopSmith) and am happy with how round I get the pens.

BTW, this would not have (IMHO) been a hijack to the other thread.