How limited with a mini lathe?

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Haynie

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As you know I do not have a wood turning lathe and my budget is small so a small lathe was what I was going for. I have no desire to turn a table leg or a pool cue so the length is not that big of an issue.

I have been looking at turning sites and would like to turn bowls and plate like things.

The lathes I am looking at have 10-12 inches of swing (I think that is the term) No desire to turn massive fruit bowls as of yet. The question is will the lathes below be too limiting to do small bowls?

Rikon Economy mini lathe 12 x 16

Grizzly H8259 10 x 18

Harbor Freight 65345 10 x 18

Don't want to buy something then have the "Oh Crap" moment.

Thanks for all of your help so far on this by the way. I make decisions very slowly as I weigh everything.
 
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do yourself a favor so you don't end up in the same place that i'm in. i bought a midi lathe 10" swing, been turning lots of pens, the lathe is fantastic. but i'm now trying to expand and the motor can't even handle the 5" bowl i'm trying to turn. so look at the power of these lathes not just the size.
 
What about the Jet 1014? I have two and they work great. You can usually find good deals on used ones to save you more money, if you can see them in person first of course.
 
10" and 12" bowls are a good size. The next size lathe up can swing 14 or 16". A 16" bowl can make a nice center piece for a table, but can you store a 16" salad bowl in your kitchen cupboards? Not to mention how much salad that will hold!

I started with the Jet 1014, and never had a problem with size limitations at that time, or power. The more I progressed, I did realize I wanted to go bigger, and now have the Jet 1642. I've only turned one thing at 16" only because I could. My platters and bowls usually range between the 12 and 14" size now. A smaller lathe with a smaller motor still has enough power to turn the material that will fit on the lathe, but you might have to take less material off in a single pass.
than you could with a bigger motor.

Start small, stay within your budget, and if you like it and want to go bigger, you can start saving and budgeting at that time. There are many well known turners who prefer a mini lathe -- Bonnie Klein is well known for her small turnings and mini-lathe work.
 
Ditto on the price of used Jet lathes, or any other quality lathe for that matter. They seem to sell for $50 off retail even when they're five or ten years old. Now I'm not talking about the jumbo OneWay units, but the "little" ones for home shop use.
 
Glad I am not the only one seeing that people are very proud of their used lathes, and price them to reflect that pride.

I have a whole wall full of special dealer specific tools. Lets look at two of those tools, new they are priced at 200$ a piece. I will be lucky to get 50% for them when I find someone to buy them. I am pricing them to sell them. Sometimes I wonder if these people really do not want to sell the lathes.

On a side note I just missed being given a lathe for free. The guy gave it away two days ago because he got a new one and did not need a second. Oh well.
 
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I suppose you could look at the resale value of the Jet another way ..

Would you rather have purchased a lathe that DIDN'T hold it's value?
If you pay a little more up front, it's nice to know that you can get a bit
more for it down the road if you 'upgrade' .. and if you keep it, you know
it's worth the money.
That being said, I do see them on CraigsList now and then, sometimes at
good prices.
 
I have had great luck with Grizzly both midi and big ones fotr the cost of my 1220 jet I was able to buy a 2 hp grizz with 360 head
 
Just my personal experience... When we first started we bought the Rockler Brand midi lathe (can't recall what the name is they sell.) It was not cheap but not terribly expensive and at the time seemed to make sense within our budget. It wasn't very many months before we tossed it to the side and bought TWO Jet Lathes. His and Hers.

The problem that we found with the cheaper model (and this has happened to others that we know - even closely) is that it had a good bit of run off which causes the pens to be out of round. Initially we thought it was our own doing because we were new, drilling them wrong or some sort ... but ultimately it was the lathe.

We were able to get the 2nd Jet online, "reconditioned" and not quite new, for a really good price - it's been a few years. The ONLY thing wrong with it in the end was that there were some paint scratches to it. Been using it for 2-3 years with no problems. It will do small bowls - but won't be able to expand much. If you are seriously wanting to make big bowls at some point you will want a big lathe - but why worry about that now?

As someone else said, stay in your budget and get the best you can afford. Later - when you can upgrade it may not be as valuable for resale as if you had gotten one of the better name brands BUT then again it might be more valuable to you as you would be able to set up a 2nd station (finishing station) to help make things faster for you. It really is a blessing to have more than one lathe if you are going to make a BUNCH of pens or bowls etc.

Mrs.

P.s. I would avoid the Harbor Freight, personally, as I have heard a number of complaints about them.
 
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I bought a Rikon 70-100, and got it for $260 on sale at Woodcraft. Woodcraft runs sales on all their lathes, but typically at different times of the year.

I imagine a larger lathe in my shop some day, but I do believe I'd keep the Rikon for small projects like pens. I've been very happy with it. I tend to buy higher end tools, but consider this a really nice tool for a pretty reasonable price. A Jet or Delta may be more feature-laden, but for a limited budget, the Rikon is a good choice.

This model does not have variable speed (upgrade kit is available), but belt changes are the simplest I've seen. I did add an extension after a few months, since I've turned a couple tool handles, and with a scroll chuck in the headstock, and a drill chuck in the tailstock to drill a hole (and then adding the length of a drill bit) there was no room to mount the wood to turn!
 
Try and avoid the HF 10 in, they make a 12 inch that is pretty good, the stand is stamped steel, and it's a little bit underpowered but we use one in our shop and in 2 years of nearly daily use haven't had a problem with it it does have a good heavy cast iron bed and could be mounted to a bench for more stability for larger turning, the head also swivels, this isn't the all stamped steel 14 in lathe which is kind of a piece of crap.
 
I have the Rikon 70-100 and I turn off center pieces, large pieces and I have no problem with the lathe. I also have a Jet and it also works well. the main difference between the two lathes is that the Rikon is heavier and handles vibration better.
 
I went with the Jet 1642EVS 2 hp as my first lathe and love it. I think that starting out with a smaller benchtop lathe would work well. I would definitely not mind having a smaller second lathe around to speed up the work flow. One thing - I would not even consider a lathe without variable speed control. I use that feature on mine all the time and would probably be looking for a replacement lathe now if mine didn't have it.
 
Delta Midi Lathe

The Delta Midi lathe is what I am buying. 1 hp motor and overall quality is a notch above other mini lathes I have used. I turned an 8" bowl from dry Pecan on one last week, no stalls even turning end grain. The tool rest stays put. Moving the belt on the pulleys is easy. One of my pet peeves with some other small lathes is getting to the belt.
 
I bought a used RIKON 70-100 last october and have turned 10" bowls on it .... as well as pens. Its pretty easy to change the belts, its light enough to move around my basement shop when I need to move it.

Pretty versatile Now, I went to a fellow turners house recently to help me turn a 14" bowl on his PowerMatic .... I think I'd still keep the Mini, but like the PM's size/power :biggrin:
 
IPD_Mrs said:
Just my personal experience... When we first started we bought the Rockler Brand midi lathe (can't recall what the name is they sell.)
Click to expand...

Excelsior.

That is what I have and I have the same issue. A friend and I bought them at the same time. His has very little runout, but I have gotten two replacement spindles, both with some amount of runout.

The original tailstock had a significant amount of wobble to it, even when locked down. The replacement tailstock is stable when locked, but then it doesn't quite line up with the headstock.

It works, but is kind of a pain. Making high precision parts is basically impossible. I wish I could get a better one, but I haven't sold a pen in almost two months. Given that I have not paid for this lathe yet, I don't see myself getting a new one anytime soon.
 
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