lathe opinions

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This was the first lathe I purchased. I would not recommend it to anyone else. It is moderately acceptable as a starter lathe, but it only lasted me about a year. I did have quite a few problems with it. First the motor went bad, Rockler replaced the lathe. Tail stock never did line up with the headstock perfectly. Lots of play in the tail stock that needs to be dealt with. A multitude of other little problems that I was able to work around, but shouldn't have had to. Spend a little more money and buy a better quality lathe. You will save yourself a lot of aggravation in the long run.
 
mbroberg said:
This was the first lathe I purchased. I would not recommend it to anyone else. It is moderately acceptable as a starter lathe, but it only lasted me about a year. I did have quite a few problems with it. First the motor went bad, Rockler replaced the lathe. Tail stock never did line up with the headstock perfectly. Lots of play in the tail stock that needs to be dealt with. A multitude of other little problems that I was able to work around, but shouldn't have had to. Spend a little more money and buy a better quality lathe. You will save yourself a lot of aggravation in the long run.
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Don't know about this lathe, but double( ditto) on the last two sentences.
 
Get a Rikon midi lathe. You can turn pens, bowls, etc. Runs nice and strong, dependable with good support from Rikon if anything does go wrong or you want information.
 
I have one and use it to demonstrate penturning to school kids, it is light and can be moved and set up pretty easily. That being said, I wouldn't recommend one for serious use. I am on the second motor - first one lasted all of three days. Rockler was great and stood behind it, but just waiting for the next one to go. It has some definite alignment issues and I only turn kitless bic pens on it, and that takes a little work sometime. There are better investments.
 
I had one and had problems with the tail stock that Rockler did nothing about. The school I demo for and do Pens for Troops bought two and the bearings in the head stock lasted about two months. Save your money and get something else. I have a Jet 14" and 10" and like them.
 
In the tools review forum someone compared the lathe from HF to being close in quality to a Delta. Check it out. The HF lathe is $200, but I believe that it is on sale right now for $179. Just a thought for a limited budget....
 
Put green paint on it and it would be the HF 65345. I have a HF 65345 and realize it is not top of line and required some tweeking so if you get this one or the HF be prepare to do some work to get it going right. I am still not sure if I got mine really tune up. Kinda a ___ shoot so if you have the time to save your pennies you might want to get something better.
 
My dad bought himself one and after about three weeks he went out and bought a Rikon. Nothing worked well, the alignment was off, the bearings were noisy, the tail stock did not lock down securely. He broke the plastic handle to tighten the tool rest after about three days. Now it's his buffer and thats about all it's good for.
 
The Rockler Excelsor (or whatever they call it now) is junk. Saving a little more and getting a Jet, Ricon or Delta is a better solution.
 
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