I am dutifully impressed! Very nice setup and layout.
A couple questions for you. How do you like your dust collection system behind the lathe? I need to do something to get something in place for mine for sanity if nothing else. How do you like your lathe? I've eyed that model from Wen a couple times. I'm currently using a Rockler Excelsior lathe that I got brand new for a song. Nothing wrong with it at all except I would really, really like the ability to change speeds with a dial and not move the belts around
Thanks! It works. I'm always optimizing though, so it changes every month or so, gets a bit better here, or there. You should have seen my shop when I first set it up. It was a disaster!
I have a Fein shop vac, which was about $400 (I think I got it on sale, so, less but I forget how much), which works really well. I got the Fein, as it is quiet (relatively speaking). I originally started with a ShopVac brand shop vac, and it was real loud, made a lot of weird noises, drove me crazy. But the ShopVac was maybe $170, IIRC. I still have that, and use it to clean up the shop, but the Fein sits in a corner and is basically just part of a simple DC system. I use a Fein vac bag in it. I also have a simple vortex+bucket system. That was maybe $100 or a bit more. This separates a good deal of the dust and most of the chips. I rarely have to empty the bag in the vac, but the bucket under the vortex, depending on how much I turn, every month or so. I'll get a photo of that, so you can see it better. From the vortex I have all 4" ducting to the various inlets. I have some additional spare ducting, as well as a variety of adapters, that allow me to use the ShopVac to connect to other machines as well (i.e. bandsaw, tablesaw, etc.) when needed.
This works ok to collect dust. Its a great way to start, and certainly cost effective. That said, such a system has a high static pressure but relatively low airflow. This is ok for pens, but when I turn larger items its not really enough. For pens, it could be better, but its ok for most of what I've been doing so far. In the long run here, I will be putting in a proper dust collection (DC) system, provably a ClearVue 1700, with proper ducting (have not yet figured out how to run the ducting...its going to be an interesting task, that, for sure. This system will actually collect and filter ALL the dust. For me, this may be more important than others, as I have some pretty severe allergies. Just want to be honest though, that a shop vac can get some of the job of dust collection done, but its not perfect. A shop vac is a great way to start though, without having to spend a lot of money. If you want a clean shop that is safer for your health, and you really get into this hobby, then you'll want to eventually look into a proper DC like the ClearVue, Oneida, etc. I would only bother with that, though, if you really get into it, and get into higher volume!
The Wen lathe is a good little workhorse lathe. Its been excellent for...well, since December 2020 when I got it. I seem to have damaged the spindle in the headstock, so its actually a bit out of commission here until I can get that replaced. Outside of that, the lathe works great for penmaking and other small items. I got the Wen, when my first lathe, a Nova Comet 14DR had some problems (less than 6 months after buying it). Teknatool took AGES to get the issues sorted out, and had it for months after I sent it in for RMA. The Wen came onto the scene in that period of months that I had no lathe. In this case, the Wen has been MUCH better than the Nova. After my terrible experience with it, and Teknatool, I doubt I'll ever touch another Teknatool product again. Wen the company has been really easy to work with. I had an issue with part of the tailstock when I first got it. I just needed one small part, but they shipped out an entire replacement tailstock without any hullabaloo. I have to give them a call about replacing my spindle, I expect the experience to be as easy as it was before. I've made...oh, a couple hundred pens or so with it. It is a more powerful lathe than the Rockler you have, and it will turn up to 14" in diameter. Interestingly, I think its about the same price as yours. It IS very nice to have variable speed. The Wen has three belt settings, and will spin at anywhere from ~250rpm to ~3700rpm, I think. So its got a pretty good range.
In comparison to other lathes...I'd say that the Jet 1221 is probably a more robust lathe. It is more expensive, and won't turn as large a blank, but I have a lot of Jet equipment and a Powermatic large lathe (same parent company), and they are all solid pieces of equipment. Jet doesn't have any fancy fanfare with most of their equipment...so, say, my drill press doesn't have a digital readout, which you could get with a Wen press. I have a tabletop Wen drill press, and its decent, but I feel its not quite as solidly built as the Jet stuff. But the Jet is a solid, robust design and its very easy to use for your run of the mill drilling needs. Powermatic, on the other hand, you can get machines more robust and precise than Jet, with more fancy features. You'll just have to pay through the nose for them.
Just to give you some idea of where Wen kind of sits in the hierarchy. Its a good lathe, but nothing particularly exceptional. If you get one, I have no doubt it will serve you well for years.
One thing you would need to prepare for, though, is maybe a bit of tuning work. I'm still working on this with my Wen. The tailstock is a bit loose in the ways, so I may be contacting Rick Harrel here to see if I can get a custom tenon made that will fit the ways better, tighter. There may also be a bit of shimming you'll need to do, in order to get the headstock and tailstock optimally aligned. It looks like Nova sells a double-ended morse taper, which can be used to help you force the headstock and tailstock into optimal alignment throughout their axis. I've ordered one of those. Once this optimization is done, I should be able to get pretty much perfect holes, with little to no out of round or non-concentricity. A lot of this, you'd probably have to do with any lathe, to really optimize it. The main thing with the wen, is the looseness of the tailstock in the ways. I'd say there is 1.5-2mm of play within the ways. You can always align things manually each time you drill, or turn, etc. I'm trying to dial it in more solidly so that it is consistently aligned and ready to go, without having to fiddle with it all the time.
