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Originally Posted by Frank Fusco
Chris, I'm afraid I irritated another member here by asking for specific statements why a $4000.00 lathe is better than a $400.00 one. That is yet to be addressed. ... And, I believe I am irritating some eltists. Like telling the owner of a $10,000.00 Rolex watch that my $30.00 Casio keeps just as good time as his, is just as shock and water resistant, which it is.
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Frank, I was not irritated, but I did take it off line to be a little more succinct in my points. I am still waiting for some answers from you come to think of it. I guess if you have never seen one or used one, it would be hard to understand why a $4000 lathe is better than a $400 lathe. I have done both, using both types for years.
Here are the differences:
1. Weight. The weight engineered into the more expensive machine is just that - engineered into it. While piling sandbags on helps, it is not nearly as effective as a machine that is built of substantially heavier components. My $4000 machines do not chase me around the shop like my $400 machine did even after it was sandbagged with an extra 360 lbs of weight.
2. Power. The difference in power between a 10 amp single phase motor and a 20 amp 3 phase motor has to be seen to be believed. Instead of light cuts and stalling the motor, large quantites of wood can be removed literally in seconds. I can take a 60-80 lb blank of wood and turn it into a rough bowl for drying in less than 10 minutes on my Poolewood or Vega. I don't think you are going to even spin a blank that big on a $400 machine unless you have modified it substantially, and even then you are going to run the risk of breaking things. I know. I've done it. My Jet pivot head machine advertised an outboard turning capacity of 16" x 5". That might be true in theory, but not in practice. It just isn't going to swing a piece of wood that big.
3. Control. A $4000 machine these days sports a a 3 phase VFD power source. While this type of motor is not necessary for the vast majority of spindle turning, these machines are not built primarily for spindles. They are built for bowls, hollow forms, and other artsy pieces that require fine tuning the speed control. They open a whole range of possibilities that just aren't safe to do on a $400 machine unless you modify it as Brad has done with his HF machine.
4. Overall design. Fit and finish are much better. I do not have to fight my machine, and my turning improved by an order of magnitude each time I moved up a step in machine. I can get a fair curve in very little time on my more expensive machine, and it is not just because I am a better turner than I used to be. I turn on enough less expensive lathes on a regular basis to know that. Just last Saturday I spent the day turning on a lathe that shook like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang all day long. I was exhausted from the experience, but when you are standing in front of 30 people who have paid to see you turn, you don't complain about the lathe.
To go back to my own $400 lathe on this, I turned on it for over 3 1/2 years, and made many thousands of dollars using it. I also had a small backup lathe (Chinese built Carbatec). One of the reasons I had it was because my $400 Jet broke on a regular basis. At one point during a parts order, I was discussing everything that had broken on it, and he commented that I had had just about everything that could go wrong with this lathe go wrong. But, it was not a lemon. It was a $400 lathe. In contrast, my Poolewood is coming up on seven years old. In other words, I have been using it for twice as long as my old Jet. I have had exactly two things break on it. One was a plastic locking knob which has since been replaced with an all metal one, and one was the speed control potentiometer, which I replaced with an industrially rated one for $12.58. In addition to myself, literally hundreds of people, virtually all of them inexperienced to some degree, have used this lathe under my supervision, so it is not like it is being babied. It is better built. Period.
5. Speed. This is sort of a culmination of all of the above, but I can turn many times faster for the type of turning I am doing on my expensive lathes. That increase in production and the luxury of using the lathe allow me to be more creative because my attention is not being diverted by the lathe.
6. As an addendum to all the above, I teach, and people come from all over the US and Canada to learn from me. They are not paying airfare, hotel, and rental car rates along with tuition to come from places like TX, WA, FL, etc and turn on an entry level lathe. I have never ever cast aspersions on another person's choice of lathe, although I will tell people why I do or do not like a particular machine, especially before they buy. But people have the freedom to buy what they want, and it does not impact me one whit if they ignore my advice. But, if I am going to have an opinion I am going to express it. As I wrote to Brad, he has an opinion that is different than mine, and I have no problem with that. He is even better informed about the machine he has than I am (I wrote that too) and apparently he is making it work very well for him, but that does not change my opinion. I want to see lots of people having good experience with a machine before I change my opinion about it.
Finally, if you are going to label me an elitist, you are going to have to look long and hard for the evidence of that accusation, and you aren't going to find any. Even people who don't like me, and there are more than a few, would have trouble with that label being affixed to me. I have been called a lot of things, and some of them are even true, but this one is way off the mark. The truth of the matter is, this is not a discussion about elitism in lathes or anything else. If I were an elitist, why would I have written Matt telling him that
his Jet mini lathe that he already owned was his best choice? Hmmmmmm??? The truth is, you are angry because I said that I did not like Grizzly lathes, and you lumped me into the anti-Grizzly crowd. I explained that in my PM to you, but I guess you missed the part where I praised their large bandsaws that I have used. I took this off line to keep it private, but you seem to want to air it. I think that is unfortunate, and I am looking forward to your response to my private message. I hope that I have explained myself clearly enough here for you to understand regarding the differences between cheap and expensive machines. The good news is, you don't even have to spend $4000 to get a lot of these features. You will find them on lathes starting at less than $2000. Quite a bargain, eh?
Bill