Harbor Freight Lathe 14" x 40" model 45276 problem

[Richard Finch]

I hope someone can help me. I purchased a 14" x 40" Harbor freight wood lathe from a private party. The lathe works fine, except I am unable to turn any pens on it. I am new at this so bear with me. I have a little lathe and there is a hole to put one end of the mandrels at. The HF lathe has a Drive Center. It is a screw on attachment that has a sharp point and little blades on the end to hold the wood on with. The other side just has a point on it where the wood center goes at. When I unscrew the Drive Center all I have is a shaft with threads on it and a little hole at the end of it. No way possible to get any type of a mandrel in it.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

You may want to move this or re-post in the turners' forum. I am not familiar with your partiular lathe, but in general, the drive spur is in a taper, and you just need to knock it off, then insert the pen mandrel. But you never know with HF stuff.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Richard,

I'm going to move this to the turning forum where it will get more attention from turners who might be knowledgeable about this.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Robert,

Maybe find an adapter for the threads on the spindle.....such as these


http://www.pennstateind.com/store/spindle-adapters.html


and/or depending the theads on your spindle get one of these mandrels......that screw onto a spindle or threaded adapters

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/pen-mandrels.html

[Jeff Willard]

I hope someone can help me. I purchased a 14" x 40" Harbor freight wood lathe from a private party. The lathe works fine, except I am unable to turn any pens on it. I am new at this so bear with me. I have a little lathe and there is a hole to put one end of the mandrels at. The HF lathe has a Drive Center. It is a screw on attachment that has a sharp point and little blades on the end to hold the wood on with. The other side just has a point on it where the wood center goes at. When I unscrew the Drive Center all I have is a shaft with threads on it and a little hole at the end of it. No way possible to get any type of a mandrel in it.

Looking over the manual for that machine on the HF website, it appears that there is no taper reamed into the spindle. Just a threaded spindle nose. And the manual gives no clues as to what the spindle thread is. You need to determine what the spindle thread is and go from there. I don't know of any threaded pen mandrels, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. If not, you could always mount a chuck and secure the mandrel shaft in that.

[Gordon Seto]

Richard,
IMO, Don't throw good money accessorizing that lathe.
One of our Club member had a similar HF lathe before joining our Club. The pens he turned were all loop-sided. He donated the lathe to the Club. The head stock was made out of sheet metal, the lathe bed was made out of thin wall square tubing. When he tightened the tail stock. The lathe would bow up. On his, the alignment was poor and kept changing depending on the tightness of the tail stock pressure. The combination of high minimum speed and insecure holding; it is unsafe to use. When you use a pens mandrel to fix the rotating axis, a mis-alignment tail stock center would cause the turning to be off center.
I believe the only method to turn pens on that lathe is to use the no mandrel method.
It would be a waste of money to purchase some non-standard turning accessories to make it work. Most likely if you still like turning, you will be looking for another lathe soon. The lathe has 14" swing, but the minimum speed is 1125, that is suicidal. That kind of combination is still dangerous for a $8,000 lathe.

[Jason Clark2]

You could use a collet chuck to hold the mandrel rod but as Gordon said this lathe really isn't worth spending any more money on.

Jason

[Kevin Main]

I hope someone can help me. I purchased a 14" x 40" Harbor freight wood lathe from a private party. The lathe works fine, except I am unable to turn any pens on it. I am new at this so bear with me. I have a little lathe and there is a hole to put one end of the mandrels at. The HF lathe has a Drive Center. It is a screw on attachment that has a sharp point and little blades on the end to hold the wood on with. The other side just has a point on it where the wood center goes at. When I unscrew the Drive Center all I have is a shaft with threads on it and a little hole at the end of it. No way possible to get any type of a mandrel in it.

Shaft threads 3/4x10 if you are going to get adaptor

[Kevin Main]

I hope someone can help me. I purchased a 14" x 40" Harbor freight wood lathe from a private party. The lathe works fine, except I am unable to turn any pens on it. I am new at this so bear with me. I have a little lathe and there is a hole to put one end of the mandrels at. The HF lathe has a Drive Center. It is a screw on attachment that has a sharp point and little blades on the end to hold the wood on with. The other side just has a point on it where the wood center goes at. When I unscrew the Drive Center all I have is a shaft with threads on it and a little hole at the end of it. No way possible to get any type of a mandrel in it.

http://www.pennstateind.com/store/PKM-BL.html
this will work with the right adaptor and very light pressure on tailstock