Looking for suggestions good/bad on these lathes

[ADAM GROSS]

I am new to turning and am looking for help on choosing a lathe. My wife has expressed interest in learning to turn, so I thought it would be nice to get her involved. I am a expeirenced hobby woodworker but have never tried my hand at turning. I have been recently outfitting my shop with old woodworking machines (owwm). So in keeping with this trend I have found 3 machines that are of interest. All three are plug and play machines with all being single phase. Here's a list of the three.
1) Powermatic 45 gap bed vs
2) Powermatic 90 gap bed vs
3) Delta 46-541 gap bed vs

The pm45 and delta are close in price ($100 difference) and the pm90 is about $300 more. I don't think I could go wrong with any of these machines. My wife has said she would like to do bowls and ornaments but I would also like to be able to handle spindles or posts. Thanks for any info you guys can give.

[John Keeton]

Adam, I don't know much about any of them, though seems I recall seeing that the Delta was 3/4 HP. It might help folks in offering their opinions if relative pricing was given, and the HP of the motors - whether original or not. When you say VS, are you talking about the original Reeves drive?

[Roger Chandler]

Pm 45 is a good lathe, but the PM 90 is even better..........If it were me, and the lathe is in good usable condition, and I did not want to buy a newer lathe with all the bells and whistles, then I would seriously consider the PM90.

[ADAM GROSS]

I believe the motors are originals to each machine. The delta and the pm45 are 3/4 hp and the pm90 is 1 hp and 220, which is fine becouse I have it in my shop for my shaper, uni and dj20. The original variable speed (reeves drive) is on all of them and runs fine on each.

[David DeCristoforo]

For an extra three bills, you really want the PM 90!!! The 45 and the Delta are much lighter machines albeit top quality in their "class". Nice thing about the reeves drive is that there are no electronics in the VS to burn out. Oh no wait. That's right. The electronics never burn out. http://www.daviddecristoforo.com/Misc/rofl.gif

[Brian McInturff]

If those are the only 3 to choose from then I'd take the PM90 hands down. Scroll back a page or 2 and look at the restore job by Mike Cruz on his PM90 and look at what can be done to it with some time, patience, elbow grease, and money!

[Curt Fuller]

I believe the motors are originals to each machine. The delta and the pm45 are 3/4 hp and the pm90 is 1 hp and 220, which is fine becouse I have it in my shop for my shaper, uni and dj20. The original variable speed (reeves drive) is on all of them and runs fine on each.
Many of the older lathes are 220v but it's often 3 phase 220v. That's good or bad depending on your plans. The 220v 3ph is what you want if you're going to use an electronic variable speed controller. If you want to use the lathe as is, then you would have to change the motor. All three machines have well built reeves drives, not cheap like some of the modern lathes, but they also have a minimum speed in the 700 rpm range. It's a little fast for what some like when turning bowls but because they're all 12" lathes, you'll never have that big of a bowl blank on them. As David D pointed out, they're very trouble free machines. That's why they're still running after 40-60 years of use.