Rikon lathe

[Craig Matheny]

I bought a small little Rikon lathe and love playing with it but want to try other things then pens. I would like some input for a chuck to hold larger items and to expand. Any advise on what to get as my next ad on.

[James Combs]

A Nova G3(Refurbished on the Teknatool site) would be a nice fit. If it were me I would pick up some counter weights at the same time. At only 89lbs for the lathe you will not be able to turn anything of any size that's a little out of balance without the lathe going for a walk. Get the G3, bolt the lathe down to a good solid stand and weight the stand down with a half dozen bags of sand or something like them.

Edit: on the balance issue - if you have a band-saw and can pre-round your blanks and get them fairly well balanced that will help to go bigger.

[Peter Fabricius]

Craig;
I would get a Beall Wood tap to fit your lathe spindle. Eg: a 1" x 8TPI if that is what you have.
With the tap you can make a number of glue blocks to fit most needs. If you make them from 4" x 4" x 2" thick hardwood then you can reuse a block many times.
Drill your blank on the Drill Press with a 7/8" drill, tap it by holding it in a vice. Screw it onto the spindle firmly but not too tight. Now, face off the blank. Reverse and make sure it is seated right up tight on the spindle and face off the front and finish rounding the blank. Sand the face with a sanding board to get it perfectly flat and you are ready to use it as a glue block.
good luck.
Peter F.

[Dale Coons]

I have this lathe (and really like it) and a larger delta. I have two one-way talons that work great, and since the lathes have the same spindle size I can easily switch back and forth. There are other chucks that are nice (and less expensive). I picked up these used for reasonable. Whichever chuck you wind up with, 'larger' items will be a relative. I've been able to turn peppermills to 12 inches (it's a challenge drilling-10 inches is a much better fit) and small bowls 6-7 inches in diameter and 4 inches high or so. There's only one bearing in the head, so it's not really designed to handle really big things. I have not had to add extra weight for these size things. I'm sure there's some with better skills that have turned larger on it, just saying what I've gotten away with.

[Jim Burr]

Ruth Niles has a great MT2 mandrel for stoppers...good next evolution. Many of use use a Barracuda chuck...4 sets of jaws and a worm screw included.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

The lathe is a good lathe. I'd second the G3 recomendation. Try searching e-bay, there's a guy that sells them for 125 bucks with insert. Shipped free. If you can afford the Oneway, it is a better chuck.

[Marvin Hasenak]

Watch the amount of weight you add on both in the chuck and the wood you will turn, the spindle and bearings are not heavy duty. In my opinion the Rikon is more of a spindle and pen lathe than a slap on a 9" chunk and pray for balance lathe. I use a Nova Midi, with all of the jaws it handles everything I throw at it, but I keep it small.

[Lee Koepke]

I have turned up to 10" bowls on my RIKON. I built a stand for it and a base with wheels so i can move it around. I have a 40lb sack of extra tile grout mix that acts as a extra weight. Had little problems thus far.

I am looking for a new chuck, the one I got is serviceable, but want an upgrade

[Michael Mason]

I also have a Rikon mini. I have had it about 1 1/2 years and have turned as big as i can fit bowl blanks on it and have not had any problems. You have to round the corners on the bandsaw but it works fine. I have probably roughed out 50 maple bowls in the past 2 months. It is a good starter lathe for the money. Dont let people tell you that you have to spend thousands of $$$ on a lathe. Sure a bigger lathe would be nice, but until i find some gold inside a bowl, i'll have to stick with the mini.

[Erik Johanson]

That is my first lathe as well, and I love it. Only problem I had was a set screw backed out of my upper pulley. I have noticed that I have had a few of them work loose lately, I have been working it pretty hard too. I just went around and tightened any screws or bolts and snugged them down. It does like to walk if you get something really out of balance on it.

For a chuck, i bought the wood river one from the local wood craft. It was on sale and has served me well. If you have the non variable speed model, it takes a few times till you get used to changing the belt in such a small space, but now I can almost do it in my sleep.

[Lee Koepke]

Erik, had the same thing happen a week ago. Previous owner replaced the black set screw with a silver one. Thought it was list, couldn't find a replacement, so, after a week if no turning......I tried the Allen wrench. Low and behold there WAS a set screw. Tighten up and away I turn.

[Kevin W Johnson]

My Rikon is bolted to the work bench that is attached fast to my shop..... works well.

[Dale Coons]

Speaking of loose set screws--I've occationally left the indexing pin down after removing a chuck--I drop it to keep the shaft from rotating--and recently when I dropped it to lock the shaft for chuck removal, it didn't lock the shaft, I thought I had snapped the end off the pin the last time I started the lathe with it down (oops). Ordered a new indexing pin--but it looked exactly like the one I pulled out, so I hadn't snapped it at all. Turned out there was a set screw in the indexing ring that had worked loose. The set screw has a pin on the end of it which was not broken, so it had just worked loose. Tightened it up with a little dab of a daughter's finger nail polish and haven't had any problems since.