Choice of Wood Lathe for new turner

[Sammy Shuford]

I have thought for a while to take up turning. What is a good choice for small to medium bowls.
Web links if you have them.
Thanks

[Dennis Peacock]

Sammy,

The best wood to learn on is Aeromatic Cedar (red cedar), soft maple and poplar. Learn to turn on GREEN (wet) wood first so you can get a feel of the tools and turning in general. Turning wet, doesn't require sharpening as often either, so you can turn longer before sharpening again.

Use the Dave Smith Alcohol drying method to dry your wet roughed out bowls. If you need details on this, PM me and I'll send you the details.

Keep me posted to your progess. All of us will help when and where we can. ;)

[Fred Floyd]

Lathes come in several sizes and the price range is from $250 for a "mini" lathe to thousands for the largest ones. I recently got started in woodturning and did the same research. You can turn small projects on a big lathe but you can't turn big projects on a small lathe. Your first lathe should be as much as you feel you can spend.

Jet, Delta, Grizzly and Harbor Freight all produce medium sized lathes with a 12" swing over the bed and 36" between centers. These are capable of handling most projects. You can get into this type of lathe for 400-700... for the lathe.

Larger lathes get into multiple thousands of dollars. Keep in mind that the lathe is just the beginning. Expect to spend a significant amount for chisels and other accessories.

[Bill Grumbine]

Hi Sammy

This is a wide open question, but probably the best way to start out, and what I recommend to many turners starting out, is the Jet mini lathe. It is a low cost but very good quality machine, as opposed to many of the low cost low quality machines out there. It will allow you to turn bowls to just about 10" in diameter, and if you opt for the bed extension, you can do full length table legs.

Figure on the late itself being about half the amount you will need to spend to get started. You are going to need a few decent turning tools, sharpening equipment, face protection, etc. Some of this you may already have, but if not, you will need it.

If you are like most of us, it will not be long before you want something bigger and more powerful. The Jet mini will hold its value better than a lot of other entry lathes, and in most cases, people just keep it for a small backup lathe, traveling with it, doing little stuff with it, whatever.

I do not have any links for you, but it is not all that hard to find, and many members here have one. I personally do not, as I bought a Vicmarc mini before the Jet was available. It is a fine machine too, but it does not come with that entry level price.

And, if you get a hankering for instruction on how to turn those bowls once you get your lathe, I can help you with that too, but I'll say no more at the moment. ;)

Bill

[thomas prevost]

IMHO when choosing a lathe stay away from the Grizzly medium size lathes. As a new turner, I purchased one. It has two problems. One is a MAJOR SQAFETY HAZARD.

The tool rest has a very short travel. To addess this, they provide an extention made of cast iron. As noted on previous threads, it easily breaks off a the post, sending the cutting tool into the spinning wood and the broken rest to the floor and the operators foot. I have had two break with very short useage.
The second is they have a 1"X12tpi spindle. This is an odd size and can be very difficult getting accessories such as chucks and faceplates for it.

Grizzly sells some very good tools. I have a shop full of them. Unfortunately their lathes are not among them.

[Jim Ketron]

I started On the Jet Mini.
Nice Little machine used it for about a year before upgrading to the PM 3520 plan on keeping the Jet Mini to do demos with at shows and to do small work. This is an expensive hobby at first but after you have your tools the wood is free for the taking:D
Jim

[Raymond Overman]

I'll second or third the Jet mini as a first lathe. I would pay the extra for the variable speed just for convienence and control sake and I would keep it as a second lathe once I upgraded.

As others have pointed out, the lathe is the tip of the iceberg on what you'll need/want. Not to discourage you, but do a search for one of my earlier posts on this forum for "If you give a man a lathe" to get an idea as to what you're getting yourself into. This is a great hobby and well worth the effort of chasing the tools.

Good luck!

[Mike Ramsey]

You'll probably find out quickly that you will spend more for tools and accessories than for the lathe. :eek:

[Kurt Aebi]

Get the best lathe that you can afford. There are probably as many different opinions as there are lathes to choose from on this one. Review a lot of the posts on here and other forums (like woodcentral) and then spend your money on whatever YOU feel will be right for your turning.

The Jet Mini and others as well, have a bed extension kit available, if you later decide to do longer spindles, etc.

Mid-size large lathes 9" - 12" - don't look at anything under 3/4 HP. Sears Craftsman even has a nice variable speed model that is a good machine.

Large lathes, General, Powermatic, Jet, Nova, Stubby, Record and Poolewood are great machines.

I know I have muddied the waters, but like I said above - look at the reviews and what each are used for and pick out the Best one that you can afford. You'll be spending plenty on accessories compared to the price of a lathe anyway.

Just make darn sure that whatever you choose has a spindle taper and thread that has plenty of accessories available for it. I made the mistake about 10 years ago and bought one of those square tube lathes that had No Taper and the thread was odd-ball and there were no accessories available for it and I found I never turned anything. Last summer, I bought a Chinese Clone of the JET mini lathe with a #2MT, 1" x 8 TPI spindle and now within a year, I’m turning pens, pencils bowls and even got my wife and father-in-law hooked, so Now I have 3 lathes that pretty much run constant each weekend.

Good Luck & God be with you on this endeavor into "The Dark Side" as they say over on the "General" forum!

[Terre Hooks]

Another vote for the Jet Mini. Also, don't waste the extra $100 on the VS version. It only takes 30 seconds to change speeds on the regular.

I'll say that the price of the lathe will be 1/3 to 1/4 of what you might look at spending during your first year, unless you are looking at pens and bottle stoppers.

My wife spent $500 on my 2003 Christmas present-

Jet Mini Lathe
Sorby 1/2" Fingernail bowl gouge
Sorby Multi-tip hollowing tool
Crown 5 piece set (I do not reccomend getting this)

About a month later, I got a Woodcraft 8" grinder, Wolverine jig and vari-grind jig.

About 4 months later, she got me a Oneway chuck.

About 4 months ago, I bought a long handled Crown thick round nosed scraper, and.......

Last month I bought a Jet 1442VSK.


:eek:

[Ernie Nyvall]

I 2nd Thomas Prevost's post exactly with three extensions breaking.

Ernie

[Ron Huisinga]

Hello Sammy,


All I can really comment on is safety with a lathe as advice! Here’s a bit of my experience


In the Beginning

Being a rookie and a bit cocky at the time, wondering now how hard can this woodturning business be, spinning block of wood, sharp tools and out pops a beautiful piece of shaped wood. Right !!!

Thoughts in motion

Ran down to the local WW store picked up a Jet mini lathe and all the goodies face shield, smock, and some fairly good gouges. Also found this really nice 6” block of wood with a funny name (Goncalo Alves) thoughts of a beautiful bowl for the wife should buy me some justification for the expense.

Research!

Read a few pages of a woodturning book, skipped the chapter on safety & tool approach needed to get to the meat of the subject.

Outlined a shape on the block with a grease pen, ideas of grandeur filling my head and praises the wife would heap upon me and my new toy. ( NOT!)


Getting Down to Business!

Mounted this fantastic looking block to the face plate, did a few manual spins to make sure everything cleared the bed and tool rest. Wonder why this tool rest adjusts? No matter I’ll figure that out later. Thinking to myself, Wow this isn’t rocket science, smooth sailing from here on out!


Fired up the lathe, Wow that thing is really ripping the air, Shouldn’t take that long to round this thing out!

Small wood chips are flying now, Wow again! but this is going to take forever at this rate.

Move the cutter in more aggressively.


Reality Check


BANG! LIGHTS OUT!


One bloodied rearranged nose next to ear, cracked face shield, bent cutter &


sorely bruised ego!


Signed


Fully Humbled Pen Turner!


Have fun and be safe

[Harry Goodwin]

I have a jet mini but not varispeed. I have the extension and love the machine and purchased enough accessories to make it do good things. It is a wonderful lathe and an oval skew chisel is a great addition to woodworking technology. Harry