New lathe

[Jim Davenport]

Last month I took advantage of Woodcraft's "Trade in sale". I traded in my Rikon 70-100, that I bought in 2006, for a Jet 1642. They gave me $300 for the Rikon, which is fifty bucks more than I paid for it.
I talked my buddy and his truck into helping me bring it home. Woodcraft loaded it with their lift truck. When we got home, we broke down the parts, and off loaded them singly.
The bed fit on the stand for the old Rikon. We lucked out, the stand just happened to be the perfect height to install the legs.
I'm very tight on space in my garage, so everything has to be mobile. I bought a HTC adjustable base. I lengthened it with some 3/4" aluminum square tube.
rolls great. It seems very stable, But I have some camphor logs to turn. That will be the
test.
Photo's:
The first is installing the legs, with the bed clamped to the Rikon base.
Next, modifying the HTC mobile base.
Finally the lathe on the HTC base

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[Dan Clark]

Jim,

Nice looking lathe. I'm looking at getting my first lathe - probably a Nova Comet II or something similar. A major issue for me is garage space (my "shop"). How well does that HTC mobile base work for you? Easy to move? Stable when locked down?

Thanks,

Dan.

[David Delo]

+1 on a nice looking lathe Jim. That unit will give you many years of great service. Does the bar you fabricated for the HTC base get in the way of your feet while turning or changing things out on the headstock? If so, depending on your height, casters might work better or even a hydraulic lift table from HF will help out greatly with the mobility requirement.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Awesome! Welcome to the Jet 1642 club! I have casters on my 1642. It does add a bit of height, but I got used to it. How much height does the base add? I may change and lower mine, now that I seen yours. Double locking swivel casters are a breeze to move the lathe around.

[Jim Davenport]

The lathe without the HTC base is a little too tall for me. The base only adds about a 1/2" of height.
I'm going to make a platform to stand on. It will go over top of the aluminum tube.
It does roll pretty good. I have a little hump to get over to go into the garage. I just slide everything to the back end of the lathe, and it goes right in.