Courious: How many of guys have a Conover lathe with wooden bed rails?

[Dev Emch]

The title says it all. I am wondering how many of these beasts are out there. I always found this to a really cool lathe somewhere between vintage and modern. Conover is gone now but my quest for one continues. I may just have to design my own version of this lathe if I cannot find an old conover.;)

[Dennis Daudelin]

I know that there is one on Cape Cod. It is used daily by someone making bowls for a living!

They do come available from time to time. Ernie Conover is still around and from what I understand, they do make parts for them still...

Best of luck finding one!

Dennis

[Jim Becker]

There are likely quite a few of the Conover lathes "out there". It was a good design with a lot of flexiblity, especially for folks who wanted extra length for lighter architectural work. (Not a good choice for big, heavy columns due to low mass and weight for such things) If you come across a Conver lathe, it wouldn't be a bad acquistion, even if only for use as an extra spindle lathe for furniture making as well as smaller bowls and vessels. (Again, one must be careful with weight and mass if you want to swing "big things")

The nearly all-wood shop-built lathe from an early issue of WOOD Magazine is very, very similar. I turned on one a few years ago in Editor Marlen Kemmet's home shop and was impressed.

[Richard Dever]

I have one with an 8' bed.. I got a One-way, and it seems to be enough for me. The bed is laminated from 6 quarter oak sandwiched around 1" particle board. It has a 2 hp Baldor motor and a link belt, which really smoothed it out when I put it on. I used it for years, and it always served me well.

[Jim Underwood]

One of our club members has one that he's used a lot.