Maximum Bowl Blank Weight for a Laguna REVO 18/36

[Joe Frank Porter]

Does anyone know the Maximum Bowl Blank Weight without tailstock support for a Laguna REVO 18/36 ???

Joe

And thanks so much for the excellent discussion on the issue of "lathe shut down",when you stop turning large, heavy, wet bowls.
No company's customer service could have come close to the information given in that extensive dialogue.
Thank you Sawmill Creek Turners Forum!!

[John K Jordan]

Does anyone know the Maximum Bowl Blank Weight without tailstock support for a Laguna REVO 18/36 ???


I have no idea of how that lathe is constructed, spindle size, bearings, etc. Dies Laguna give guidelines in the manual? The lathe headstock and spindle is usually plenty strong and the weak point is the mounting.

But without tailstock support would depend on several things, some I can think of:
- the way you held the blank - faceplate, chuck, glue block
- the chuck/jaw size/strength
- the tenon or recess size and strength and integrity of the wood
- the amount of imbalance of the blank and the RPM
- the diameter and the length the piece extends, i.e. short and thick vs longer and more slender
- skill level, i.e. the type of cuts and the frequency and severity of catches

But a general guideline - ALWAYS use the tailstock for as long as possible, truing, shaping the outside, cutting the tenon/recess, and perhaps even when hollowing the inside of a large, heavy piece (remove inside leaving a central pillar for as long as possible). People used to turn entire bowls between centers and then knock off the support pillars and finish up by hand.

JKJ

[Roger Chandler]

I’ve had blanks weighing over 200 lbs. on my Grizzly G0766 and my Grizzly G0800. My G0800 has more and bigger bearings than your Revo 18/36....all 3 being larger than a baseball [one 6208 series and two 6209 series]. My G0766 has 2 bearings on the spindle, 6206 series, and your Revo has one 6205 and one 6207 in the headstock. I would not run a steady diet of very heavy blanks all the time, as you will likely need bearing replacements sooner than normal. The occassional heavy blank probably won’t cause any issues. Try to get your blanks as balanced as possible before mounting on the lathe...that will help prolong bearing life.

This is half of a chessnut oak burl that weighed 450 lbs. when whole....

https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=394528
https://sawmillcreek.org/blob:https://sawmillcreek.org/2a56b8eb-3a75-4abd-b02a-a94c3af43d29

[Joe Frank Porter]

Roger
I always use my tailstock on the large heavy bowls, but was considering hanging a larger one off the end.
Your attachment will not come up.

Thanks

[Richard Coers]

Depends more on how you are holding the blank. Maximum will be less if you use a small chuck.

[Roger Chandler]

Roger
I always use my tailstock on the large heavy bowls, but was considering hanging a larger one off the end.
Your attachment will not come up.

ThanksTry the link instead...it comes up for me. If it still does not come up, go to the Grizzly Green Monster Group link under the “community” tab at the top of the page, then view all pictures near the top...you’ll see it.

The attachment was done with my ipad, so it may not play as well as a PC on loading, but the link does work. I agree with Richard Coors on the hold...for the burl in my link, I used a 6” faceplate and 8 no.12 machine screws that were 2” long to hold that heavy monster.

[Barry McFadden]

I’ve had blanks weighing over 200 lbs. on my Grizzly G0766 and my Grizzly G0800. My G0800 has more and bigger bearings than your Revo 18/36....all 3 being larger than a baseball [one 6208 series and two 6209 series]. My G0766 has 2 bearings on the spindle, 6206 series, and your Revo has one 6205 and one 6207 in the headstock. I would not run a steady diet of very heavy blanks all the time, as you will likely need bearing replacements sooner than normal. The occassional heavy blank probably won’t cause any issues. Try to get your blanks as balanced as possible before mounting on the lathe...that will help prolong bearing life.

This is half of a chessnut oak burl that weighed 450 lbs. when whole....

https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=394528
https://sawmillcreek.org/blob:https://sawmillcreek.org/2a56b8eb-3a75-4abd-b02a-a94c3af43d29

Just wondering.....who says bigger is better?...maybe they are big cheap quality bearings as opposed to smaller better quality bearings???...who knows...

[Bill Boehme]

Does anyone know the Maximum Bowl Blank Weight without tailstock support for a Laguna REVO 18/36 ???

A more fundamental question might be how many heavy logs will your spine withstand. Bearings are relatively cheap and easy to replace and everything will be as good as new. After a lifetime of using my back as if it were a beast of burden it is now full of screws, brackets, rods, and cages ... and a very long way from being like new.

[Mick Fagan]

I would suggest that anything that would be able to turned using the bed extension in the lower position, would certainly be within the parameters of the machines capacity.

The attached picture is of my 2436, not the smaller 1836, but the bed extension is actually the unit designed for the 1836, as is the tailstock riser. Now the 1836 would fit a similar sized blank, but obviously smaller as the 1836 spindle is closer to the bed. Your motor is approximately 1500W whereas mine is approximately 2250W. I sort of assume that the designers thought reasonably clearly that the actual physical possibilities would determine the limits of what they considered normal maximum load.

If you hang something humongous off the end and use a stand alone tripod for your rest, then anything in that territory would probably be stretching things. However with extreme care and thought, I'm sure things like that could be done.

As for bearings not being good enough, or you may wear them out prematurely; I wouldn't be at all concerned. The bearings on my 2436 are bigger, granted, but a set of quality bearings for my unit is approximately $35 to $50 tops (depends upon what brand and from whom you purchase) and it takes about 40 minutes to change them. Tools needed are a couple of Allen keys and a rubber mallet to tap the spindle out. I will clarify this procedure in another thread at another time.

Mick.


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[Leo Van Der Loo]

Joe if you want to hang a longer heavy piece in/on the lathe it is the faceplate or chuck that is where failure would happen, I would use a steady rest for longer pieces even not so heavy ones.

The thought of a bearing problem, is not a problem, ever seen the bearings in modern cars and trucks front or rear hubs ?, they carry a big load and at high speeds and hard knocks on rough roads, lasting for years, I don’t remember having to change bearings on our cars, and we keep them quite a few years before selling and then other owners will keep on using the same bearings while running the cars/trucks, though better quality than most Chinese original equipment bearings in the lathes.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Even larger cheaper bearings may hold up better than smaller expensive ones. The RPMs may be the same, but weight is spread over a larger bearing race.

[tom lucas]

The claim of cheap bearings seems presumptuous, and not supported by facts.

[Roger Chandler]

The claim of cheap bearings seems presumptuous, and not supported by facts.Yeah, that cheap bearing idea is a non starter. I know better from experience. I’ve had my G0766 for 4 years, with fairly heavy usage, and the bearings are quiet, no play in them and the entire spindle is tight and still runs like new. My G0800 is made by the same company that makes the Powermatic lathes, and is comparable to the biggest PM 4224b in class and build.

My comment may have been read wrong...I was not disparaging the quality of the Revo 18/36....I believe it to be a fine lathe. I was just answering about the bearing sizes comparing makes, and the Revo 18/36 has one just a tad smaller and one just a tad larger than my G0766, and with fairly heavy usage no problems whatsoever with bearings/spindle.

Sometimes a post can be done in a hurry without wording every phrase in the most precise way. My apologies if I misconveyed a concept.....certainly not intentional! :)

[Barry McFadden]

The claim of cheap bearings seems presumptuous, and not supported by facts.

I never claimed they WERE cheap.... I just said MAYBE they could be... no facts to support them either way....

[Joe Frank Porter]

Mick, that's a big chunk of wood. With your bed extension, you are able to use the tailstock.
I will get the extension if i turn many pieces larger than 18".

[Leo Van Der Loo]

The claim of cheap bearings seems presumptuous, and not supported by facts.

So you think all bearings are the same quality, do you ??, I do know better and so do others from over a much longer time than half a dozen year running wood lathes, and I’m no chill for any make of lathe.

[Brice Rogers]

It comes up fine for me. Perhaps the poster was not logged in. I think that when you aren't logged in, you can't always see images.


Try the link instead...it comes up for me. If it still does not come up, go to the Grizzly Green Monster Group link under the “community” tab at the top of the page, then view all pictures near the top...you’ll see it.

The attachment was done with my ipad, so it may not play as well as a PC on loading, but the link does work. I agree with Richard Coors on the hold...for the burl in my link, I used a 6” faceplate and 8 no.12 machine screws that were 2” long to hold that heavy monster.

[Mick Fagan]

Mick, that's a big chunk of wood. With your bed extension, you are able to use the tailstock.
I will get the extension if i turn many pieces larger than 18".

oe, I have had two lathes with bed extensions and in both cases once I started using the bed extension, I have left it on as it changes what you can do fairly dramatically.

With the Laguna lathe the bed extension is really a game changer, something I realised reading a PDF on the 18-36 by John Keaton (I think that is how is name is spelt) that was what made me really think the Laguna system would be great for me.

It is possible to do things like extend the bed, extend the bed with greater turning clearance as my picture shows and allows you to turn something front and rear without removing the work from the chuck by placing the bed extension on the front so you can work the rear. This is a feature of the Stubby lathe which I thought was pretty cool, but the Stubby lathe doesn't have many of the other possibilities the Laguna lathes have.

In short, you will probably find that a bed extension extends your posibilities further than you at first think; pun intended.

By the way, that is about as big as it gets on my lathe, the diagonals are close to 900mm (35.5").

Mick.

[tom lucas]

So you think all bearings are the same quality, do you ??, I do know better and so do others from over a much longer time than half a dozen year running wood lathes, and I’m no chill for any make of lathe.

I never said that. I don't pretend to know one way or the other the quality difference in any of these bearings... simply do not have the information to make an assessment w.r.t. to the lathes being mentioned. And I certainly acknowledge that there are bearings made to different quality levels/standards/types, etc. But do not have any real facts about the differences being discussed herein. I suspect you don't know either. If so please inform us.

[Mick Fagan]

With regard to the bearings and their inherent strengths, I posted this almost a year ago after doing some homework with regard to bearings in the Laguna 1836 and 2436 headstocks. My post, which I have partially copied, is post number 34.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?263943-New-Lathe&p=2805121&highlight=#post2805121

Quote:

"The output bearing on the spindle of the 18/36 is rated as per the accompanying clip from the technical PDF of the Taiwanese bearing manufacturer whose bearings are, according to Laguna, their bearing supplier. The 6207 bearing, is the output bearing in the 18/36 lathe.

As you can see the load is not onerous, nor is it light, but the speed is most likely lower than a reasonable percentage of turning work; the computed bearing life is 20,000 hours.
If you load the bearing by approximately 50% more, then the calculations come out to a bearing life of 7,000 hours. Add in some form of average speed increase and you will get a forecast decrease, but……….

With my current usage of approximately 10 hours of actual turning time per week and with no time off for holidays (I’m retired) other interests et cetera, then I have the impression that I wouldn’t be wearing the spindle bearings out on a Laguna 18/36 unit.

The Laguna 24/36 output spindle bearing, which is a 6307 bearing, has this over the 6207 bearing according to their website blurb, “The dynamic load rating is 30% higher than a 6207 ball bearing”. In short, the load rating, and by default the longevity factor if you don’t really change what you are turning, is quite favourable, on paper, over the smaller capacity lathe."

Unquote.

Mick.

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