Options now that parts are not available for sears craftsman

[Clarence Martinn]

Found out that parts are no longer available for the Sears Craftsman 15 inch wood lathe. surprisingly, my Lathe runs great.But, when the time comes to fix it, what are my options?

[Bill Dufour]

read fifth post down. It is made by palmgren.
Bill D.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?48046-Craftsman-15-quot

[Andrew Seemann]

Standard things like bearings are available from supply houses and the internet. Same with standard electrical parts. It will depend on how old your lathe is. If it is a generic style similar to the Taiwanese and Chinese mass produced ones, you may be able to find parts from a similar one for a different manufacturer. If it is an old American made one, parts will likely be hard/impossible to find.

Fortunately, there isn't much to go wrong with a lathe, other than bearings, motors, and switches, all of which should be easy to find. Anything special to that model lathe may not be easy to find or just plain unavailable. I have a 70s vintage Craftsman stationary belt sander that needs a belt tracking knob, which has been unavailable for about 30 years. I have a workaround, but it would be nice to have the actual part.

[tom lucas]

If it's like my old one, it had a DC motor and associated control electronics. If something happens to the electronics, you'll have to troubleshoot down to the component and try to find a s suitable replacement part. For me, it wasn't worth it I gave it to a fellow turner who has the same lathe to use for parts and just bought a new one. Bad luck for me because I was already hooked on turning.