Mini lathe Choices???

[Dave Bonde]

Hello I need to pick out a mini lathe to turn pens for the FPP. I am looking at Jet, Delta and the Carba-Tec4 from penn State Industries. Does anyone have comments or suggestions for me. Thanks Dave

[Michael Ballent]

Jet also has a lathe just for pens, I think its about $100. Depends on how much you plan on getting into turning... I do not have a lathe yet, and people keep claiming that it is highly addictive so that may drive your decision.

-Michael

[Chuck Wintle]

General International also make a nice little lathe for doing pens..and it's not too expensive.

http://www.general.ca/product/inter/25100an.html

no affiliation with this company

[RL Johnson]

I looked at the pen lathe by Jet and decided that for $99 more the mini was a better choice. The pen lathe is only a 1/12 HP machine and there were some returned to Rockler after the first week. Also the mandrels used for pen turning are designed for a head stock with a Morse taper. If you decide to go with the Jet, you won't be disappointed. It also allows you to turn larger items like pepper mills, tops, etc.

[Ken Salisbury]

Hello I need to pick out a mini lathe to turn pens for the FPP. I am looking at Jet, Delta and the Carba-Tec4 from penn State Industries. Does anyone have comments or suggestions for me. Thanks Dave

Dave,

I highly recommend the Jet Variable Speed Mini Lathe. It is the lathe of choice for the majority of the pen turners I know.

As far as the Jet "Pen Lathe" - stay away from that one. I did a review of that machine. This is the thread of that review:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?threadid=4822

[Ray Dockrey]

I just got the EVS JET mini a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely love it. I would recommend it to anybody looking for a small lathe. The nice thing about it is that if you really get hooked and decide to buy a bigger lathe, the mini will still be useful because of the portablility. If you decide to sell it, it holds its value pretty good. Good luck in your decision.

[Arvin Brown]

All are nice lathes. I purchased a Grizzley for $139. It even has a variable speed motor. Jet will cost you over twice that with VS. Jet is a nice machine but is it $160 nicer? For that, you can buy another grizzley when the first one wears out cheaper than one Jet and I don't think that one Jet will out live 2 grizzleys!

[Greg Heppeard]

I got the Mercury mini....I love the variable speed and it has enough power to do other small tunings...a little more expensive than the Jet, but I think it's worth it

[Dave Bonde]

Thanks to all that replied I appreciate the information. I purchased a Jet Mini VS and am very happy with it (after one day):). I put it to the test today, both myself and students. It is very smooth and quite. That was important to me, I have young students using the lathe and I wanted something small in size and quite for them so they would not be intimidated with their first lathe experience. Woodsmith also had the Delta and the General International. The General looked like a very fine machine but did not have a variable speed. For me that was a must have feature for the lathe. Dave