Laguna 1847 variable speed lathe

[tom martin]

I have a pm3520 that I am very happy with. A friend wants one but doesn't want to spend that much money. I saw Laguna tool has a 1847 2 hp variable speed lathe with a sliding headstock that looks very similar to the PM for $1695. Does anyone out there have any experience with one? Thanks,
Tom

[Mike Peace]

There was some discussion on Woodnet about this lathe. I checked into it before I decided to get my PM3520. I spoke with one of the company reps who could provide very little info and their web site was very sketchy about the details. Shipping was going to be over $300. That runs the price to about $2K for a lathe with no history. For another $550 I got the PM which I figured had no risk whatsoever of disappointing.

Color me Mustard!

[Reed Gray]

It looks good on paper, but I haven't seen it for real yet. Seems like they missed that boat by not having it ready for Portland last summer. I would expect to see it in Virginia this summer. Laguna does make a good quality tool. I would consider it, but then again, the PM is much more of a lathe.
robo hippy

[Alex Cam]

I have a pm3520 that I am very happy with. A friend wants one but doesn't want to spend that much money. I saw Laguna tool has a 1847 2 hp variable speed lathe with a sliding headstock that looks very similar to the PM for $1695. Does anyone out there have any experience with one? Thanks,
Tom

I did a bit of research on this lathe. It looks like the only real downsides are:

tailstock quill travel is only about 2.5"
tailstock is tilted away from the headstock, further exacerbating any issues associated with the short quill travelA gentleman on another forum had the chance to turn on it at Laguna and wrote up a review. He thought it was generally a good piece of machinery.

[dennis kranz]

Go to You Tube movie. Go to Laguna Tools.
Nice machine.

[tom martin]

Thanks for the help. The video and observations were very helpful.
Tom

[Charles Hannemann]

I did a bit of research on this lathe. It looks like the only real downsides are:
tailstock quill travel is only about 2.5"
tailstock is tilted away from the headstock, further exacerbating any issues associated with the short quill travelA gentleman on another forum had the chance to turn on it at Laguna and wrote up a review. He thought it was generally a good piece of machinery.

I would like to updated this the ram travel or Quill is 4" not 2"! Their has been some question about this issue, preproduction info had it at 2" that was changed to 4" I've seen very nice picture that show this on other forums base on those picture I would say a little closer to 4 1/2" you can clearly see 4+ in the closeup!

C

[Alex Cam]

Thanks for the updated information...!

Sure enough, they updated their specs the the website as well:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=83571&stc=1&d=1204919312