Old Man Wants New Lathe. Any Ideas?

[Peter Blair]

Just came across this thread
http://www.fisherwoodcraft.com/stubb...C=stubby/level
Not sure if you had seen it or not . . .

[BILL DONAHUE]

I'm a financial advisor and may come at this from a different angle than the others and the others all had good advice. I always buy everything with the thought that someday I'll be selling it. Therefore, I buy everything low, never buy anything at retail and since i expect to sell everything later at a fair price, I only buy popular items that can be easily sold. If you can be patient, you'll find whatever you want used and at a big discount. It's a fact that woodturning is overwhelmingly done by old farts so there are always used lathes coming to market. I paid $1800 for an eight month old PM 3520B and if I decide that a bigger and more expensive lathe will give me more fun or allow me sell my turnings for big bucks, I can easily sell it for a profit. Buy low, sell high and sell often!

[Jerry Wright]

WOW! I am amazed at the range of recommendations. What is particularly interesting is the range and diversity of reasons for buying a lathe. They include: power, stainless ways,weight, Made in USA, abundance of accessories, great service, quality of machine, bearings, outboard turning ability, tilt away tailstock, solid,sliding head stock, small foot print, and ease of resale. I suppose the reasons are as varied as there are turners. Another interesting observation is that few mentioned anything about relative prices!! Thanks for all of your inputs - they certainly will help with the evaluation process. Anybody think that I should tell my wife about any of this??

[Jamie Donaldson]

You should definitely tell your wife that a good lathe will be much less expensive than spending several nights a week down at the local pub, drinking away your Social Security checks with some blond floozy! And the lathe will pay for itself with production work, and also keeping you entertained while doing research on all these different alloy tools, which allows you to write them AND the lathe off as a business expense! I could go on and on............!!

[Jerry Wright]

I like the way you think!!!

[Jamie Donaldson]

I've had practice doing this for 25 yrs. Jerry, and am now on lathe number 7!!!

[Peter Blair]

Tell your wife? For me whatever happens in the Vortex stays in the Vortex!

[Thomas Canfield]

There has probably been enough said that my two cents is worth even less than that, but, I bought a Powermatic 3520B about 5 years ago and have had very little regrets. It has handled 100# plus chunks of unbalanced wood turning at 200 to 250 rpm down to the pens at 3000 rpm. I will agree that there are better lathes out there, but for the dollar and use, it is an excellent machine and most will not upgrade from the purchase. There are a lot of accessories and special wood that can suck up any extra cash one has, or I am open for adoption (if you want to adopt an old grandpa).