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CanFly
21st January 2005, 04:50 PM
In Canada the Nova DVR 3000 sells for around $2500 Canadian.

Does anyone have experience with this lathe? I am searching for a new lathe and would like to make sure that I have the "right one."

The lathe comes with a 3 inch faceplate and a ball bearing tailstock centre.

Has anyone experienced any problems with this machine that they would care to divulge?

How about the electronics, is it reliable?

Thanks.

CanFly

rsser
21st January 2005, 08:01 PM
Have you used the search function on this on the forum canfly?

Have you done a Google Groups search, esp. on rec.crafts.woodturning?

Chesand
21st January 2005, 08:54 PM
Do what Ern says.
There was at least one thorough thread on this lathe 12 months or so ago.

Turner Corner
21st January 2005, 09:26 PM
CanFly,

I think this thread may be what you're looking for:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/showthread.php?t=6289&highlight=Nova+DVR+3000

I got a DVR 3000 about 6 months ago and agree with everything the guys say - you won't find better.

CanFly
22nd January 2005, 04:58 AM
Hi Mark,

Thanks for your information. I did look at the comments and found some of them to be useful.

Making a decision on an expensive piece of machinery isn't easy!

Ray

Red neck
22nd January 2005, 10:37 AM
CanFly,

You won't be disappointed in the Nova DVR 3000. I purchased mine about 15 months ago and I have no complaints what so ever in regards to its published performance or reliability.

CanFly
22nd January 2005, 03:11 PM
Hi Redneck,

Thanks for the information. I have looked at the Website and found some good comments about the Nova DVR.

CanFly

Kev Y.
23rd January 2005, 09:50 AM
Canfly, I agree with Red Neck.. I have had mine for about 2 1/2 years, can not fault it.

I paid somewhere in the region of $Au3000 for mine. I have used a woodcraft and a vicmarc both with the variabke speed and consider the Nova to be far superior.

BUY IT NOW dont waste any more time.. think how much turning time you are wasting :p

CanFly
23rd January 2005, 11:39 AM
Hi Kev,


Thanks for your input. It appears that virtually everyone who has used this lathe is pleased with it.

I will look at the Oneway this coming week, it is made in Canada and receives good reports. I will compare the two and make a decision. The prices are similar, close to $2500 Canadian, plus those blasted taxes; but the Oneway could be a little lighter in construction. I would consider either the 1224 or the 1018. If you haven't seen the Oneway lathes you may be interested in this URL http://www.oneway.on.ca/

The Oneway doesn't have the swivelling head and the threads are 1 by 8 rather than the larger size on the Nova 3000. I have several fittings and face plates that are 1 by 8 and that could affect my decision. I think I can get a converter for the chuck that would then enable it to fit the Nova.



Ray

MathewA
23rd January 2005, 02:15 PM
For me personally if I had the same choice between the oneway and the nova I'd take the oneway everytime. Everything about the oneway is well thought out and built beyond compare and their service is next to none. I personally don't think there is a better over all lathe manufacturer in the world for wood lathes. The bed of a lathe and what it's made of is very important. The nova bed is very thin and made from cast iron, a bad combination - far too much flex. The oneway is made from a thick walled steel pipe, very rigid and resistant to flex, which is important in turning. Steel is far superior to cast iron in strength and resistance to flex.


Slightly off topic... (Sorry ozwinner if I'm hijacking the thread out of turn) What part of BC are ya in? Cause ya like flying I'd guess somewhere around Sidney or Vancouver.

If Ozwinner had attempted to hijack I think he'd of asked what you like on yer pancakes. Here's a good one... When I was in Oz I could buy Pure Canadian Maple Sirup for less in Aus than in Canada - go figure.



Hi Kev,
Thanks for your input. It appears that virtually everyone who has used this lathe is pleased with it.

I will look at the Oneway this coming week, it is made in Canada and receives good reports. I will compare the two and make a decision. The prices are similar, close to $2500 Canadian, plus those blasted taxes; but the Oneway could be a little lighter in construction. I would consider either the 1224 or the 1018. If you haven't seen the Oneway lathes you may be interested in this URL http://www.oneway.on.ca/

The Oneway doesn't have the swivelling head and the threads are 1 by 8 rather than the larger size on the Nova 3000. I have several fittings and face plates that are 1 by 8 and that could affect my decision. I think I can get a converter for the chuck that would then enable it to fit the Nova.



Ray

CanFly
23rd January 2005, 02:55 PM
Hi Matthew,

You guessed correctly. I am near Duncan, 15 miles, and the small airstrip is there too. Take a look at my homebuilt plane, all wood and not from a kit. Do a search for Plane woodwork and it will come up.

Thanks for your comments re. The Oneway and the Nova lathes. Oneway in their ads. indicate that they have a very strong bed, and true, they do have an excellent service depot, plus, it is made here and possibly easier to maintain. We will see, I will inspect one in Comox on Monday. I will be interested in one of the smaller lathes.

Now, why would anyone leave BC for Australia. Oops, no offense to those Down Under!

Will you take your Oneway with you? If not what would you ask for it if you were to sell?

Ray

Kev Y.
23rd January 2005, 08:24 PM
CanFly.. Oneway service depots!! BAHH, Nova dont need "service depots".. :p

Go with what you feel the most comfortable with.. :D

Red neck
23rd January 2005, 09:41 PM
Ray & Matthew

On the subject of steel construction –v- cast iron, I chose cast iron on the basis of its inherent dampening properties. The Nova by the way, weighs in at 180 lbs minus the stand. The cast iron stand supplied by Teknatool would probably add at least another 150 lbs or more to the unit.

Teknatool have this to say about the stand:

“Cast iron has always been the material of choice for wood lathe construction because of its inherent mass and excellent modulus of vibration dampening. The cast iron stand has been purposely designed to be heavy, solid and robust keeping this in mind.”

I certainly have not had trouble with flexing, even when turning large out of balance blocks between the centres. In fact with the head swivelled 90 degrees and an outrigger you are able to rotate the blank on the bed axis thereby increasing overall stability because of the longer footprint of the lathe.

The Oneway construction has me intrigued. Is there a possibility of filling the steel cylindrical bed with sand or other dampening material?

Matthew, on the subject of moving to Australia, the Nova DVR is dual voltage!

Ray, I think it comes back to personal preferences and I would suggest that either brand would work well for you.

MathewA
23rd January 2005, 09:52 PM
Yup I know the place, I'm in Sidney. Thats some piece of work! Just don't be doin any lawn dart tricks with it:)

You'll be seeing Doug in Comox I would guess. I bought my 2436 from him a few yeas back. He delivered and set it up, by the time he had left I handed him about $8000 in cash.

I'm expecting to hear before the end of this month as to whether I'll get the green light ot go to Aus. For me I was there for 5 months in 1992 and never forgot the place. I really like the Aus attitude on life and such. And you can't beat their weather.

I'm still not sure on whether I'll take the lathe or not. There's something to be said for traveling light. I'll take it if I can find a place to store it and all my other tools while I get myself sorted out.

Small world isn't it. Here we are talking on an Aussie website when we both live on Vancouver Island



Hi Matthew,

You guessed correctly. I am near Duncan, 15 miles, and the small airstrip is there too. Take a look at my homebuilt plane, all wood and not from a kit. Do a search for Plane woodwork and it will come up.

Thanks for your comments re. The Oneway and the Nova lathes. Oneway in their ads. indicate that they have a very strong bed, and true, they do have an excellent service depot, plus, it is made here and possibly easier to maintain. We will see, I will inspect one in Comox on Monday. I will be interested in one of the smaller lathes.

Now, why would anyone leave BC for Australia. Oops, no offense to those Down Under!

Will you take your Oneway with you? If not what would you ask for it if you were to sell?

Ray

Roly
23rd January 2005, 10:48 PM
Why would you leave Canada to come to Australia, Because its God's own country, that's why

Roly

Batlow woodfworks running strong

MathewA
23rd January 2005, 11:19 PM
I've owned both cast iron and steel constructed lathes. For me I've never found a problem with vibration being trasmitted through the bed of a lathe on any of them. Whenever I have vibration its usually from the piece I'm turning thats flexing and on the odd occasion the tool is flexing. All I do is slow the lathe down a bit and or move the tool rest closer and it stops the vibration.

Where I find the problem is in the beds ability to resist twist. I had an Oliver lathe with an 8 foot cast iron bed, it must of weighed over 1200 lbs, the castings were very thick. I coudl put a 1" thick chunk of wood under one leg and have the other three still on the ground, there was a lot of twist in that bed. So when you have a tool rest base hanging off the side as much as 8" or more, that produces a lot of force that can cause the bed to twist. You can't see the bed twisting but you can sure feel it in the tool. I had a delta 12" standard duty lathe where I could see the bending in the bed when I cranked up the tailstock wheel. Whereas the oneway is made from a thick walled steel pipe. It just won't bend or twist under any turning conditions. I've never turned on a nova but the ones I've seen up close and in pictures the construction of the bed concerns me. The head stock looks robust but the bed looks like it's very suseptable to twist and probably some bending especially when the bed extension is attached.

Weight is important in a lathe but I find the lathes foot print more important. I could walk my 1000+ lb powermatic around the shop with what would seem was a relatively light piece of wood. My oneway has a wide stance and its hard to get it moving with any piece and it weighs 850lbs.

I checked with yaskawa, the manufacturer of the inverter installed on all oneway lathes and they said it's auto sensing and will work anywhere in the world where there's 240volts

I've read about others suggesting capping both ends of the the oneway and filling the bed with sand. I've not experienced any situation that I felt doing that would be of any benefit.

Buying and owning a lathe(s) is definitely a personal preference, thats for sure. You got short ones, tall ones, small ones, bigs ones... And they have to blend with your decor, that's why I picked the oneway over the vicmark. I look better in an off white color than I do in blue;). Does this lathe make me look fat?:D


Ray & Matthew

On the subject of steel construction –v- cast iron, I chose cast iron on the basis of its inherent dampening properties. The Nova by the way, weighs in at 180 lbs minus the stand. The cast iron stand supplied by Teknatool would probably add at least another 150 lbs or more to the unit.

Teknatool have this to say about the stand:


I certainly have not had trouble with flexing, even when turning large out of balance blocks between the centres. In fact with the head swivelled 90 degrees and an outrigger you are able to rotate the blank on the bed axis thereby increasing overall stability because of the longer footprint of the lathe.

The Oneway construction has me intrigued. Is there a possibility of filling the steel cylindrical bed with sand or other dampening material?

Matthew, on the subject of moving to Australia, the Nova DVR is dual voltage!

Ray, I think it comes back to personal preferences and I would suggest that either brand would work well for you.

MathewA
23rd January 2005, 11:25 PM
I've owned both cast iron and steel constructed lathes. For me I've never found a problem with vibration being trasmitted through the bed of a lathe on any of them. Whenever I have vibration its usually from the piece I'm turning thats flexing and on the odd occasion the tool is flexing. All I do is slow the lathe down a bit and or move the tool rest closer and it stops the vibration.

Where I find the problem is in the beds ability to resist twist. I had an Oliver lathe with an 8 foot cast iron bed, it must of weighed over 1200 lbs, the castings were very thick. I coudl put a 1" thick chunk of wood under one leg and have the other three still on the ground, there was a lot of twist in that bed. So when you have a tool rest base hanging off the side as much as 8" or more, that produces a lot of force that can cause the bed to twist. You can't see the bed twisting but you can sure feel it in the tool. I had a delta 12" standard duty lathe where I could see the bending in the bed when I cranked up the tailstock wheel. Whereas the oneway is made from a thick walled steel pipe. It just won't bend or twist under any turning conditions. I've never turned on a nova but the ones I've seen up close and in pictures the construction of the bed concerns me. The head stock looks robust but the bed looks like it's very suseptable to twist and probably some bending especially when the bed extension is attached.

Weight is important in a lathe but I find the lathes foot print more important. I could walk my 1000+ lb powermatic around the shop with what would seem was a relatively light piece of wood. My oneway has a wide stance and its hard to get it moving with any piece and it weighs 850lbs.

I checked with yaskawa, the manufacturer of the inverter installed on all oneway lathes and they said it's auto sensing and will work anywhere in the world where there's 240volts

I've read about others suggesting capping both ends of the the oneway and filling the bed with sand. I've not experienced any situation that I felt doing that would be of any benefit.

Buying and owning a lathe(s) is definitely a personal preference, thats for sure. You got short ones, tall ones, small ones, bigs ones... And they have to blend with your decor, that's why I picked the oneway over the vicmark. I look better in an off white color than I do in blue;). Does this lathe make me look fat?:D


Ray & Matthew

On the subject of steel construction –v- cast iron, I chose cast iron on the basis of its inherent dampening properties. The Nova by the way, weighs in at 180 lbs minus the stand. The cast iron stand supplied by Teknatool would probably add at least another 150 lbs or more to the unit.

Teknatool have this to say about the stand:


I certainly have not had trouble with flexing, even when turning large out of balance blocks between the centres. In fact with the head swivelled 90 degrees and an outrigger you are able to rotate the blank on the bed axis thereby increasing overall stability because of the longer footprint of the lathe.

The Oneway construction has me intrigued. Is there a possibility of filling the steel cylindrical bed with sand or other dampening material?

Matthew, on the subject of moving to Australia, the Nova DVR is dual voltage!

Ray, I think it comes back to personal preferences and I would suggest that either brand would work well for you.

CanFly
24th January 2005, 05:00 AM
Hi Matthew,

Whoa! $8000 is way out of my ball park! I hope that you can use it satisfactorily in Australia.

Ray

CanFly
24th January 2005, 05:05 AM
Wow, according to Brudda - lathes Down Under don't require service depots, and best of all some say that God lives there. Now wonder Matthew is leaving this blessed land of Canada!

CanFly

rsser
24th January 2005, 02:13 PM
Seems to me that if the Oneway doesn't have a swivel head, that's a very important difference to consider.

The DVR3000 does, and the converts down under swear that the outrigger rest is the best thing since sliced bread.

But as noted: there's a lot in the construction of the stand. The DVR has one as an extra if memory serves (right, converts?) so you've got to factor that in.

I had a stand built to my specs when I bought my Vicmarc 175 - correct height is important to us creaky old buggers with bad backs (some report that a bit higher than the rule is better). Another reason was that the concrete floor in Casa del Ern was uneven.

CanFly
24th January 2005, 04:39 PM
Hi Ern,

Thanks for your information. I too think that that swivel head is a good feature to have.

I have taken a good look over the Internet and the Nova is favoured by many.

The Vicmark that you own is a heavy piece of machinery, it appears heavier than the Nova.

Ray

Jim Carroll
25th January 2005, 07:31 AM
The DVR lathe is 90kg without a stand and the VL175 is 180kg with a stand.
The DVR is 600mm between centres and the VL175 is 1metre. These are some of the differances.

Little Festo
25th January 2005, 01:15 PM
Not knocking the DVR, I use one quite a bit and like useing it, but 80% of that 90kg is in the headstock and motor - none the less it's a good lathe. I opted for the much heavier variable speed Vicmark 300 shortbed, it's great.

Who says DVRs don't break down and need servicing/repairs, I know two people who have DVRs and both have needed repairs, maybe just unlucky.

1'm not fat so Vicmarc blue is ok - white gets too dirty

All the Best - Peter

CanFly
25th January 2005, 03:54 PM
Hi Peter,

Thanks for your information.

I viewed a number of lathes today, the Oneway (expensive but worth, it I am told!, Jet (cheap and not worth it, I am told), General, good but old technology, I am told. It is variable speed but one has to turn the handle manually!

When push comes to shove it boils down to the money. The Oneway is a bit more than I would like to spend, the Jet I won't consider at this time, and the General appears to be a good stable platform for around $2000 Canadian but without frills, and certainly not a swivel head. The Nova is still under consideration.

Ray

Ed Tabachek
26th January 2005, 04:24 AM
Canfly Ray
Why don't you go into KMS Tools in Coquitlam, BC, Canada. This tool supplier sells the Nova, Vicmarc, General and King lathes, and should have something on display. I have seen the DVR in their Abbotsford store.
The cost and time to travel to Coquitlam is certainly worthwhile to check out the machine in person and maybe to run it. KMS has a classroom in the Coquitlam store where they teach turning, you should ashk what machines they have set up, maybe you could put some wood on and turn something.
These machines are not cheap, you don't want to buy something that is not suitable for your style of work.
I'll try to put up their link.
http://www.kmstools.com/
OK!
Edward

CanFly
26th January 2005, 06:27 AM
Hi Edward,

Thanks for your information.

I spent the day in Comox yesterday viewing a variety of lathes including General, Oneway, Vicmarc, and Jet.

The prices at KMS Tools are identical to those in Comox for the same machine.

I was shown and used a couple of Oneway lathes, a small and a large one. I am leaning toward the Oneway 1640. It has the 40 inch bed and outboard turning capacity. The price is similar to the Vicmark VL300.

Ray

gatiep
26th January 2005, 03:41 PM
Ray,

Have you had a look at a real lathe like the Vicmarc 175 for swivel or the Vicmarc 200 or 300 for fixed head. I have no idea what they would cost in Canada, but they are very popular in Australia.I have a VL175 with a 1.5 hp motor and am very happy with it.

Happy lathe hunting

Joe

:)

CanFly
26th January 2005, 04:07 PM
Hi Joe,

Yes, I have seen the lathes you mention, and many more.

After much hand wringing I have decided on the Canadian manufacturer Oneway. The Oneway 1640 appeals to me and will do the work that I have in mind. It isn't cheap, but cheap lathes can be a problem.

The head doesn't swivel, my head will have to do that instead! I will buy the extension for the turning on the left end. The same extension can also be used to make the lathe bed longer; a nice touch.

Take a look at the Oneway 1640 at http://www.oneway.on.ca/lathes/1640lathe.htm

Thanks for your interest and input. I have had a difficult time selecting a machine but the assistance and suggestions from you and those who use this forum has been invaluable. Thanks to you all.

Ray

Hobbyhorse
30th April 2005, 08:41 PM
Hi Canfly

I traded in my Teknatool 1500 lathe on a DVR and have never looked back. Apart from the convenience of the variable speed, power, rigidity etc the thing that most struck me was the absence of vibration. With the motor on the 1500 being cantilevered out the back and driving through a belt this magnified any little irregularity in the belt. The DVR has its motor in the headstock and is utterly smooth which for me showed up in the finish cuts.

Rhys H.

CanFly
1st May 2005, 04:07 AM
Hi Rhys H,

I am pleased that you are happy with the Nova lathe. They are certainly very fine lathes, and, as you indicated, very smooth running.

I have purchased a Oneway 1640 lathe, expensive, but an ideal lathe for me. It too is incredibly smooth running and has many features that I was looking for. It is Canadian made and that appeals to me, hence spares and maintenance won't be a problem.

My chief problem at present is finding the time to use the Oneway; house painting and such is consuming much of my time. However, the winter will be the period to get most use out of it so I am attempting to stock-pile wood in preparation for that.

Ray