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barnsey
18th October 2002, 03:48 PM
Hi Guys,

Greetings from Tweed Heads

Have just found this BB and boy am I enjoying every word. Might take me a while to catch up but we'll get there.

So till I do - the dumb question.

I want a lathe. I done some turning - from school through to the old mans TL1200 in his workshop. As an aside the old bugger is 83 and I'm sick of waiting http://ubb.ubeaut.com.au/ubb/biggrin.gif

Anyway I want to turn outboard, at least 1000 between centres, and it needs to be sturdy. Guess if I had my druthers a Vicmarc VL175 would be nice but a man's not made of money.

I read the post about Bruce Leadbeater and his machines but I couldn't get through to the URL. Can anyone give me a contact point?

I'm open to any advice/ideas and would be pleased to hear if that's okay.

Thanks again for the forum it's great.

rsser
20th October 2002, 08:59 AM
What's your budget Barnsey, and what kind of turning do you want to do?

Bear in mind that once you've got the lathe, then there's the tools, a chuck and accessory jaws will be hard to resist, sharpening gear, and more!

Ern

barnsey
21st October 2002, 02:49 PM
Thanks for the reply Ern

Yeah - I know but I guess I can go to 2K all up if I need to.

So far it's been salt & pepper mills, platters cutting board and a bit of spindle practice but the idea of bowls and platters and exploring the realms of finding the patterns and grain etc.

Guess thats why I want to be able to turn outboard.

Does that sound reasonable?

Jamie

rsser
25th October 2002, 04:55 PM
Well if the arithmetic looks like this

Chuck and acc. jaws $350
Chisels and gouges $300
Sharpening devices $160

that leaves about $1200 for the lathe.

There's a Jet lathe at about this price, the JWL 1236. I don't know about the quality. You could do a search on Google for newsgroup postings about it.

I went from the little MC900 to a Vicmarc 175 but that's outside of your range. Unless you've got a lot of patience and can wait for something good secondhand.

You might consider the MC1100. It's good value for money and will bring a lot of fun.

Cheers,

Ern

rbarnold
26th October 2002, 03:46 AM
I have recently purchased a Carba-Tec lathe under there own brand (probably Chinese) and was suprised how good it is.
It's a heavy cast iron construction with it's own stand, and suprisingly very little vibration. The headstock rotate's 360 deg so outboard turning is easy. The advertised cost is about $450 but I got mine for $410 because I went to the showroom.
I also bought a Vicmarc Chuck (the larger one at $310) and a set of Chinese turning chisels and gouges because of lack of funds and found them to be very good for the price of $130 in a wooden box.
So for less than a thousand dollars had a basic setup. Since then I have bought a few Robert Sorby tools for about $250 and were surprised again that the Chinese set were comparable in quality and HSS.
Hope this helps
Roger