Thread: Much needed advice, HELP!!!!!

Originally Posted by fozz

One question I do have that you may be able to answer for me, where lathes are concerned, the alignment issue, are lathes often far out and if out are they fixable with little effort or not?

I did read on another forum where a Nova lathe and a Jet lathe were out of alignment right out of the crate and it made me wonder.

Two very important criteria for me were run out and alignment of head to tail stock. I looked at so many wood lathes where the head and tail stock didn't line up that I got very disheartened. To the point that I seriously considered buying a second metal lathe and modifying it for wood turning. It was amazing to see that even the lathes at the top of the market fell down in this area. One of the worst I looked at was the Woodfast M305, one of the best the Woodfast M910, so go figure!

The WL-46 was one of the best, if not the best, in this department. Due to the design of wood lathes one will never get the alignment achieved on the metal lathe but this comes so close that it is certainly acceptable to me.

To a lot of people this alignment isn't as important as it is to me, I turn a lot of pens and you soon find out that alignment of head to tail stock is very important.

Dunno about the M305, but my M910 was perfect out of the crate. If your lathe has alignment issues, get the Teknatool Morse taper acruline to help sort it out. I could even lend you mine if you need it.

Fozz, which ever lathe you get, get some lessons, HSS chisels, plenty of cheap blanks to practice on (Cheap as in free) and most importantly have fun.

Thanks Fred for the info, hopefully the one I get is a good one

Originally Posted by Pat

Dunno about the M305, but my M910 was perfect out of the crate. If your lathe has alignment issues, get the Teknatool Morse taper acruline to help sort it out. I could even lend you mine if you need it.

Fozz, which ever lathe you get, get some lessons, HSS chisels, plenty of cheap blanks to practice on (Cheap as in free) and most importantly have fun.

Thanks Pat, but the acruline is really of no help here as it is the side to side "slop" in most tail stocks that is the problem and this can vary along the length of the bed.

Consider this scenario.

In the head stock spindle you have a pen mandrel mounted, you then slide up the tail stock which could be out to the left or the right by as much as 2-3mm (yes, I have measured that much on some lathes!). Where do you position the tail stock?
The acruline may be helpful in lining up the head stock on a swivel head lathe, which can then be clamped in place, the tail stock is a different matter. But perhaps I am missing something, I frequently do.

As I said above, I found the Woodfast M910 that I looked at just about perfect, obviously yours is as well.

I also found significant differences between examples of the same lathe. One that springs to mind is the Vicmarc VL100, looked at 3 of those, 1 perfect, 2 woeful.

The DVR XP tailstock has a couple of adjustable plates that screw to the bottom and sit in the bed gap, so you can get some lateral adjustment. If I get mine accurate however the tailstock won't slide over the join in the standard bed.

Just athought. I have often wondered why the beds of wood lathes are not made like the beds of meatal lathes. Is accuracy considered more important in metal turning, or is it considered to be not important in wood turning?

short answer not needed as hand held tools .. and cost ..and it would trap so much sawdust cheers Bob

Originally Posted by artme

Just athought. I have often wondered why the beds of wood lathes are not made like the beds of meatal lathes. Is accuracy considered more important in metal turning, or is it considered to be not important in wood turning?

Originally Posted by bobsreturn2003

short answer not needed as hand held tools .. and cost ..and it would trap so much sawdust cheers Bob

Accuracy not needed because using hand tools? I beg to differ, see what even a fraction of a mm out of round does to the match of your turned pen blank to the kit and then tell me accuracy is not needed.

Cost? I have 2 lathes in my shed, one is a metal lathe with EVS, heaps of gears, cross slide, a complex gear train, a gear driven lead screw, a very precisely machined bed that keeps the tail stock aligned with the head stock without any slop - cost me $1200. (oh, and it was supplied with a very good 3 jaw chuck, a 4 jaw chuck and a big cast iron face plate, a whole series of thread gears and various other tooling)

The other one is a wood lathe, EVS, 2 hp motor, basic banjo for tool rest, OK machined bed that is not nearly as precise as that on the metal lathe - Cost $1450. (supplied with a face plate, no chucks of any description)

If you put them side by side you would expect the metal lathe to be double the cost of the wood lathe.

Now, if you took a Vicmarc VL300 at $5000plus and looked at a similarly priced metal the difference would be even more startling, that amount buys you a serious metal lathe with lots more parts and lots more precision machining involved in its' manufacture.

could be some one is making a lot of money ? made in australia costs so much more too ,even transport costs so much more. most lathes are made overseas as well . whats the answer????

Just had another thought. If the bed was made like an inverted W and the bottom of the V part removed ( or not made ) then sawdust would not get trapped and the problems of accurate alignment ought to be no more.

never bought a lathe out of alignment but i take a couple off dead centres with me to check . the lathe i built , now getting that aligned and welding it true , that was a lot of time and trial and error . would bolt it next time and shim it . for adjustment . the older metal lathes had a flat bed , but the tail stock was adjustable side to side to do offsett turning and if you have a metal turning friend he may be able to make you an adaptor to recenter your tail stock . so it runs true . most bowl turning you can leave the tailstock in the cupboard though . cheers

Its funny, as a complete novice where turnings concerned, I'm finding this discussion fascinating

Makes me feel alot less concerned with the lathe I'm buying and more frustrated that there's at least 30+ sleeps to go till I can use it

YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!

I now have a lathe, not what I'd originally decided on but a lathe none the less. I ordered the lathe from H&F on the 5th of June and was told it would arrive by the 15th of July so I waited patiently for the delivery day to arrive.

The 15th of July came and went, still no phone call to say its arrived, starting to get impatient now, 2 weeks later the phone rings to say the lathe has arrived. Unfortunately the finances at the time were extremely tight so told H&F that I would not be able to purchase the lathe at that time. No problems I'm told, we'll keep it for upto 3 months for you but ring us before you decide to pick it up just incase we sell it in the mean time.

Being self employed and as winter had come with a vengence, I figured it would take at least 3 months to get the necessary funds but still wanted a lathe after the day at 's and having joined the Koonung Turners Guild.

Had birthday last week and one of the presents was enough cash to buy a cheap set of woodturning chisels, now my need, desire for a lathe was een worse than before. I had looked at the Woodfast midi lathe after using the one at 's and was very impressed with it so I rang the closest stockist and after already tentatively getting a quote on one was told by the sales person there is no way I can sell it to you for that price as the person you spoke to is not here today and you'll have to speak with him when he returns then hung up on me.

GRRRRRRRR, I wanted to buy a damn lathe today, not tomorrow, today!!!!!!!

So I rang one of the club members and an hour later we were headed up to Pop's to look at the midi lathe with variable electronic speed adjustment that they sell under their own branding. After abit of discussion on price and whether the purchase was a good thing, I drove away with a 3 speed electronic variable speed mini lathe and a set of chinese chisels.

Its not what I'd originally decided on but after the day at 's and talking to my fellow club members and reading many of the forums posts here I realised while the cheap chisels aren't ideal, I'm going to need to learn how to sharpen them and after pricing some handless P&N chisels at Pop's at over 3 times the price of the chinese chisels, I figured if I mess a grind up, 20 cents per grind instead of 70+ cents per grind while i'm learning is much better for my hip pocket.

I got the lathe home, took it out of the box and set it up on the bench then put the head and tail spurs in and slid the tail stock upto the head stock. Just by eye the two points met just about perfectly so tomorrow I'll make a proper stand for the lathe, set up the dust extraction and apply chisel to wood.

So at the moment I am one happy chappy

Originally Posted by fozz

So at the moment I am one happy chappy

I already knew that as I was there buying my new drill press when you rang Brian to tell him.

Good luck with your purchase.


Peter.