Thread: Nova comet reviews

When I was researching small lathes I found some Comet reviews, but I finished up buying a Sherwood M320 cos I thought it was much better value.

Gary Pye sold a very nice little mini at a good price. Phil.

Originally Posted by pommyphil

Gary Pye sold a very nice little mini at a good price. Phil.

Have a mini but looking bit larger with variable speed as my disability makes lifting motor now mission impossible

keep on plugging away

I haven't used the Nova Comet but had a Nova Mercury for many years. We were very satisfied with the Mercury until the VS died after about 7 years of reasonable use. Parts support was non-existent. I looked at the Comet as one option when I purchased a Vicmarc VL150, but decided life is to short so went for the RR option and got the best I could afford.

I've had my 1624 about 9 years and about 3-4 years ago I bought the Comet2 for my daughter.
Pretty nice and they made a few upgrades from the original. She has not had any problems with it but only uses it about eight hours a month. For items up to 10" it seems OK and doesn't stall unless you take a really big cut.
I don't think they have extended the slot for the pin in the quill. I did this myself to give more travel. They initially stated 2.5" of travel but the pin is 1" from then end so travel is only 1.5"; not a problem unless you drill a lot. It was fairly easy to extend the slot as there is a lot of meat to work with.

Originally Posted by NCPaladin

I've had my 1624 about 9 years and about 3-4 years ago I bought the Comet2 for my daughter.
Pretty nice and they made a few upgrades from the original. She has not had any problems with it but only uses it about eight hours a month. For items up to 10" it seems OK and doesn't stall unless you take a really big cut.
I don't think they have extended the slot for the pin in the quill. I did this myself to give more travel. They initially stated 2.5" of travel but the pin is 1" from then end so travel is only 1.5"; not a problem unless you drill a lot. It was fairly easy to extend the slot as there is a lot of meat to work with.

I do peppermill is latest fad so drilling is important so thanks for the heads up

keep on plugging away

Toni, when I was researching which midi lathe I was going to buy, I found that the ones with the variable speed induction motors had a fairly limited speed range. I wanted a lathe that I could turn my pens from start to finish without changing belts. I am not sure what speeds you want to use for your mills, but make sure you check that the speed range is wide enough that you dont have to keep changing the belt as well.

I ended up buying a GPW with the manual speed change, and fitted a new 3 phase motor and VFD, with the belt on the fastest step on the pulleys, I have a speed range of 0-3500 rpm, perfect for my pen turning.
I made some salt and pepper mills last year, and I had to change to the low speed step on the pulleys because there wasnt enough torque on the high speed range, but I completed the whole job on the low speed pulley, I think I get something like 0-1500 rpm on the low speed range.
I remember the Nova Comet had much narrower speed ranges.

Edit- when I changed the motor, I also changed the pulleys to the Vicmark 3-step pulleys off the VL150, the original ones were 5 or 6 step with a narrow belt.