Thread: First wood lathe, second hand maier db5?

8 inch center height is good, 16 inch swing. 36 inches between centers is good if you will be doing long spindles.

Bent sheet metal beds are not so good as they are not rigid. With an out of balance blank the tool rest will be bouncing up and down and the tail stock back and forth. Once the blank is brought to round the vibration may stop, depending upon the thickness of the sheet metal. Thick heavy cast iron is better.

I think $375 is a bit high unless it comes with a chuck and tools.

I would not worry too much about parts such as bearings or step pulleys. Those are pretty much off the shelf.

I like old Woodfast lathes, like these:

http://www.turnedtreasures.com/image...st_side_lg.jpg

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225...1N1A3T3eEg.jpg

My 20 inch swing short bed:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb...1-p1070412.jpg

Old Delta: http://cdn.instructables.com/FER/ADS...I90.MEDIUM.jpg

The 20ish year old cast iron lathes are pretty much indestructible. Be sure it is complete, banjo, tool rest, tailstock. Parts can sometimes be hard to find if missing. Most have #2 Morse Taper sockets in head and tail stock. Common as dirt and easy and inexpensive to find drive and tail centers.

Hard to tell from photo, but the linked photo looks like a sheet metal lathe, headstock and all. I'd therefore stand clear, too much flex

The linked photo (Emcodb5) looks like one my brother-in-law had. Even when bolted to a railway sleeper (9" x 3" Redgum) it was still virtually worse than useless. He eventually sold his for about $25.
As Dai Sensei suggested, it is too light weight and flexes badly. I would also suggest that you look elsewhere.

Bob

Thanks guys. It is a bit of a minefield out there. Some of the old lathes have one or two round tubes for the bed. I read elsewhere that these were to be avoided if possible. Do you have an opinion?

Regards

Originally Posted by Wol

Some of the old lathes have one or two round tubes for the bed. I read elsewhere that these were to be avoided if possible.

I agree. Try and get a cast bed

There a woodfast in the marketplace section fir sale that would be a good lathe and is fairly cheap.

Originally Posted by Wol

Thanks guys. It is a bit of a minefield out there. Some of the old lathes have one or two round tubes for the bed. I read elsewhere that these were to be avoided if possible. Do you have an opinion?

Regards

My first "good" lathe was a Hegner 175, made in Germany and out the door new for over $2000. I bought it with, grinder, jigs, bench, and some walnut timber for $500.

It has square tubes and shakes like a dog pooping peach seeds with an out of balance blank. It does smooth out when the blank is turned round but still has some vibration which shows up in uneven lines on the bowl.

My cast iron bed Woodfast is as stable as a one ton rock, even with an out of balance hunk of gnarly stump.

Hold out for the heaviest cast iron bed you can afford. If you are handy with machinery, unbroken, not abused, but ugly lathes can be bought and put in good working order quite inexpensively.

See top left photo of Rude Osolnik's lathe which made many hundreds of beautiful pieces: http://rudeosolnik.com/?q=studio

Thanks all. I may keep looking then. I think the Woodfast referred to above is a little too far to look at
Appreciate all your comments

regards

Originally Posted by Wol

Thanks guys. It is a bit of a minefield out there. Some of the old lathes have one or two round tubes for the bed. I read elsewhere that these were to be avoided if possible. Do you have an opinion?

Regards

Not quite correct - the Vicmarc 850 is a "one tube lathe" that has performed very well. The UK Record lathes preform reasonably OK and are a very popular "two round tube lathe" but they do have limits and their idiosyncrasies.

There are plenty of lathes constructed in a similar fashion to the Emco Maier DB5, Australian made Golding lathes are a typical example that have a loyal following. Fabricated lathes do have a place if they are constructed from suitable sections. Oneway & Robust in the US are fabricated lathes.

Plenty of turners turn with MC900 & MC1100 clone lathes, they fit a niche in the market and can perform quite OK IF turners respect their limits. The lathes to avoid are the very lightly fabricated thin sheet metal units typically sold new for $200-300 with tools.

Turners must respect a machines limits, a lathe is a bit like a truck - don't use a ute for a 20 ton load, & a Mack Titan is a bit of over kill for picking up the groceries.

There can be problems with the Record lathes in that the threading is imperial and the Morse taper is only #1 rather than then #2.

Just to let you all know that a friend of the good lady had an MC36 (the imperial description for what are now the MC900) looking for a good home. So I am now the proud owner of a perfectly respectable little lathe. It has been looked after, and was only needing new centres and a tail stock spindle lock. A trip down to Timbercon and all sorted. Indeed when I explained the need for the spindle lock & handle, the owner, Ross, invited me to hop in to his 4wd and took me down to the warehouse to find a match from a box of bits. I managed to get the right thread and just ground down the nose when I got home. I was chuffed by the very helpful service which must have cost more to sort than the part was worth.

Happy as a pig in the proverbial.