Is the WL18 any good

[Arron]

Hi. My wife has recently told me that she is happy for me to buy any woodworking tool I fancy as long as I dont bring home a lathe. Apparently she doesnt want me turning into "one of those grumpy old wood turning codgers". Ignoring this, and noting that Hare and Forbes is having a sale, I am wondering about buying one of their WL18 lathes ($299). I was also wondering about those 6 piece turning chisel sets currently offered at $99 (W302 in the catalogue, normally $120, I think). Are they any good? My requirement is not really for making bowls etc - more for occasional use making handles for tools, legs of tables, etc. I dont want to buy rubbish though.

thanks
Arron

[RETIRED]

Hi. Apparently she doesnt want me turning into "one of those grumpy old wood turning codgers". I dont want to buy rubbish though.

thanks
Arron
Gees, some people leave themselves wide open and lead with the chin. :D

[PAH1]

Have a look for the discussion about MC-900, the WL-18 is the H&F version of that. It is the one that I have and works well. I also bought the chisel set simply because I wanted to learn to sharpen without destroying good tools. The edge holding ability of the tools is not that great, however I treat that as an oportunity to practice sharpening. For occasional use I would recomend them.

As far as being a grumpy woodturning person, well you can always tell your spouse you want to drop the average age of the demographic.

[barnsey]

We all get grumpy went what we want to achieve is beyond our capability, and that applies to any discipline - wood, metal, minds, physical etc. :(

The lathe that you are talking about is very good for the price and I agree that the chisel sets are a bit ordinary however they are not that much worse than other brand names when it comes to working our traditionally harder timbers ;)

Go for it - if you cop any flak I'm sure there are plenty here that will offer you a line. If she's big in the kitchen, a scoop, mortar and pestle, rolling pin if you have to :) are all good ways to soften her up followed by the salt and pepper shakers and the large platter and/or bowl :D

Well it worked for me :D :D

Jamie

[smidsy]

That WL 18 is the Hare & Forbes version of the MC900 and that's a good price - although their Vicmarc price is dearer than Carbatec.
I would go with the basic chisel set, it's a good all round package that you can do some decent work with yet cheap enough to learn to sharpen on. When you know how to sharpen the chisels and know what sort of work you want to you can get some better chisels.
Cheers
Paul

[chunter]

Arron

I've had my WL18 for nearly a year. I'm a newbie, but it seems like good value to me. I have had to replace the drive belt once already, and I had to dismantle and service the variable speed pulley system when it got very heavy to change speeds. Otherwise, fine.

The WL18 has a 1hp (750W) fan cooled motor and a 1"x10TPI headstock thread. The equivalent Carbatec MC900 has a 3/4hp enclosed motor and a M30x3.5mm pitch thread. I don't know if it really matters.

Last H&F open day, one of the ornamental turners demonstrating there was using a WL18, and told me he had been doing so for several years. He might be there this time - if so, worth talking to him before you buy.

Finally, I stretched my budget to a Vicmark VM100 scroll chuck (another $250 or so). It was worth every cent, since it is the thing that holds the wood. I have since bought a H&F clone chuck (advertised in the H&F sale at $79, I think). It's OK but not as nice to use as the Vicmark.

go for it

Colin

[smidsy]

This may be a dumb question but I thought 750w and 3/4hp were the same - I thought 1HP equaled 1000w.
As for clone chucks I would not bother, Carbatec are selling the Vicmark 100 for $229 so why waste $80 on a clone - I got a clone with my MC900 for an extra $20 and it was worth the money because I got it for the cost of the insert but I would not pay for a clone. They work fine in the short term but after only 6 months I have deformation in the metal so I do not think they are worth buying if you're paying retail for one.
Cheers
Paul

[RETIRED]

To convert Watts into hp:
Follow this simple formula - Watts x .00134 = hp.
:)

[lyctus]

Virtually every modern lathe in Australia is equipped with the fast, reliable 30 X 3.5mm thread on the spindle. It is worth having, just to make purchase of accessories your choice, aside from the fact that it is easier to offer up chucks, face plates etc.
In a metric world, why would you purchase an imperial thread machine,especially something as wierd as British Standard Fine thread type ?

[ClintO]

Smidsy
youve got it sort of backwards
1HP = 746Watts

[rsser]

Virtually every modern lathe in Australia is equipped with the fast, reliable 30 X 3.5mm thread on the spindle. It is worth having, just to make purchase of accessories your choice, aside from the fact that it is easier to offer up chucks, face plates etc.
In a metric world, why would you purchase an imperial thread machine,especially something as wierd as British Standard Fine thread type ?

Still a lot of legacy one by tens and other sizes out there. I wouldn't describe the Vicmarc size as a standard quite yet.

Now we could get onto tool post diameters?!

[RETIRED]

MMMMMM! :rolleyes:

[lyctus]

OK. but Durden,Teknatool,Symtec,Carba-Tec all use 30mm Metric thread. Fairly standard I would think.

[Red neck]

The Nova DVR is an exception. For UK and Europe - M33x3.5 RH.
United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa try
1-1/4x8TPI RH. I've had no problems buying Vicmarc or Nova inserts. The rest of the accessories are Nova and they are readily available.

I guess the European and US markets call the shots for thread sizes. You could imagine how difficult it would be to coax a Frenchman away from his beloved metric system. And as for America, they did head towards the Metric system and then changed their minds ... and they are just waithing for the rest of the world to follow suit!

[rsser]

Yeah, I think the Vicmarc spindle is 33 x 3.5 in UK/Europe and maybe US too.

Not that it matters in the case of decent chucks; faceplates on the other hand ...