Thread: First Lathe - what to buy

Thanks Big Shed.

Cool tongleh. Without any real pressure they dropped the price to $1650 including gst and a promised heavy discount on any extras. I'll have to get them to deliver it I think and maybe see if they have a engine gantry or similar to lift into position. 180 kg is well beyond my best effort in power lifting

I stripped it down to bed and headstock then lifted it one end at time while the wife slid a couple of bricks underneath. My centre height is quite high at 48", so 50 odd bricks later I arrived at the right height and lifted it onto the stand. It also gave me a chance to inspect it before use, something I would recommend everyone do with a new lathe, that way they can inspect individual parts and see how everything fits together/works, identify weak areas and most importantly tighten all the fasteners, something the factory just didn't do in my case...

Righto. Well, I ended up giving all of the metal lathes a wide berth. All of the stories of rebuilding or stripping and reassembling various machines, dodgy this and run out on that etc...etc... put me off. And the fact that I will mainly be turning resin and need the quick freehand thing going - I got a wood lathe instead. I got a scroll chuck, live centre, arbor and drill chuck, full set of tools etc... for just over $ 800. I guess I'll get booted off the metal work site now. Thanks everyone for the advice. I know Ive got what I paid for, but the simplicity won out in the end.

Cheers,

Alex.

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