Thread: Midi Lathe

A friend of mine at the woodwork club I belong to bought one of these lathes from Pop's Shed. And told me that he thought it was a bit under powered.

Is that typical of all these midi sized lathes???

Hi guys,
I would have thought that the lathes show were
Mini lathes....not midi,,,,,??? They are only for bench top
work ie. pens, boxes , small bowls , etc!!!

Hi DSEL 74, I have owned one of these lathes for two plus years without a hint of trouble. I have not turned anything heavy: just pens, candle stick holders, a couple of small bowls out of red gum fence posts and practice spindles. Have not as yet used a vicmarc or stubby so cannot compare to them, but seem to be vibration free and have enough torque for small projects. Jay

In store the 10x18" is Labelled as a Mini and the 12x18" a Midi. I don't know how this compares to peoples regular interpretation. Yes both are bench top units.


Another $100 can get you this JET with a 1HP motor
http://woodworker.com/fullpres.asp?P...3&LARGEVIEW=ON

These are getting expensive….I haven't seen any second hand ones for sale in Melbourne currently.

A similar discussion happened a while ago in the turning section
Will see if I can find the link

Originally Posted by DSEL74

Another $100 can get you this JET with a 1HP motor
http://woodworker.com/fullpres.asp?P...3&LARGEVIEW=ON

Thats another 100USD, which would put it ~$1000AUD, let alone shipping, voltage conversion, etc.

I have the Woodfast version of this lathe.
The bearings might be different but in the store I couldn't see any difference between the castings for it and the Jet.

The cam lock on the tailstock broke twice. The first time was just a couple of weeks after I got it and it was replaced by Cabatec but the second time was a few weeks after that and I just made a beefier replacement myself.

At 1/2HP they are indeed underpowered if you want to efficiently rough down anything more than a couple of inches in diameter with them on a regular basis, but if that was the case it would be worth going up to a bigger lathe. For everything else they are a useful machine.

I put a 1HP motor and VFD on mine and it works a treat. https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...88#post1602088

This was a non-trivial exercise as the 1HP motor was much bigger than the original motor and so I had to mount it and fabricate a replacement belt tensioning mechanism under the bench and then a longer belt had to be used.

Also different size shafts required me to turn up a new multi-V belt pulley for the motor end. This took me a bit longer than I thought it would but it was an interesting project anyway so I did not find it too onerous.

Cost of parts for conversion
Motor $30
Switches etc $20
VFD $140
New belt $20
Blank for new Al pulley $16
Total $206

Originally Posted by VikingCode

Thats another 100USD, which would put it ~$1000AUD, let alone shipping, voltage conversion, etc.

Ahh my mistake, So much for limiting google search to Australia only.

Hi All,
Well if you are holding well, then look at the Vicmarc Electronic Midi.
There is nothing to compare with it, as far as I can see.

I've had one of these for 5 years which I brought off Dave Drescher (South East Queensland Woodworking Supplies) and had no problems at all. Small lathe small work Last year I brought the big brother to it and am delighted with it. I believe they sit mid range in price and mid range in quality. If you look after it - it will give you good service.