Thread: Opinion on this lathe...

Hi Cam,

I have an MC900 (first lathe) which I have modified to take a 1hp motor with an electronic speed adjuster.

Personally I didn't like the "swinging" head stock. With the MC900 you can turn bowls/platters up to a diameter of 300mm with no hassles without rotating the headstock.

It is a good lathe to start with and I enjoyed it fully. As I am turning a bit more professionally now, I bought a Woodfast, but the MC900 is just great.

As far as speeds are concerned, I didn't encounter any trouble turning pens or any other work, before or after the conversion.

The only problem with these lathes is the manual speed changing mechanism, which is based on pulleys narrowing and widening. Pulleys are made of cast alluminium and break really easy (hence my conversion).

Motor power was OK, obviously the more power the better, depending on what work you plan on doing. Ah, also, watch out for the steel stand as if it is not braced, plumbed, etc. it will vibrate terribly. Not a difficult thing to fix, but better purchase a lathe with cast iron legs.

Hope that this answers your questions, best regards

bosco

gday cameron.

havent seen you around for a while

i think that 2000rpm is enough for pen making. faster would be better but it is enough.

cheers

I am sure that if you look around some other places the 1100 comes with 1hp. I am not a fan of the reeves system but then I got a bad one and took it back the next day. Others like it and some very good work has been done on them. They allow fairly large work to be done and at the price its ok. The quality varies a lot between brands sometimes so check the warranty before you buy.
Regards
John

As I've said before, the MC-900 is the basic "entry level" lathe. Your bare-bones family sedan, as it were. The MC-1100 is the same thing with a slightly beefier motor, sheepskin seat covers and a halfway decent radio.

A little better performance and slightly more comfortable, but inherently the same..

There are better lathe designs out there (and anything worse shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "lathe" ) but it represents good bang for the buck and I know quite a few turners who've had either one for years and still haven't found it's limits.

For a new turner without a big budget, I've no qualms at all about recommending one as a first lathe.

(I'm ignoring distinctions of brand-names on the MC-Xoos, etc. here. Of course, some names have better quality attached, but tend to be more exxy too.)

The movable headstock works fine, but I can't say I see any real point behind it. Sure, it means you can move it to the middle of the bed for turning big bowls in outboard mode, but how often do you think you'll actually do that? And if you can afford the big blanks to play with, why aren't you looking at a Stubby or other beast more suitable?

The speeds are fine. A tad slow for pen turning and 500 is a bit fast for any piece that is so big it "needs" the headstock moved to the middle of the bed. But what do you expect for the price? It will do both, not as well as a lathe designed to do just one or t'other, but it will do them.

FWIW, the reeves pulleys work quite well so long as you look after 'em. Every so often, remove the cover to make sure the keyway is clear of dust & grit and give 'em a squirt of Inox or similar. Get into the habit of resetting the speed lever to minimum RPM before switching off the lathe, to reducee "shock loading" on startup. Once they start getting sloppy (usually wearing around the key from the aforementioned shock loading) is when they start playing up.

This usually shows up as a tendency to stick at a certain speed when trying to increase the RPM, although it reduces alright. Or at least, so I've found.

FWIW, I went through two starting capacitors and a motor on mine before the pulley started playing up... and mine's an old one that was probably fourth or fifth hand before I got it. So Reeves Pulleys aren't as bad a system as some may claim.

There's one thing I found the moveable headstock absolutely wonderful for:
moving/lifting the lathe into position.

I had sciatica when I was moving my lathe to its present home, and couldn't do much lifting, so I worked out that I could slide the head to one end, and lift the other end of the bed fairly easily, and slide some packing under.

Then, slide the head to the other end, and repeat.

I've also done a couple of jobs longer than the lathe bed, and used a cobbled-together tailstock substitute. In this case, where the tail end isn't easily adjustable, the sliding headstock made the job possible.

Cheers,
Andrew

And in response to your original question:

another point to consider is whether the spindle thread is a commonly supported one, for in the future when you get a chuck (or six).

Check whether Teknatool or Vicmarc or (insert chuck of choice here) make a chuck with that thread, or an adaptor to fit.

Pull your headstock apart to get familiar with the reeves pulleys and bits. A regular cleanout and spraying with Inox will keep it all moving sweetly.

Cheers,
Andrew

Thanks guys. I had found the edges of my old Woodfast MC-900 a few times (both in terms of speed and stability).

I am not afraid of looking after a Reeves drive, so long as it is an OK system overall - and it seems it is OK.

As for turning big bowls, a chainsawn blank ain't too expensive - but the problem is that a Stubby is around $6,000 - a touch more than $460!

I know that this isn't exactly the Rolls Royce of lathes, but it seems good for the price - unless anyone in Tassie is getting rid of a Stubby or a Vicmarc. Anyone? No? Damn.

However, the scariest thing (and possibly best bit of advice) is looking at the thread on the headstock. It has a different thread to the Woodfast and Vicmarc lathes available from Carbatec and what is more I have a couple of old chucks etc. that fit my old Woodfast that I would like to still be able to use.

Hmmm. Maybe this isn't such an easy option after all.

Seriously, anyone got a Stubby in Tassie that they want to sell?

Cam

Cam if you have a woodfast lathe then these MC900/1100 are a big step backwards.

Cameron,
I heavily modifed my MC1100 just to keep up with the likes of a Woodfast.

• Threw away the stand
• threw out the vari speed drive
• modfied the swivel set up to produce greater stability
• fitted a VSD
• Fitted a 4 step pulley set up
• repositioned the motor so as not to get in the way
• Added 3 phase 1hp motor
• Added remote vari-speed control with magnetic base

Ok this can be expensive and I would not recommend it to every one. But I had all the gear on hand for free, so it was only time it cost me.

I would go along with everything Skew and Jim have said. If you have a Woodfast and your not happy, look at modifying it. It will probably cost the same as buying another lathe, or build your own perhaps

Wow Hughie, that sounds like quite the rebuild! I imagine for us mere mortals such a rebuild would probably cost more than the more expensive machines.

Also Jim, as for having a Woodfast - I had an old one and loaned it to my father-in-all-but-law while I was away and I don't have the heart to ask for it back (he has also helped me out in more ways than I can go into here) and so I am looking for something to replace it.

Cheers

Cam

Cam

Sounds like you just have to invest Mr Rudd's largesse in a step up from the Woodfast!

Remember you are supposed to buy your second purchase first (ie avoid the error of buying the tool that is barely adequate and spend on the tool you really need).

Yeah, that was why I wanted to check on the quality. You never know, sometimes you find a bargain...

Cam

I had an old one and loaned it to my father-in-all-but-law while I was away and I don't have the heart to ask for it back (he has also helped me out in more ways than I can go into here) and so I am looking for something to replace

sigh.....been there, I know what you mean.

But as suggested the Rudd Largesse. It would just get you a good second hand lathe. A buddy of mine a few months back bought a Leady Lathe on Ebay for $560. Old but very good, I had a good look over it darn good buy.

I would love to find a good second hand one, but people in Tassie don't seem to sell too many second hand lathes. There was a Dabar in the paper the other day (Woodfast lookalike) for $1500!! Ouch.

Cheers

Cam