Will it do what I want it to?

[Nihilist37]

Well first up, New poster but long time lurker. Ive been working wood for most of my 25 year life and in the last 2 years have decided to really get serious about it.

I have been slowly upgrading all of my equipment and filling in the blanks and its now the lathes turn.

I am mostly interested in instrument building with the idea of perhaps selling some in the near future. Currently I'm building Banjo's with a block rim rather than a bent rim.

So my questions are thus -

I have this old lathe which I have been using for MANY years. You can see it in the pic.

I have been having increasing concerns about it as it feels like it vibrates a little too much for making high quality rims. It has a motor that hangs on a hinge behind the bed and has gravity tension on the belt. Is it possible that it may just need new bearings and a bit of a service to get it running smooth again? I have no idea of the brand or quality etc. and don't know whether I should just service it and spend the money on something else.

I would like to build a dual compund slide system like this http://www.hicklerbanjo.com/page/page/5201024.htm
so that I can accurately face the inside and outside of the rim. I have been building rims with 11" diameter but have recently started to make a few 12" rims and would like to put a decent chuck on there with Cole jaws to finish the rims. (meaning the lathe needs to have a 14" swing.)

I have been looking at several of the MC1100 lathes and have just a few questions about them.

Will it be an improvement from the system I already have?
Can I modify it to use the dual compound slide idea?
Will it do what I want it to?
There is huge variance in the price about the regular channels. Which is the best option with regards to price, features, individual companies variance etc?

I look foward to hearing peoples replies. Any info on the lathe I currently own would be much appreciated.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

At a glance, your lathe looks to be reasonable quality. If it's vibrating, the odds are good that it just needs new bearings.

The price variation between MC-1100s is 'cos the basic casting is a bulk-buy from China - with the final tolerances depending on price paid - and the dealer bolts on the appropriate motor, bearings, fittings, etc. So a "cheap" MC-1100 isn't as good a quality as an "expensive" MC-1100. (Assuming that there's no over-charging going on, of course.)

Also, if you want 14" swing then the MC-1100 would need to be used in outboard mode, rotating the head 90° so the blank is spinning to the front of the lathe. You'd effectively lose the use of the lathe bed and would need to get creative in the support of your dual compound slide if you really want to go that path...

All in all, IF your existing lathe will do the job you want if it wasn't for the vibrations, then the first step should be getting some quotes on rebuilding it/replacing the bearings. (And then, maybe looking at a replacement once the figures are in )

[new_guy90]

i second the thought that it looks like it was a quality machine in its day, and probably better machined than the newer ones, what was it like when you first got it? if it was way better than it is now then look into new bearings. if you want a quality "new" lathe dont go for anything from china (i can see ill get stick from this) how much do you want to spend? look at the Vicmarc lathes Jim has them for sale on his site, there more pricey than the china ones but worth it

can you post some more pic's of your lathe so we can get a better picture of its condition.

hope i helped

Patrick

[China]

One thing to check is the motor may be bouncing on the belt, start your lathe up and with your hand put some pressure on the motor "make sure you don't get your fingers near the spinning bits", if this stops the vibration then you will need to fabricate some way of fixing the motr in place rather than relying on gravity

[NeilS]

I have been having increasing concerns about it as it feels like it vibrates a little too much for making high quality rims. It has a motor that hangs on a hinge behind the bed and has gravity tension on the belt.

Had a lathe with the motor hanging off the back with a hinge like that and found I needed to add extra weight to it (I think it was a 14lb weight) to tension up the belt.

Suggest you try that first before spending time on the bearing, etc.

Neil

[orraloon]

As the others have said the MC machines are only average quality. You will need to sort out the vibrations on the old machine if you plan to sell it in any case. Try to get a hands on go with with a MC 1100 to see what you think before committing.

[new_guy90]

just getting off the lathe for a sec you want to have a try at fitting a cross slide to the lathe (what ever one it will be) to be honest it looks like crap you don't need 2 cross slides for the job if you have used a metal lathe you will see what i mean. its fitted with T slots right? well you can just gang up the tools oh and on the tools you probably know this but ill say it anyway.......... there has been some debate about inserts in this forum not to long ago anyway not getting into that make sure the ones you use are for wood turning NOT metal turning for the sake of respect to the engineers who have spent years in the science of tool cutting get the ones for the job. we have a guy come into work from SECO once a week and he teaches us about the inserts, trust me there is so much physics involved in the tools they are different so use the wood ones

actually looking at it a banjo lathe would be easy to make at home and cheaper than getting a lathe made in china is this a viable option for you?

hope i gave you some ideas

Patrick

[Paul39]

On the Hickler Banjo site it says they use the cross slides for roughing and do the final finishing with normal turning tools.

Why bother with the cross slides? You can make a gauge or two to check your size and do your cutting with a gouge and scraper.

What you would spend on the cross slide system will buy fine turning tools, and maybe a new grinder.

If you have trouble making a straight cut, file the front of your tool rest flat and smooth, align it with the bed, make a clamp on stop for your scraper and slide that along the tool rest to get the side of the banjo straight. You can probably eyeball the inside. For the top and bottom of the banjo, set the tool rest at 90 degrees to the bed and use the same technique as the sides.

After you have done a few, you will probably not need the clamp on stop.

[new_guy90]

i agree with paul39 if your good with a skew chisel and can plane straight then you shouldn't need the cross slides anyway they take the fun out of it i dont like that design on that site i think it could be so much better

Patrick

[powderpost]

Have a good look at the driving belt, work belts can and do cause vibration.
Jim

[Nihilist37]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Having thought about it during the week and reading all your responses I'm thinking I will pull this one apart on the weekend and have a look at the bearings and replace the belt.

I asked my grandfather (who owns most of the equipment) where he got it and said he bought it for $600 from an old woodwork teacher. Which leads me to think that it likely is a decent build.

I also priced some equipment during the week and concluded that I could build a dedicated banjo lathe for less than I could buy a good secondhand one. Certainly a fun project nonetheless.


I was looking at the lathe today and was slowly hand turning the chuck to see if there was any skew and I noticed that through the rotation there was a definite lifting of the motor on its hinge partway through the rotation. I eyed the Pulleys next to the head and they seemed to be true. This makes me think that either the pulleys on the motor have been pulled off true or there is a slight bend in the spindle from the motor. I will check it out tomorrow.

Anyways here are some photos of rim's I have turned before and two that I am going to get onto a face plate tomorrow.

http://www.banjohangout.ws/users/pho...6211172007.jpg
http://www.banjohangout.ws/users/pho...4821232009.jpg
http://www.banjohangout.ws/users/pho...4821232009.jpg

[new_guy90]

nice banjos yeah get the motor checked out if thats the problem then its easy to fix and a new motor is nothing worry about. i would still check the bearings the lathe is old so the grease will probably wave all but gone and thats is a problem makes a hell of a bad noise oh and remember that good tools make all the difference, do you have good tools?

Patrick

[Nihilist37]

Well,

I took the motor down to my local tool repair place, a few hours later Diagnosis, Bearings are shot. Fixed by Friday.

When I changed the belt on the weekend I thought perhaps it had a bent armature as I could see a slight deflection in the step pulley. A new armature would have been costly, new bearings however nothing major to worry about.

I am still trying to come up with plans for my own Banjo making lathe. I took my Ideas to a local engineering place and they were happy to make something like this for me.

I am having trouble finding a place to get a set of step pulleys made that are the right ratios I need. anyone?

AFAIK turning something that is 12" diameter requires quite a slow speed. My rim's are always round before I mount them on the faceplate but does 400RPM sound too much to have that size chunk of wood spinning?

[DavidG]

Depending on the wood (splits, cracks and type), the quality of chucking, (good grip to just holding) and with the advantage of a variable speed lathe (30 to 3000 rpm with the turn of a knob), i would probably spin 300mm dia at 1000 to 1500 rpm.

[Nihilist37]

Well i thought I'd tune in and let everyone know how I went with the lathe.

After getting it back from the bearings place there was a marked difference in the smoothness of the spin (as you would expect with new bearings). However they managed to bend the spindle even more whilst getting the pulley off. Anyways turned out to be a brass spindle and so a dial guage, a good hammer and 20mins of my life got the spindle to within 1/1000".

I put it back on the lathe and got some wood spinning and there was a huge difference in how well it spun and much less vibration however it was still present.

A few nuts and bolts tightened here and there and i've got it to the point where the vibration is only just noticable and it spins beautifully.

However,

I took a trip to my local woodturning expo and had a good look at the teknatool DVR. It looks like a perfect lathe for the job and i think with a lathe of this quality I could easily use a spindle gouge to rough and a skew chisel to flatten.

So my question is right now.

I'm not likely to get $3500 in the near future so I will be a long time saving for this lathe, however, the 1624-44 seems like it has enough speeds and wotnot to be able to do almost everything the DVR can. So is it worth my while saving for the DVR if I don't need infinte variance?