Where is a good place to buy a wood lathe for turning reel seats? Not wanting to spend a lot of money on this.

Hello Brad,
I bought my lathe a few month ago from Penn States Industry. Turncrafter Pro with a bed extention. You will also need a three and four jaw chuck. Also you will need a a drill chuck. I would suggest you go to Andy Dear's online store (lamarfishing.com) and get his video before you do anything else. He does a great job in showing you how-to as well as what kind of equipment you may want. I really enjoy my lathe and now I have a lot of customers thand want wood inserts and wood winding checks on spinning and bait casting rods as well. Have Fun.

Big John
Rio Hondo, Texas
Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting

I don't understand the need for the three jaw chuck. I stick the mandrels in a drill chuck, and do all the other work with a 4-jaw. Not sure what gives here?

I use a PSI Turncrafter Pro and it's quite nice. Sometimes wish it had an on the fly speed adjustment but hey, can't have everything.

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

I have a 6 speed Jet Mini and really like it. Amazon.com currently has the VS version on sale. The PSI lathe will also do the job. If I were buying a lathe today, I would buy the Rikon VS lathe from Woodcraft. It has an indexing feature which none of the other mini lathes on the market have. You might want to check @#$%& for used mini lathes, but you never know what you might get. Scott is abolutely right about the 3 jaw chuck, it's a complete waste of money. You can't hold a square piece of wood with only three jaws. I have a Nova Midi chuck and it will hold ANdy's 1/4" mandrel just fine. For a drill chuck, Harbor Freight has one for $9.95 and it works great. I bought one to replace my less than year old Crapsman chuck that had about 0.050 runout and wobbled constantly.

Brad,

Amazon has the Jet mini lathe on sale for $279 with an additional 10% for the next few days. It also qualifies for free shipping. I think that would be hard to beat. I have been very happy with mine the past couple of years. I'm trying to convince my wife I need another at my summer cabin!. Also has a $25 mail in rebate making the total price$226

Herb



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2006 09:11PM by Herb Knowlton.

I have the Jet mini lathe, the same one in Andy's DVD. I am thrilled with it.

I sure do not consider the 3 jaw chuck a complete waste of money. Best all around invention ever for the lathe. Sure, I have to turn the blank round first to start with a square blank. But after that, the self centering feature of the 3 jaw is wonderful. I know, there are self centering 4 jaw chucks too. But the bulk of the lathe chucks sold are 3 jaw for a reason. It works!
I know there is some predjuice against Rikon, maybe deserved. But the little mini lathe I looked at at Woodcraft sure looked like a winner. The indexing and the spindle lock is great if you are going to do the mortised seats like for a Pac Bay reelseat.

I'm not sure why you think that most lathe chucks sold are the 3 jaw version. If you look at what's available from the good woodturning catalogs, and I don't mean PSI, you will not find any 3 jaw chucks. You will only find 4 jaw scroll chucks because that's what woodturners want. I wasted money on PSI's little 3 jaw chuck and it's a piece of junk. Several other people on this board will agree with that statement.

I agree with Gerry's opinion of 3 jawed chucks. I bought the PSI chuck as a first chuck because of price and not knowing what I was doing. Looking back, it was a waste of money, IMO.

You don't really need either a 3 or 4 jawed chuck, however, to get a piece of wood round. Marking the centers, sawing-off the 4 corners of the stock and using a "spur" type drive center will work, but 4 jaws might be a bit safer.

Stan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2006 09:53PM by Stan Gregory.

True, but then drilling it out is going to be a pretty nasty pain.

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

I use a small metal or machine lathe I got from Micro Mark. With this lathe you can get a perfectly uniform diameter on the reel seat. I would not be able to do that on my wood lathe by hand. The machine lathe is accurate to within thousandths of an inch. You can also use a boring tool or drill bit in the chuck in the tailstock to create the center hole in the reel seat. You can turn metal and small pieces with this lathe. It's a great tool for reel seats. It will not turn handles - a wood lathe is better for that. I have a Grizzly wood lathe that I'm very happy with.
I hope this helps.

Jake

Brad here is an inexpensive alternative. I had a conversation with Andy Dear several weeks back and he was telling me about this lathe available from Grizzly. The cost is <100$. He says that it works great for grips of all kinds. However I don't know how well it would work on reel seats. Maybe someone elso reading this can elaborate. Follow the link provided to the web page. If the link does not work go to thr Grizzly home page and type in H2669. You can buy the drill accessory and the whole kit in under 100$. Probably does not include shipping.


[www.grizzly.com]

Good Luck,
PL

The Grizzly hobby lathe will not for wood. To turn wood of the sizes needed for reel seat inserts or grips, you need at least a 1/2hp motor. It will work for cork but that's just about it.

Remember one thing when buying a wood lathe. The lathe is the cheap part. The chisels, chucks, mandrels, etc., can add up to as much as the lathe you buy. That being said, it's still worth the money. I have the JET midi manual speed adjust, but I'd take a hard look at the turncrafter pro at www.pennstateindustries.com.