Tom,
I recall from an earlier post you metioned something about turning components in the upcoming issue of 11-5. I have had it with donig stuff by hand and am going to finally pull the trigger on a small lathe. Without giving away the details of what is in the issue what lathe would meet the criteria for these and all other rodbuilding projects?

thanks,
Tom Kaufmann
GySgt USMC.

I have a Jet Mini lathe with the variable speed and it works great. I'm sure others will chime in here shortly. Scott

Any of these mini lathes that have been touted here would be fine. They offer a tremendous value for the money. Go back 20 years and you'd be hard pressed to find any lathe that offered this kind of performance for this kind of price.

Not sure of anything in volume 11 #5 regarding turning itself (we've covered that previously), although there will be something about creating (almost magically) your own turning stock from a wide variety of previously unused materials.

................

thanks for the help guys, I was thinking that a mini would be the way I was wanting to go. I have a few that I need to compare. I am leaning towards the Jet, Rikon or the Turncrafter.

Tom, sorry about the confusion on the turning stock!

thanks again,
Tom

Give the bed extension serious thought. I'm going to have to add it to my Jet.

The Rikon has about 4 inches more bed length so depending the handle lengths you work on, you might be able to get by without the bed extension if you go that route. With any of the others, you'll almost surely want the extension. Remember that your chuck and tailstock eat up a few inches of the advertised overall length between centers.

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The Rikon is a great lathe. I've had mine for a while now and it does flat wonderful, the bells and whistles of this lathe makes it super for rod building imo, I've never seen the need for a bed extension with it, but most my handles are for bass and musky rods.

DR

You also might want to look at the JET 1220 it has a 20" bed & you probably won't need the bed extension to fit a chuck in the headstock & a drill chuck in the tailsock for center boring

just my .02 worth

Dave Winn

sounds like the rikon is the one for me then!

thanks a ton gents!
Tom

Just for comparison, I bought the Turncrafter Pro with the 17" bed. I turn handles and grips from 4" reel seats to 14" fore grips for spey rods and have had no problems with mine and haven't needed the bed extension. I would definitely lean to one that has 17" between centers, or more, or consider the bed extension as others have mentioned. I didn't have room so the TP was my choice.

I would also recommend the variable speed control. I'll probably spend the $$ on the variable upgrade. Changing speeds isn't hard but sort of a pain to get to the belt and change the pulley position.

Happy buying.

Terry

For the price of the extension (about $25 with lathe purchase), I would get one no matter what lathe you purchase. If you have a 10" pice of stock (wood, cork, acrylic, etcc and you want tobpore it, you need enough room to put the piece, a chuck in the headtstock, a drill chuck and 12' chuck in the tailstock, you will need a lot more than 17" bed room. I haven't met anyone yet who hasn't got hooked on turning and wanted to try something else. I would aslo recommend the variable speed. While not absolutely necessary, I recently installed the upgrade motor to my Turncrafter Pro and it really makes life easier.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!