X2 on the Ricon. I finally spent the money on the Ricon as well as a set of NOVA chucks. One of the best purchases I have made in building rods. Makes turning grips a breeze. Good luck on your search.

Pat Barnard

A person needs to understand that going into a lathe purchase, that other items besides the basic lathe will need to be purchased or procured before all of the assets of the lathe will be well utilized.

The general rule of thumb is that the cost of the lathe will be about 1/2 the cost of the entire package, before the unit is really setup to do everything that the lathe is capable of doing.

i.e. a few different chucks for both the head stock and tail stock will be useful.

Clamps and holding fixtures will be useful.

Measuring tools and similar accessories will be useful.

Mandrels, drills, cutting tools and similar items will all be useful.

Good luck

I know I am late to the conversation but here is a short video on our lathe setup. Almost a million views...

[flexcoat.com]

Flex Coat Company
Professional Rod Building Supplies
www.flexcoat.com

Faced with a similar decision, I went with the Grizzly Hobby Lathe, also. (And, since it wouldn't work with my Dewalt cordless drill, I found a 7.5 Amp corded drill at Lowe's for under $40 that's been great.) I looked at the Harbor Freight model, but after discussing the matter with a friend that has been turning wood for decades, the Grizzly was the choice. I got my mandrels from Utmost. So far, I have no complaints, but I haven't considered turning anything other than cork and eva foam. Slainte!

Edit to add: After re-reading this thread, I thought I would add this one thought. As I am using a hand drill, the feature I have found most useful on it is the ability to lock the trigger in the "On" position. The first time I turned a handle, it was under the supervision of a friend who had made his own lathe. He used cable ties to keep his drill engaged. Being able to lock the trigger is so much simpler. At some point down the road, I may look to add a rheostat foot pedal, but, so far, I haven't encountered a situation where I felt it was necessary.

From ghoulies and ghosties,
and long leggedy beasties,
and things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord deliver us!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2017 05:55PM by Hunter Armstrong.

The Grizzly lathe and Flex-coat's option are probably the cheapest ways to go. I remember the Turncrafter and Jet, and later the Rikon (best of the options) were the talk of the town a few years ago when i too was considering turning my own fly grips. This excelsior was also a good choice, probably on par with the turncrafter. [www.rockler.com]

When I realized the lathe would be just the starting purchase, and with little to no actual shop room or storage, i decided to put off the purchase until a better time in life.

eric
fresno, ca.

Eric,
X10 on the use of the Excelsior for use with rod building. I have had my Excelsior for about 10 years -- and I have multiple chucks and other accessories for the lathe and it has never failed me. Excellent product at a reasonable price.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

By the way, in addition to rod building, I have used the lathe a great deal for tool construction. It works very well, any time that I want to center drill holes in a solid circular shaft. It also works well when I need to turn down metal parts as well as wood parts.

I purchased the extension bed with the main lathe at the time of the initial purchase. I bolted the extension bed to the main bed when I did the initial build of the lathe and the extension has never been off of the lathe.

So many times, the work is just a bit longer than the main lathe bed, or the work piece is longer, but by sliding the tail stock down all of the way to the end of the extension, the work piece and or accessories can be installed and or moved with out taking work out of the main chuck. A big time saver to have the bed extension.

Also, by having both conventional chucks as well as jacobs chucks of various sized, really help to expedite various types of work that might be put on the lathe as I have done since owning the lathe.

Take care

I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here, but this thread comes very close to a new question I was going to post.

I've been using a Grizzly drill lathe for turning cork grips, and it works fine for turning on a mandrel, and as a next step I turned a single-handed grip on the blank. It worked OK, too. When turning a single-handed grip on the blank, the butt end of the rod is at the drill, and a single PacBay rod support worked for supporting the rest of the blank.

I want to turn the grips on a two-hander, and I'm having issues. I've glued up the cork rings on the blank, got a second PacBay rod support but it's not working so well. I believe the PacBay rod supports are only designed for wrapping, and they don't keep the blank from slipping out when lateral pressure is applied to the blank.

A two-handed blank with the cork glued on has to be attached to the drill or lathe at the tip end of the blank section, because the butt grip end piece is not drilled through. With one PacBay support at the reel seat, and another between the upper grip and the drill, the rod comes out of the supports as soon as I put any sanding pressure on it.

I'm looking at the FlexCoat cork lathe setup. It looks as if it should work, but I would like to hear from someone who has used it the way I would want to.

I've seen lots of advice to get a real lathe, and my mentor on this project has done just that. But he was given some serious rod supports that look custom-made. I haven't seen anything like that available for purchase, and a project that started out as a way to save a couple hundred bucks is looking to go past that amount soon.

Mike