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Craftsman wood lathe Value

L

loberg

Joined
Dec 24, 2007
Messages
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Location
Redwood Valley, CA
I have been offered a Craftsman lathe. The kind with the bed not the tube. Variable speed, MT2, no stand. How much should I offer for this. I currently have a tube type and if this can be bought low enough it would be a good replacement. I have seen the lathe and it is in excellent condition.
 
Loberg,
If you can post the model number or show pictures, others here will be able to answer your question.

Used a single tube Craftsman for some years and made some of my best pieces on it.
 
Texian offers a good place to start. Without more information it's difficult to estimate what the lathe you describe might be worth. I will say that the Sears Craftsman 15 in. Bench Top Variable Speed lathe most recently marketed has been priced at about $500. I believe that any lathe in good working order is always worth 50% to 75% of its original price. However, if it's not the lathe you would have purchased in the first place, you probably won't be satisfied with it.
 
If what you are looking for is the model made by Palmgren, then better to avoid it.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=42465
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=61498
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=60848

A lot of people bought this lathe from Amazon at SMC. If you do a search on "Palmgren" on SMC, you will be able to find a lot of similar stories. And I believe most of them got rid of those lathes.

The features and price were very good. Almost everyone has a lot of problems with them. The initial service was very good. Some of them had their headstocks replaced 2~3 times. Eventually I saw the phone number of the upper management was passed around in the Forum. I don't think that was a good sign.

Gordon
 
I did have one of those. I gave it away after a belt inside the housing broke, because the repair would cost more than the lathe was worth, and I was unable to do the repair myself. That said, I was able to do some nice pieces on it.
 
I also used the Craftsman tube lathe, for about 10 yrs. and loved it. Wish I had kept it as a back-up lathe.

I bought that 15" VS Craftsman and about 5 days later took it back for a refund.

If you can only afford something for about $500, keep using the tube until you can get a better one, you wouldn't be trading up enough to make any difference.

One woman's opinion ;)

Ruth
 
I would buy a new jet 1220 mini with bed extension. You would get a much better lathe. As others have said I have heard very few people who owned the Craftsman 15" that didn't have problems with it. We had one as a demo lathe for our club it was so noisy it was hard to do demo's. It wouldn't go up to full speed and the tailstock wouldn't lock positively.
Now if you could pick it up for $200 with some tools then it might be a good lathe to start on. Just plan to move up in quality as soon as you can and be ready to junk it when something breaks.
 
Agree with what Ruth said. I went from the single tube
Craftsman to a Jet 1642EVS2 from Amazon (good deal at the time). Had some problems with it after about 7 months. Amazon sent me a complete new lathe in exchange for the original. The EVS is bloody wonderful. The digital tach is great while you are getting used to the lathe. After that you just set the knob "about there" and press on.
 
By the way I still have the C-man 15" lathe. I have did a lot of turning on it and have made some good stuff on it. If I had it to do over again (hind sight is 20/20) I would have bought the Nova DVR XP that I really wanted to begin with. I do now own the Nova and it fits my shop well. Ask my wife as I had threatened to take that thing to the landfill several times.

My advice is after two headstocks and other modifications is to keep the lathe you have. Save your money and buy the Jet 1642 or Nova DVR or Nova 1624-44. I found out the hard way buy once and be done with it. I have spent more money than if I would have bought the DVR to begin with. So IMHO save and buy something decent.
 
I've got to agree with Bernie (Hi Bernie :) ) on this one, that C-man 15" lathe does not have a very good track record.

We all know that in the long run the lathe is, often, not the most expensive thing we buy in the turning stuff, so by getting a good one to start with, well you are ahead of the game, IMHO.

I had a C-man single tube lathe, it was OK, but then I went to the Nova DVR, which I really do like. Sure I covet a Vicmarc VL300 or one of them big OneWay lathes, but the DVR sure is nice.

Cheers!
 
Well, I have the lathe in the back of the van. The teacher let me take it home for two weeks to try it out. It is a 351.217170 model. 15" variable speed. He asid it is not worth much to him so make an offer. $100 Maybe??? I plan on keeping the tube lathe as I make quilting frames and use an extra long pipe to turn tenons for the frame. Just thought if I can get the other at a discount it would be ok. I can service just about anything and Sears still lists parts for the 351. All your help is greatly appreciated as the budget does not allow me to get into a new lathe for a long while.
 
351.217170 Sears

I am going to play with the lathe this weekend. It needs an on/off switch and I have a toggle switch that will work. How do I tell if it is on of the 2003 series?:confused:
 
loberg said:
I am going to play with the lathe this weekend. It needs an on/off switch and I have a toggle switch that will work. How do I tell if it is on of the 2003 series?:confused:
Click to expand...

The way to tell if it's on, is whether or not the spindle is turning!:D

Sorry, couldn't resist.....but, the way you've got that worded makes what your intent a little questionable.

otis of cologne
 
I put a new switch on the lathe. The old one was broken not burnt out. BUT the motor tried to start (a short turn of the arbor--less than a 1/2"). I wired the motor up direct to see if I could get any movement and it smoked and dimmed the lights in the shop. The fan inside will run with the new switch but the motor and/or variable speed won't. I have taken the direct wiring off and reattached the switch--the motor again tried to turn but "clicked" after a 1/2". The motor and variable clutch are connected so I may take the whole unit to a local electrical shop and see what they say. At this point my offer will be to save him money by taking it for free so he doen't have to pay dump charges to get rid of it. :eek:
 
loberg said:
I put a new switch on the lathe. The old one was broken not burnt out. BUT the motor tried to start (a short turn of the arbor--less than a 1/2"). I wired the motor up direct to see if I could get any movement and it smoked and dimmed the lights in the shop. The fan inside will run with the new switch but the motor and/or variable speed won't. I have taken the direct wiring off and reattached the switch--the motor again tried to turn but "clicked" after a 1/2". The motor and variable clutch are connected so I may take the whole unit to a local electrical shop and see what they say. At this point my offer will be to save him money by taking it for free so he doen't have to pay dump charges to get rid of it. :eek:
Click to expand...

In order to isolate the problem. I would remove the belt from the motor to see if it will run without a load connected. It may be that the drive train or spindle bearings are frozen or have high friction. With the belt off, turn the spindle by hand to see if it will spin freely.
 
The spindle will turn by hand with the motor as it is. The motor has a shaft out the back and it turns when I turn the spindle (slower than the spindle). The smoke came out the back of the motor, soooo I think the brushes or the motor is bad. Any other suggestions would be apprciated.
 
Called support and they said the motor is DC and there is no belts. The speed is controlled by electronics and the DC motor. I have checked with Palmgren and they are going to get values for the "pot" for variable speed so I can trouble shoot if the board is bad. They did say new boards are ordered and over due. Just a note the internal fan does work (it is attached to the circuit board). If I can get a simple fix (replacing a circuit board is simple to me) then I will use the lathe.
 
It is extremely improbably that it is the electronics because the worst that could happen to the motor if the electronics were bad is that it would either run at full speed or wouldn't get power to run at all, but neither situation would make the motor smoke. If the motor had been run under extremely heavy use (basically being overloaded to the point where it would slow down a lot or stall), then individual armature windings would begin to fail by burning out and resulting in less power and more heating -- once the process starts, it begins to snowball. One indication of this type of failure is that the motor will not start running when the shaft is in certain positions because of open windings, but sometimes if the shaft is rotated slightly by hand while power is applied, it may begin to start rotating. Depending on the condition of the motor at this point, it may either to continue turning with reduced power or it might just turn a fraction of a turn and then stop again if several of the windings have burned open. If this turns out to be the problem, the motor (or at least the armature) would need to be replaced. Rewinding is usually not economically feasible on motors of that size.

Bill
 
Bill,

i have checked the brushes (as the tech said) and they are still long enought and in good shape. Your discription is very helpfull to me. Is there any way to direct wire the motor to see if it will run by itself? I don't have a DC power supply (unless it is buried in my old electronic gear). Other than taking the motor out and sending it back to the factory I would like to see if a pully system with an outside motor could be adapted (fancy word for rigged up). Any suggestions?
 
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