David Flicker

[David Flicker]

I retired from the oilfield about 4 years ago and have been spending my time building furniture, mostly for family and friends. I've been acquiring equipment for a number of years but mostly collecting figured wood for future projects.

While in college in the 1970's my dad was given a cheap lathe that I played around with for a couple years and loved it, but once I moved away I lost interest. Recently I've been getting the bug, partly because of some of the wood I have but also to have projects that can be finished in hours or days instead of weeks or months.

I'm interested in hollow turnings and have access to large chunks of pecan, live oak and post oak. Much of the post oak in this area has surprisingly nice figure and I can't wait to see what it looks like in a turned vessel.

As far as I can tell Brazos Valley Turners is the closest club so I'll be contacting them shortly.

I need a big lathe and am considering the Vicmarc VL600 if the electricals can be converted to 230V/3-phase without too much trouble. I spoke to Marco yesterday, they're planning a run of 6 units by mid-year, but they will be set up for 415V/3-phase. I'm trying to get more information but he couldn't tell me much.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Welcome to the AAW forum, David. You're certainly jumping in big time with a massive lathe like the VL600.

It sounds like their production run is intended for industrial customers. Honestly, you don't need three phase power if they will build one to run on 240 volt single phase power. I presume that it has the same three horsepower motor that is used on the VL300. If so then it could also use the same inverter. The reason that there is no need to use three phase power is that in either case the AC power is rectified and filtered to convert it to DC. The inverter then uses a pulse width modulation (PWM) scheme to generate a simulated three phase AC voltage at the desired frequency to the three phase motor. The actual waveform of the three PWM signals bears no resemblance to a sinusoidal voltage, but the effective power is the same.

I'm familiar with the area where you live. My parents lived near Frenstat when I was born and I had a lot of relatives around Caldwell and a few in Brenham.

 

[David Flicker]

In most areas, I prefer to buy tools I'll never need to upgrade.

I have 3-phase 240V in my shop. The way I understand it the VL600 will require a 415V 3-phase input unlike their other models. Marco didn't seem too sure, though, stating he'd have to check with his motor supplier.

I'm also looking at the Magma Titan 400 and Stubby S1000 or S1300. I'll probably end up with a Stubby.

 

[Tom Yip]

In most areas, I prefer to buy tools I'll never need to upgrade.

I have 3-phase 240V in my shop. The way I understand it the VL600 will require a 415V 3-phase input unlike their other models. Marco didn't seem too sure, though, stating he'd have to check with his motor supplier.

I'm also looking at the Magma Titan 400 and Stubby S1000 or S1300. I'll probably end up with a Stubby.

Hi David, I am looking for a lathe as well. Do you have more info about S1300?