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Dream lathe

John-If you ever get the chance, go see one. It is art expressed as an exquisitely engineered, solid machine. The tool-rest post id is 40mm, and it locks up like Fort Knox. I can't wait to give one a spin when Tim gets his set up and running. He said if price were no object. For me it is, so I will never own one (or a fully blinged-out Platinum Tundra either, but a man can dream).
 
Jon Rista said:
Some are things I've come to like, SINCE buying a Powermatic (which is a good lathe, but its not my dream lathe. ;P ) One of these is the strait up and down nature of the headstock and tailstock. The Powermatic tailstock design, is angled...so that the front of the quill ends up back-set from the front bottom edge of the tailstock (which itself, is even further backset a bit, because of the size of the round clamping plate underneath the ways). The banjo then is also rather wide, with the tool rest front-oriented. This means that between the backset of the front of the quill, plus the width of the banjo, you have to extend the quill quite a bit just to contact the wood. The quill is stable, but, so much of its potential extension is just wasted over empty space. That made me notice and appreciate the design of the American Beauty all that much more, as you don't have to waste any quill extension that way.
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Jon, I have a PM 3520C and I agree with you on the design of the tailstock. I think PM designed the tailstock with a slant towards the back in order to increase the overall distance between centers. This extra distance (about 2") when the tailstock is hanging off the end of the lathe, has come in handy for me when I turned several baseball bats for my grandsons.
 
Jerry Bochenek said:
Jon, I have a PM 3520C and I agree with you on the design of the tailstock. I think PM designed the tailstock with a slant towards the back in order to increase the overall distance between centers. This extra distance (about 2") when the tailstock is hanging off the end of the lathe, has come in handy for me when I turned several baseball bats for my grandsons.
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That step back may be handy for baseball bats, but it requires running the quill out excessively for short things (and much of what I've turned in recent years is not long although often wide. It's an aggravation. I turn on a lot of 3520Cs for demos and teaching/taking classes. I don't own one (I did have a 3520B, which did not have that unfortunate design 'feature' -- given a choice between a B and a C, I'd leap for the B).
 
R Henrickson said:
That step back may be handy for baseball bats, but it requires running the quill out excessively for short things (and much of what I've turned in recent years is not long although often wide. It's an aggravation. I turn on a lot of 3520Cs for demos and teaching/taking classes. I don't own one (I did have a 3520B, which did not have that unfortunate design 'feature' -- given a choice between a B and a C, I'd leap for the B).
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As I mentioned to Jon, and I agree with you as well, that the PM tailstock is agravating and it does put stress on the quill during normal turning. I was only pointing out what "may" be PM's design ratrional for the slant back. I wasn't trying to defend their tail stock design.
 
I'm perfectly content with what would be described nowadays as the mid-sized lathe realm. I just didn't need the 24"x53" my old Vicmarc VL300 provided me. I'm thrilled by the high quality results I get from my 16" Vicmarc VL200 shortbed, and my Oneway 1224 with bed extension. I can turn tiny stuff, dinner plates, big popcorn bowls, baseball bats, vases, etc. no problem. If I had to downsize, the VL200 would be the one to go, pretty rare when I push its limits anymore.
 
Bought my dream lathe 13 years ago next month - Robust AB. 13 years down the road and it still runs like new and makes me grin just walking into the shop. It has done everything I’ve asked of it - big or small. Not a single component has failed, worn out or otherwise ceased to function, and it looks like that’s going to continue for the rest of my turning life.
Was it expensive? Oh yeah - took a while to save up. Was it worth it? Oh yeah - I’d do it all over again given the chance.
 
John Grace said:
Goodness gracious...4HP! What are you looking to turn?
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If powered by a VFD, motor output power diminishes directly proportional to speed. And torque does not increase; it remains constant for practical purposes from about 10% speed (can go lower with sensorless vector drive) up to rated speed. So a 4hp rated motor will produce roughly 1hp at quarter-speed. That's why seemingly large three-phase motors tend to be used on lathes.

Tim
 
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