On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:07:25 -0600, Larry Blanchard
wrote:

Hi Larry is your email real, like to email you? :-)

On Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:38:18 -0800, CW wrote:

are you going to do ten years down the road when it stops working and
there are no replacements?

Get it repaired? I can't imagine the kinds of components on the board
(yes I've looked at it) becoming unavailable. In fact, the board looks a
lot like some model railroad throttles - Hmmmmmm :-).

Why did I choose this lathe? I have a tiny shop/shed. The only place
for a lathe is on top of a storage cabinet in one corner. The General
was the biggest lathe I could find that would fit in the space.

By reversing the bed so that the outboard tool rest was on the tailstock
end, I can turn an 18"+ bowl. Nothing else that fit would swing over 12".

Because of the mounting space and my ancient back muscles, the swivel
head is a great advantage. Turning outboard would have been almost
acceptable, but even there swinging a tool handle to the far right runs
into the wall.

As far as the utility of variable speed, I belong to a turners
association and I'd guess most of the members own lathes with variable
speeds. We have demonstrations at every meeting and the speed control on
the club lathe (Powermatic) always gets a workout :-). I can see where
variable speed would be less needed for someone who mainly does spindle
turning.

Finally, the General was not only the biggest lathe I could fit in, it
was by far the heaviest. That sucker just doesn't vibrate! And the
price, while more than the other minis on the market, was a lot less than
some full size lathes with less features.

Those are my reasons. YMMV. I still consider myself a novice at
turning, so nobody should take my comments as gospel.

PS: A friend has the large General lathe and he loves it. It has not had
any problems with speed control.