It has been a good Christmas. the candle light service at Church on
Christmas Eve was wonderful, the family was together for Christmas
dinner cooked by myself (always a pleasure), and the gifts were good.
my wife did her shopping at Canadian Tire this year. I received a 4x36"
, 8" disk sander and a mini lathe. The Mini Lathe is new to Canadian
Tire and they had it on sale at a hundred dollars. This makes lathe #4
and I think it will be a great little pen lathe and a good demonstrator.
First impressions are as follows
it went together quickly out of the box, just a couple of handles to
install.
it has a couple of good faceplates but what is an 8" x 12" lathe doing
with a 6" faceplate? the 2 1/2" one makes sense
spur and tail centers are good
the variable speed motor is a bit light for the lathe at 2.3 amp but it
runs well and quietly
The construction is rugged for the lathe size, weight 43 lbs
the tool rests need to be lowered by grinding, at least for my taste.

I turned a spindle out of very dry cherry with some beads, coves and a
captured ring or three with no trouble. A skew catches as easily on this
lathe as it does and any other.
I turned a 5" bowl out of very wet and stringy spruce to a thickness of
1/8" with no problem. The low speed of 750 rpm was more than adequate
for the out of balance piece and that on a lathe that was not fastened
to the bench top. I could stall it, but why would you want to?

All in all, I like this little lathe. It would be nice to have a lower
low speed but for most stuff I would want it, I would use a bigger
lathe. I will report back after I get some more use out of it.

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God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS, Canada
http://www.roundthewoods.com