Arch wrote:
The new, to me, Robust Lathe is an intriguing animal. It looks to be in
the same family as Oneway, but with species differences. The belly is
stainless steel and the vertebral column is diamond shaped. The tail can
be swished out of the way and the weight bearing joints are said to be
robust. Seems to be a step forward.

An interesting beast. http://www.turnrobust.com/

The sliding headstock is not a bad idea. I started off on a Delta 46-700
and slid the headstock to the end of the bed for bowl turning, which
worked out ok. Certainly the fewer degrees of freedom the headstock is
allowed, the better the alignment will be, all other tolerance factors
being equal.

This of course requires that the tailstock be removed, and they have an
$800 solution for this! For me, $800 would buy an awful lot of tailstock
wrassling, or maybe I would build a simple wooden trolley that would
mate up with the ways, allowing the tailstock to be slid off and rolled
away.

But is the sliding head really necessary? They justify it by the
arrangement of bearings, typically two being used on the spindle end,
one on the other end. Why not fix the headstock and put two bearings at
each end and create a true outboard lathe?


Why is it that when two machines seem to be of same price and quality
and appear to function equally well, one becomes a popular standard and
the other, like old woodturners, just fades away?

Marketing, competition and financing must be two big issues. Designing a
great lathe is one thing, building a great business is another. Offering
a seven year warranty is fine too, if the company lasts that long

At the end of the day much will depend on how good the machine really
is, and in these days of internet technology, customer commenting could
probably make or break a machine like this.


--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/toolrest/