"Charlie H." writes:

What makes a lath "good" or "bad" ??

What do you want to do with it?

If you want to make pens, then $200-$300 is a fine price.
If you want to make 20" bowls, then you need to spend more money.

For instance, which describes what you want to do:
Spindle
Bowl
Faceplate
Tubework (pens/pencils,etc.)
Mass Duplication
Ornamental
Columns for porches
Chair legs

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George wrote:

You begin by listening and not whining

OK, Daddy. I'll go to my room now.

This is now devolving into one of those self rightous, who has the
biggest pecker thread. It was all fine until the patented "why can't
see understand my brilliance" tone started. Right or not, it doesn't
matter to me. I prefer a more collegial tone, and you take a hard,
adamant approach. This is of course, because you are right.

I don't care about gauntlet throwing challenges "I'll wager I've
turned more weird chunks than you have in the past 25 years", your
sarcasm "Once again, be smarter than the lathe" but to now name
calling? Me a whiner?

Nothing you could do could make me whine, zippy.

I even appreciate your closed minded pontifications of the right way to
think and do things, but.... whining? Never.

Go ahead and respond as you always do, George with a lot of thunder and
lightening, roll in some factual (but correct) data of some sort,
present your hypothesis and solve it to your own personal satisfaction
with that hard tone of indignation that you use for anyone that would
dare "pick nits".

Whining? I am through with this thread as your name calling has ****ed
me off and I don't want to get involved with one of these wastes of
time.

So go ahead and proclaim your triumph, proclaim the correctness of your
science, and challenge me as a coward because I won't stay and bandy
words.

Kick ass, George.

Whining my ****ing ass.

Robert

Most lathes aren't "good" or "bad", they are just better suited for the task
at hand. With that said, some lathes really aren't suitable for any task.
This would be any of the contraptions designed to be powered by an electric
drill and the really cheap and flimsy stuff from China. If you intend to
turn only spindle work, almost any decent lathe will do, as long as you are
able to satisfactorily hold and spin the work at an acceptable speed. If
you want to do bowls and larger diameter work, the requirements increase.
The capacity or "swing" of the lathe and slower speeds are more critical.

For almost any kind of work, the heavier the lathe the better. With more
capital outlay, you generally get a better lathe. If you buy a really
crappy lathe that doesn't work well, you may decide you don't like the
hobby, when what you really don't like is the crappy lathe. I've never
heard anyone complain that they bought a lathe that was "too good". Buy as
much quality as you can afford. A Jet Mini is a very good small lathe and
can be obtained for $250 to $300.

Barry


"Bruce Barnett" wrote in message
...
"Charlie H." writes:

What makes a lath "good" or "bad" ??

What do you want to do with it?

If you want to make pens, then $200-$300 is a fine price.
If you want to make 20" bowls, then you need to spend more money.

For instance, which describes what you want to do:
Spindle
Bowl
Faceplate
Tubework (pens/pencils,etc.)
Mass Duplication
Ornamental
Columns for porches
Chair legs

--
Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail to this account incurs a fee of
$500 per message, and acknowledges the legality of this contract.