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Im excited.
Retirement is imminent.
She has bought me a super dooper wood lathe for Xmas. It's huge. A total surprise.
She has told me that my current shed is not big enough so I have to buy another one.
If it's big enough I can shoehorn another metalwork lathe in there.
Loving this Girl understand why we have been together for 47 years.

Alpha1 wrote:Im excited.
Retirement is imminent.
She has bought me a super dooper wood lathe for Xmas. It's huge. A total surprise.
She has told me that my current shed is not big enough so I have to buy another one.
If it's big enough I can shoehorn another metalwork lathe in there.
Loving this Girl understand why we have been together for 47 years.

She's a keeper!

LL

You can never have too many lathes, or sheds if on3e is for wood and one for metal :)

I'm hankering for a lathe, have been for a while but don't know why.
Maybe its an age thing. I haven't a clue how to use one either so will probably die quickly on the first attempt

Gazza get it done. All I would say is try and avoid the really small ones as they are just frustrating due to the lack of power. I always say look for a reasonable second hand Myford ML7 or a Warco equivalent and you can do just about anything with the only limiting factor being your imagination. I have loads of off cuts here so you will never be stuck for material.

Just one thing, have a plan of what you are going to make with it. I purchased a really pretty Warco many years ago, the owner had mostly used it to make shiny parts for it such as levers and stops and parts for a model aeroplane. The poor machine had a rude awakening when I got it back to the workshop. It is still going strong to this day in the capable hands of my son who uses it to make parts for his competition motorbikes amongst other things.

I always very envious of people with lathes as a hobby as they get to make things for themselves as opposed to myself, I make things for other people.

I have two lathes: one is at least a hundred years old and driven by an overhead shaft. Works well, but has bronze head bearings which limit the diameter of bar you can pass through.
The real point of this post is to defend the "really small" lathes: I have one of these in my gun room. I shoot many obsolete calibres and this involves modifying brass in quantity. The small lathe might have been designed for this purpose.
Fred

I have three lathes the smallest is a Myford ML10. I also have a Mill. I use them all the time. I would really like a gunsmithing lathe but I need somewhere to put it I'm running out of space. I knew nothing about using a lathe when I got the first one. An old guy at work who is a machinist took me under his wing and educated me. Unfortunately, he retired at the beginning of the year and took his skills with him.
I do a lot of woodturning now I was using a modified metal lathe. Now that I have the wood lathe I can get down to some serious woodturning projects.
If you do go for one do not buy one of the really small Chinese jobbies get the biggest you can afford.

Take advantage of Ovenpaas offer to supply you with the contents of his offcuts/scrap bin. Just looking through the bits he or Christel has sent me has been a learning curve in itself.
It would take me an age to list the amount of stuff I have made with the bits they have sent me.