sutton083

In my last post, I said that unknown maker's lathe was probably a Delta/Rockwell/Beaver lathe, from their Homecraft hobbyist tool's line. Well.... I'm not so sure anymore, here's why That tool, because of its sheet metal bed, versus the traditional cast iron bed, and sizes, is no doubt a Hobbyist, albeit well built, woodworking machine. When I did a first quick search, I quickly zoomed in on Delta Homecraft products line, because they did HAD a sheet metal lathe in their line. But trying to narrow it down better, I discovered an essential feature that the Delta had that mine does not: They welded spacer plate at regular interval, much like today, cast iron beds have such reinforcements casted instead. In 1941 they replaced the steel bed with a cast iron one. Delta No 930 Notice the closer gap on top of the steel folded bed. Photo from Vintage Machinery.org They also had a peculiar cast foot brackets to support and raise the steel bed up Turns out, there was accessories ...

A good friend of mine has been searching for a suitable wood lathe, something akin to my Rockwell-Beaver 3400 lathe . A solid, suitable way to get into wood turning without breaking the bank.. Such lathes comes up somewhat regularly on Kijiji  but tend to go fast...go figured :-) In the past few months we have been corresponding for a while trying to find that "good deal" to get him into woodturning. A few suitable candidates pops up once in a while but quickly disappeared. This week, I saw this ad for what look like an older Rockwell Beaver lathe but without the tell tale gap bed, such as mine. Comes without a motor, the tool holder (Banjo) has a broken half , but it looks otherwise complete and is said to run smooth. Given that it was priced very cheaply, Cdn $40, and located minutes from my place, I took a chance and snag it for him. I figured even if he does not want it, I could set it up for small turning job (such as pen turning, tool handles etc), and keep my other one...

First a confession:  My first real stationary power tool was a Radial Arm Saw, A 1965 Craftsman model... The kind that got recalled in the early 2000 for a safety hazard with the guard. Apparently you could cut yourself with it... Really!! This was followed by a bandsaw and later a newer Unisaw. Circa 90s. Me posing proudly with my first Unisaw,  the old Craftsman RAS is in the background. There was a wide range of models affected and the fix was ; Send us the old guard, will send you a new safer one, or in my older model case, send us the complete motor assembly, (the cutting head essentially) and we will send you $100... So you end up with a useless saw carriage and no working tool but with a US $100 check and they pay for the shipping. These carriage would then be destroyed upon receipt by them. So I thought at the time, Nah, I'll keep risking my life every time I used it instead :-) But what brought this question forward was one posed by Brian who was wondering how did th...