Rikon 70-3040 Lathe with Sliding Bed

[RichColvin]

Has anyone used the new Rikon 70-340 lathe with a sliding bed?

 

[Tom De Winter]

I saw the ad for it and had the same questions. Seems like a great idea if well executed.

 

[Richard Coers]

I've not seen one in person. My first impression is why the electronics? Shouldn't it slide by hand much more cheaply and quickly?

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

I saw the ad also but what it didn't show is how it is clamped in position and like Richard said why motorize it. It just seams like a sales gimmick without any real need for it.

 

[Mike Adams]

I've not seen one in person. My first impression is why the electronics? Shouldn't it slide by hand much more cheaply and quickly?

The lathe weighs 600 pounds. It's probably safer and easier on whatever rail/slide system they use to move it using a motor than have a user throw a disc yanking on it.

 

[Richard Coers]

The lathe weighs 600 pounds. It's probably safer and easier on whatever rail/slide system they use to move it using a motor than have a user throw a disc yanking on it.

Stubby has had a sliding bed for at least a decade. Never heard of anyone throw a disc yanking on it. If it's machined well, a couple drops of oil should make it slide easily. Net lathe weight is 546 pounds. That sliding bed section appears to be fabricated from rectangular tubing. I'd be surprised if that bed section even weighed 100 pounds.

 

[odie]

Shouldn't it slide by hand much more cheaply and quickly?

.....or, an Acme thread sort of setup.....

That bed, with the banjo and tailstock, is likely to be pretty heavy. I can see why someone was thinking along the terms of a motorized means of sliding it.

I do have a favorable first impression of the overall concept. It would seem like a solidly attached headstock (as opposed to a sliding headstock) would be inherently less likely to be influenced by harmonic vibrations.....

-----odie-----

 

[Damon McLaughlin]

I had a chance to speak with someone at Rikon back in April about this lathe as I too was intrigued by it. Here are a few comments from David at Rikon;

1. The sliding bed is in fact heavy, being motorized makes it easier to slide along the top of the lower bed. Once the bed is in position there is a clamping lever to hold it securely in place (I assume similar to the banjo but I forgot to ask). When clamped there is no movement or vibration from the bed.

2. I made a comment about how the bed sliding knob and the forward/reverse knob look similar and are next to each other, so I asked if there was a chance of accidentally moving the bed while the lathe is turning. David replied that the knob that slides the bed is locked out when the lathe is running.

3. The upper sliding bed is designed that if the motor were to fail then the shaft can be disconnected and the bed moved manually.

4. There is a notch in the lower bed right under the headstock's spindle. This notch is exposed when the bed is slid way from the headstock so that the banjo can be easily moved to the lower bed.

I'm probably forgetting some other details. It is an intriguing lathe.

Damon

 

[Tom McClellan]

I saw this on the rikon site before finding a deal on a jet 1640. What I was most curious about the rikon was the weight. Listed 690 gross but only 460 net. Is the net wrong and it really weighs more? Is the gross wrong and it ships lighter? Maybe they are right and rikon somehow has 230#s of something wrapped around it?

 

[Damon McLaughlin]

The net weight listed on Rikon's web site is 546 pounds, the net weight they told me was 580 pounds so I would guess it is somewhere close to either of those two numbers. I don't know about the actual shipping weight.

 

[Raif Harik]

Now I think they are on to something. What they need is a lathe that moves forward and back, 90 degrees to the bed. I can hold my gouge and smoke a cigarette, then my bowl is done!
Sorry, EOD and can't help being a smart ass. Especially inauthentic given what a technocrat I am

 

[Tom McClellan]

The net weight listed on Rikon's web site is 546 pounds, the net weight they told me was 580 pounds so I would guess it is somewhere close to either of those two numbers. I don't know about the actual shipping weight.

I'm guessing it was a fat-finger typo, it used to list as 456 in both the website and sell sheet. They swapped the 5 and 4. Upper 500s sounds more correct for an upper 600s ship weight.