My NOT last ever lathe

[Gary Beasley]

Gary, I am not familiar with Mark Sillay--I am heading to the woodturning symposium in Dalton--maybe he'll be there??

I dont know about that. I’ll be there with my wife, we’ll have to see if we can meet up.
Meanwhile- http://www.marksillay.com/index.html

 

[Don C Davis]

Thanks Gary!

 

[Don C Davis]

Reed, your highly skilled work with a scraper is one of the reasons I went to roughing a bowl with the tools I do. At this point I am wondering what adjustments I would make--I know the basics at least, and using the round carbide I like is due to the shapes and curves I like in a bowl--I had never had this issue of stalling a lathe or anything even near it IMO, and I just find it to much of a coincidence that it only started happening to me when I changed lathes. As I've mentioned I turned many bowls on a Powermatic 3520 B, and my own NOVA, and never stalled either of those lathes--and I haven't changed my approach just the lathe I am working on--I think the Laguna 24-36 had electrical issues--confirmed by the fella that purchased it. This Vicmarc--I don't know what the hell--my contact at Woodworkers Emporium says that they have had customers that have had electrical issues very infrequently in the past--so he is checking in to what I should look at re: my lathe.
Unfortunately Vicmarc doesn't have an 800 number and the 15 min or so conversation I had with Marco there, cost me $108---rude! So I am waiting to hear information through Woodworkers Emporium....
I go back to my technique not changing, only the lathe, and as a wise former boss I had said--if you change one thing and get different/unacceptable results, then logically the thing you changed is the culprit. So I am going to have a few people I value the opinion of look at my technique, and turn on this lathe themself, to see what they come up with, I've got a couple of large blanks I've been holding off of working on, and I most definitely want to core them--so that's the next high torque/power requiring operation I've planned, so it will be very interesting to see what issues develop when trying this...

Thanks for all the input folks--I genuinely appreciate it.--Don

 

[odie]

First one is hollowing at 45 degrees, not 22.5 as I thought earlier

Don......

Does the VL240 have the ability to lock the headstock in any position.....or only at the fixed stop points?

 

[Bill Boehme]

You can clamp the headstock in any position, but the fixed stops are at 30°, 60°. and 90°.

 

[Don C Davis]

Thank you Bill, Bill is correct and was even more accurate about the fixed stops than I was--go to study that manual more!! I will say that this lathe is very stable regardless of where you have the headstock turned.

 

[jameshuntsman]

Did you get this sorted out? Looking for my last lathe. I’m only 34 so I need it to last a while...

 

[dbonertz]

I haven't seen the 240 in a few years. I don't think the cover plate has an attachment on the bottom. I think the set screw is used for a pivot so you just unscrew the black knob and spin the plate up and out of the way temp set the black knob one spin to hold the plate. May be wrong but it would make sense so you don't set something done and lose it.

 

[robo hippy]

"I don't need no stinking instructions!" Well flash forward 2 years, and I now have a 240. It has 3 angled settings, 0, 30 and 90 degrees to the bed. I didn't even see the hole for the set screw, which is now on the back side. I don't recall there being an extra screw for that hole, but can't find my owner's manual. As near as I can tell, there is no indent on the headstock plate for this set screw to register in, and that is totally done by the pin on top of the plate. I mostly use it on the 30 degree setting so I don't have to lean over the bed. This works with almost no vibration for bowls up to maybe 12 inch diameter. If I am going for bigger than that, I turn at the 0 degree setting so I can engage the tailstock. I was having vibration issues, which I found I could dampen to almost nothing by pulling the top of the headstock tower towards the bed. Though I haven't tried it yet (moved the lathe to a new place in the shop), that set screw should solve that problem. I do turn in long bed set up some times. I figure I need to be able to do that for demonstration purposes because not every one has a short bed/sliding headstock/pivoting headstock lathe. I have been turning short bead method for 20 years, or since the first of the 3520A lathes came out.

robo hippy