• It's time to cast your vote in the January 2025 Turning Challenge. (click here for details)
  • Conversations are now Direct Messages (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Alan Weinberg for "Elm Burl Bowl" being selected as Turning of the Week for January 27, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

BAILEIGH® Variable Speed Wood Lathe: WL-1847VS

I did not find the lathe in advertising index of the American Woodturner
 
It's identical to the Grizzly G0733 and one or two other brands except for the paint. They are alleged to be 2HP, however, if you check carefully you will find that the peak electrical input power is 1.5 kilowatts. They avoid mentioning the mechanical output power, but it clearly can't be two horsepower. I would estimate the real horsepower to be about 1.5 HP based on a motor effiency of 70%. Based on what I see in this video, I would pass on it. The Jet lathe in the video is an honest 2 HP. Everything that I have ever seen from Jet accurately states the power output of the motors on their machines. Grizzly and the equivalent machines seem to regularly overstate horsepower. Under most circumstances, the power difference wouldn't be seen since we rarely operate our lathes near the maximum power output. However, with an 18" swing I can envision times when the motor on the Baileigh/Grizzly might stall.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gtgKssFdE4
 
Peter......you didn't say what you intend to turn. For myself, who is interested in bowls and platters, I wouldn't consider any lathe with a big blocky headstock. There would be trouble with access from the headstock side of the turning because of that.

ko
 
The new jet line-up of lathes is worth a look
The 1840, 1640, and 1840 DVR
Are new designs with real index wheels.

Jet figured out how to put decent controls on a DVR motor

The 1840 should take a lot of sales away from its big sister the powermatic.
IMHO 1840 headstock design, banjo, indexing, controls are better than the powermatic.
 
Peter D'Attomo said:
Shopping for a new lathe, have not heard much on the Baileigh, any help is appreciated.
Click to expand...

Dunno nuthin' 'bout their lathe. Nuthin.

But I can tell you this, for whatever it's worth:
I was shopping for a disc sander.
I looked at theirs versus the PM and JET
I wrote them a letter asking very specific questions about ball bearing classes, run-out tolerances of the disc using standard engineering terms, efficiency percentage on the motor. All the sorts of things that should be readily available
I waited.
They sent me a hat.
The never even attempted to answer any of my questions
I did not buy the Bailiegh

I had a similar experience with Laguna. After much back and forth with their rep ( who did call me) maybe three phone conversations later where I was asking similar questions about engineering technical things I got out of him that (A) he had not one single bit of information available to him outside of the color glossy brochures (B) that if there were technical manuals they would all be in another language and on another continent where the machines were made, (C) that there were no technical people to ask because there was no technical shop where any repairs were made so he couldn't even ask such a person because they don't exist in the USA.

This was in my search for a sliding table saw.
The Felder rep OTOH took the phone and walked over to the tool crib got an engineer to speak to found a micrometer and actually measured things for me while I was on the phone with him.

So my takeaway is Be careful because you could be cut adrift with a factory defect or other issues and nobody to call - - nobody who knows anything.
 
Agreed, same as Grizzly but different paint color. No idea about parts and customer support. When Baleigh started with woodworking machines, they sold the USA part of their company pretty strongly. Some even thought they manufactured woodworking machines. But they are just another import reseller.
 
Thank you all for your imput. I like to make platters and some bowls. Just sold a Oliver 12" swing and looking for a larger capacity machine. I had been eyeing the 1840 & 1640. Will look for best deal.
Happy and safe turnings to all,
Peter
 
Peter D'Attomo said:
Thank you all for your imput. I like to make platters and some bowls. Just sold a Oliver 12" swing and looking for a larger capacity machine. I had been eyeing the 1840 & 1640. Will look for best deal.
Happy and safe turnings to all,
Peter
Click to expand...

That machine is a big step down from an Oliver, IMHO. Yes, the capacity is larger, but it is nowhere near as robust and heavy.
 
Appreciate the input, thank you.

FYI,
Ran across a sale on Amazon for a 1642evs for the phenomenal price of $254.00 + 232.00 shipping. This is a new seller with no history and too good to be true.:cool:
I saw this last week with same price by other seller then it disappeared.:cool:
 
BE CAREFUL of that great price! You are right, it is to good to be true. When my son was looking for his new Jet he ran into the same thing. It is a true scam. After you place the order you'll be redirected to a site where you will have to pay "Outside of Amazon". It's a slippery thing that comes and goes on the Amazon site. My son contacted Amazon, and they know about it, but can't stop it for some reason.
 
Tom Albrecht said:
It's a slippery thing that comes and goes on the Amazon site. My son contacted Amazon, and they know about it, but can't stop it for some reason.
Click to expand...

I'll bet it's a new account, and the item is only shown for a short time.....trying to hook a buyer. Then it, along with the account, is closed as soon as a sale is made. The unsuspecting buyer has paid the money outside of Amazon, and the fraudulent account has nothing but fake information, so cannot positively identify the thief......I've heard of this sort of thing happening on Etsy. I don't see how it could work, but apparently it does. I think this scam is usually done with a foreign account.
 
hockenbery said:
The new jet line-up of lathes is worth a look
The 1840, 1640, and 1840 DVR
Are new designs with real index wheels.

Jet figured out how to put decent controls on a DVR motor

The 1840 should take a lot of sales away from its big sister the powermatic.
IMHO 1840 headstock design, banjo, indexing, controls are better than the powermatic.
Click to expand...

The
Jet 719650 Model JWL-1840DVR
is mighty scarce out there in retail land. Woodcraft says no longer available, others quote prices but I'm curious whether any are actually available out there.
 
Ooops. Well Ok then. Moving along here.
 
Bill Boehme said:
It's identical to the Grizzly G0733 and one or two other brands except for the paint. They are alleged to be 2HP, however, if you check carefully you will find that the peak electrical input power is 1.5 kilowatts. They avoid mentioning the mechanical output power, but it clearly can't be two horsepower. I would estimate the real horsepower to be about 1.5 HP based on a motor effiency of 70%. Based on what I see in this video, I would pass on it. The Jet lathe in the video is an honest 2 HP. Everything that I have ever seen from Jet accurately states the power output of the motors on their machines. Grizzly and the equivalent machines seem to regularly overstate horsepower. Under most circumstances, the power difference wouldn't be seen since we rarely operate our lathes near the maximum power output. However, with an 18" swing I can envision times when the motor on the Baileigh/Grizzly might stall.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gtgKssFdE4
Click to expand...
I have the Grizzly G0698 which looks identical to the G0733 in the video except for the color and the motor looks different, but all of the problems he brought up I have and then some. The motor on mine was marked as 2 HP 220 volts 3600 RPM and is a stepper motor, which really sucks because half speed was where you were running most of the time so you only had about 1HP. The other major problem was that the headstock spindle was not parallel with the bed vertically or horizontally and was not balanced. The customer service was terrible even though they paid to have it shipped back to fix my "major problems" then said they could not do anything about the alignment and sent it back. The speed controller fried and a replacement would cost more then a VFD so I bought a 2 HP 3PH 1725 RPM induction motor and a VFD and after some modifications to the motor mount it is up and running. So the morel of the story is don't buy a Grizzly.
 
I owned the G0698 18/47 lathe for almost 6 years, got it in 2009, sold it to our club in 2015, and it is still going strong without a single issue whatsoever. It is used all the time, and still has the original potentiometer and all other parts on it, without any problems.
I turned to the lathe's capacity, with some large wood, and although I could stall it a bit with real heavy cuts,never had any problems with power.
It has a 2 hp DC motor with controller, and so for 10+ years that motor and controller have just been fine.

Today, I have both a Grizzly G0766 and a G0800 lathe in my shop, and they are both doing super well. I turn a lot, I sell my turnings, I use some big heavy wood, and I've turned on the Robust American Beauty, many Powermatic 3520b's, a Serious SL2542....and Jet lathes,plus numerous midi lathes as well. Some experience that gives me a pretty broad perspective on lathes, even high end ones.

I would put the performance of my G0766 on the level of the performance of those Powermatics I have turned on....11 different 3520b's, some of them numerous demos, and such, and my G0766 will do anything the 3520b will do hands down.

My G0800 is a beast of a lathe comparrible in class to the PM 4224b. It is a truly fine piece of equipment with power to spare, and is a clone of the Harvey Turbo- 60 flagship lathe. The same company that makes the Powermatic lathes. Exquisite machining and heavy, solid headstock, tailstock and banjo lock down so solid, that one needs two hands to move them for sure. No creep whatsoever on any of it.

I don't know how I get so lucky with my Grizzly equipment.....but I've had no issues, and I read about all sorts of problems with switches being replaced, even motors and vfd's having to be replaced on some PM lathes.........of course there are many of them in use so perhaps a bit more exposure.

Honest experience with numerous PM lathes makes me a fan of them....they are fine machines, but so is my Grizzly G0766, and even more so the G0800. My former G0698 was well worth the money I paid for it, and I had zero problems with it, and neither has our turning club..........I just wonder how I get so lucky?! ;)
 
One problem when asking questions of the techs at the bigger companies, you end up talking to a rep who reads from a manual and most of the time doesn't have any real working knowledge of the tools. With Oneway and Robust, you get to talk to the people that make the tools. Powermatic used to be that way before they sold... Ran into that a number of times with Laguna when I had questions about my bandsaw...

robo hippy
 
Too many companies have suffered the fate of the lowest common denominator when it comes to customer service. Many companies see this as an overhead expense and contract the service to the lowest bidder many times an offshore call center. Calling an 800 number and waiting to talk to someone that has less knowledge and expertise is of very little value to most people. I try to use the instant messaging or email when making inquiries to the factories I deal with from around the world with my work, this is less painful and avoids the linguistic barrier of trying to carry on a phone conversation with someone with a heavy accent that is difficult to understand on a long distance poor quality phone connection.
 
Not sure customer service is the right name anymore for machinery importers. It's more like, replacement parts service. You get someone who can't troubleshoot well, and then starts shipping parts your way. If that part doesn't fix it, wait a week and we'll get you more parts. "What we should have sent you a new bearing too?" Wait another week. I spent weeks placing orders and waiting for them to arrive with one importer. I spent hours troubleshooting and repairing it. Finally I just threw in the towel and sent it back. About the only thing that was good on that machine was the table and motor. Everything else either flexed, or was out of balance. The base had the strength of a baking pan. I have a high level of engineering and repair experience. I can't imagine how someone with no machinery experience ever gets an acceptable import machine now. I assume they are happy because it cost 1/3 less than a machine that they wouldn't have to tweak or fix.
 
The thread has become somewhat philosophical hasn't it. No complaint here, I think I'll join in. It's all about what we are willing to pay. Oneway and Robust are pretty expensive tools because they are engineered and built in the first world. (Vicmarc, Serious, Others) That's not to say that PM and Jet and all the rest don't build nice stuff it's just that they are built to the bottom dollar. If I was just a wood worker and not a musician, pilot, sailor, etc. etc. I would have had the dough to buy nothing but the best. I'm a gadfly though. As it is I'm always looking in that mid range price wise or for used older stuff. All that to say I guess is that it just depends. What do you want? There is a 20" PM pea green bandsaw I know of that only wants $1000 to be mine. My heart aches. Add a few hundred for a single phase motor changeover and that's an amazing saw but it won't fit in my shop-ette. It was made in American when it really mattered and PM still stocks many many parts. For lathes almost all the older stuff is for spindle work. Even a massive piece like an Oliver will have a Reeves drive, swing 12", and though an incredibly strong and precise tool it just won't do what most of us ask. It all depends.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top