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John Torchick

John Torchick

Joined
Jan 24, 2010
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Location
Cleveland, Tennessee
Our chapter president mentioned last January that Highland Woodworking had a Rikon lathe on sale. I checked and it was the 70-050VS for $249.99 plus S & H.
I ordered it as my HF lathe froze up on the Reeves drive and was beyond repair IMHO. I got a call that the Rikon would shipped today. My wife says I have too much wood that needs turning. Gonna sharpen tools this weekend and catch up on turning projects!
Edit: The CSR said that they had 5 or 6 left. I don't think the sale price still holds. Anyone looking for new lathe or a backup lathe?
 
Congrats! You will love the new lathe. I heard that the delivery truck driver took a wrong turn and wound up in north Texas so if I see him I might need to check out the lathe to make certain that it is in top working order. 😉

Lathes with Reeves drives ought to be declared instruments of torture on pocketbooks.
 
Bill
I have a reeves drive General lathe that has given me no problems in 14 years and it gets use allot more then most lathes ever think about.For the first 6 years it ran 6 to8 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week I have cut wood,plastic,and corion every size it will turn.Theres NOT A THING wrong with reeves drives IF you buy a Machine and not Chinese junk.
 
Harry Robinette said:
Bill
I have a reeves drive General lathe that has given me no problems in 14 years and it gets use allot more then most lathes ever think about.For the first 6 years it ran 6 to8 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week I have cut wood,plastic,and corion every size it will turn.Theres NOT A THING wrong with reeves drives IF you buy a Machine and not Chinese junk.
Click to expand...

Harry, unfortunately they don't make them the way that they used to. A properly made Reeves drive should hold up for a very long time. They are used extensively in a lot of riding lawnmowers and last the life of the machine. The Reeves drive in your General lathe is well made and may be made of cast iron or steel or even aluminum which are all OK. The Delta, Jet, and other Asian import lathes made in the past few years seem to all be made of die-cast zinc. That might be fine for a fixed pulley, but not so good for a Reeves pulley. I have a box full of worn-out pulleys for my Delta 1440 Iron Bed lathe. Delta paid for replacing all of them, but sometimes I had to wait several weeks for a slow boat from China to get a replacement. When Delta was sold to Black & Decker everything changed for the worse. The cost for replacement parts went up by a factor of about five times the previous price. Soon afterwards they stopped supporting out of production machines so there were no longer any Reeves pulleys available at any price. At best, the pulleys were good for about six months before one of them would fail. Simple metal fatigue was the most common failure mode.
 
Harry Robinette said:
Bill
I have a reeves drive General lathe that has given me no problems in 14 years and it gets use allot more then most lathes ever think about.For the first 6 years it ran 6 to8 hours a day 5 or 6 days a week I have cut wood,plastic,and corion every size it will turn.Theres NOT A THING wrong with reeves drives IF you buy a Machine and not Chinese junk.
Click to expand...

Whoa, Harry, I had no intention of insulting your lathe. My experience with reeves drive was with my old JET 12x36 that lacked a useful low speed, had to be cleaned often to prevent jamming on a single speed, and was limited to the few pre-set speeds on the detent plate..
 
Well, I got the base cut down by cutting the side rail and shortening the length and temporarily mounted the lathe on a laminate top. The two back holes for the lathe actually go through the old base so I should be pretty solid. I used a couple of small bolts to hold it in place for now. Need to make a trip to Lowe's for some bigger fasteners and washers. I turned it on and, man! No vibration! I'm going to like this lathe! I'll post some pix when I get it finished and get the shop cleaned up a bit. If it's too clean, you might think I''m not doing anything.😉
 
Last edited:
rikon

hope you like it ,is it working out for you i hope so because i call them and got the last one they had yesterday ,going to pick it up this weekend or next.
 
Glen, WTG! I understand from their CSR that this model will be replaced with an updated version. Haven't had a chance to use it yet as we are getting the master bedroom ready for new carpet. Anyone tried to peel wallpaper off a square inch at a time and scrape off popcorn ceiling crud?:mad: Sloooooow at its best!
 
John,

If your wallpaper is coming off like that then try spraying it with warm water. Sometimes that works most time not. If it doesn't then get your iron out. Put it on a medium to 3/4 heat level and iron the wall. It will heat the glue and make it easier to peel off. Do a 3 foot by 3 foot area (roughly) at a time. Most times that will do the trick.

You popcorn ceiling should scrape off pretty easy. Take a 6 or 8 inch wide blade like a drywall taping knife. Dull the edge just a bit so it does not dig into the drywall - the corners of tool especially. Don't try and scrape everything off flat to the drywall. Once the popcorn is mostly gone look at it and determine if you like that texture - it is actually a cool looking texture once you knock that popcorn off. If you don't like the texture then go back to the warm water and spray an area and use your knife again. Essentially what you do the first time is scrape the painted popcorn off a bit and exposed the raw popcorn texture. The water will then make it easier to get off closer to flush with the drywall. The other option is forgoing any more scraping after the first go around and apply a skim coat of drywall mud over what is left and then texture it with a heavier orange peel or knockdown texture.

Give it a go - from a remodeling contractor who has been there.
 
Popcorn ceiling should come off very easily unless it has been painted over many times. Mist it with water and let it sit for a while. Then use method mentioned by dbonertz to scrape it away. Make sure that you have plastic draped over everything. Wallpaper usually strips very easily unless the wrong adhesive was used. As already mentioned, mist it with water to soften the adhesive. This won't work with plastic based wallpaper. If it is truly as tight as you say, then you can either paper over it or texture and paint it. We have done all of the above.
 
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