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Robert Pond

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Just want to say that I enjoy and have learned alot from reading all the post.Was wondering if ther Delta 1440 is a good lathe to move up to from my Craftmans 12in that is about 20 years old but in good shape Thanks for the in put.
 
My last several experiences with Delta woodworking equipment would lead me to advise you to look at the Jet. I have never used either but have read quite a few reviews of both. You might want to use the search function here and on Wood Central to get information also.
 
Yes, it would be better than the Craftsman, but if that is a reeves drive model, I would save my money for a different one/brand. The reeves drive (IMHO) is a problematic design. I used a Delta for a few years with it until I upgraded and found it a hassle to use, and to maintain.
 
The Reeves drive on the Delta and JET 14's is poor imitation of the actual article found in a lot of "old arn." Lots of them have survived decades of student abuse.

Since I can only use one speed at a time, I have a Nova 3000, whose Chinese offspring sells for less than either. Motor is out of the dust, toolpost is on the side of the banjo where it's handier, speed goes lower, and the swing's larger. Doesn't come with a full-length bed, but even with, its a better buy.
 
Robert, is that old Sears a monotube? That was my first lathe and I used it for about 7 yrs. before I knew about the wide world of lathes! I sold it and wish I had kept it, not because it was better, just dependable. 🙂

I agree with Steve about the reeves drive, I had one and it was nothing but trouble. Only good thing was I learned how to replace the whole unit....twice!

Ruth
 
look at the tailstock too

Being around metal lathes at my various jobs, i have been disappointed with the tailstock designs on most wood lathes. Finer, cheaper vee thread forms in the tailstock quill threads are used to avoid manufacturing costs. All lathes should have close tolerance acme threads with coarse pitch between 6 and 10 tpi. Many popular lathes mentioned and recommended by others have nothing against which the quill pushes when you crank the quill...like the wimpy retaining ring used in my Jet 1236. So i eventually had to order in a left hand nut and ran it against the end of the casting instead of the retaining ring which had wallowed out its groove until the only other alternative was to replace the tailstock spindle. I agree that i just wore it out, but it was really an inexcusable design flaw. In defense of the Jet, i will say that I drastically altered my expectations from producing spindles for music stands and similar furniture projects to ballistic lathe addiction and selling a bunch of work from chess sets to bowls each year.

So i now have a Nova mercury mini and a Oneway 1224. Oneway makes the only acceptable tailstock on a 110 volt lathe ( so i did not give fair consideration to the Powermatic line). I know the Oneway is pricey. You can do larger work on the Nova 3000 and the 8 speed drive is great because it goes down to less than 300 rpm for thread chasing and large bowl roughing. I'd love to have one so i could get the ornamental turner attachment. i respect Nova and think it a viable choice...except i do a ton of drilling and like to crank six turns for each inch of depth when hollowing 50 xmas ornaments rather than 14 to 18 turns for each hole. Probably should have sprung for the Oneway 1640 and then got the Nova ornamental turner attachment. There are many trade-offs, but remember the tailstock and consider the needs posed by your turning project requirements.

Unfortunately, you need to spend the money to get professional grade tools to do consistent satisfactory work. My fourth router is a Porter Cable. I could have purchased a quality tool that could run all day every day and just do its job the first time. Did i learn? NO. So the third lathe is a Oneway. Ain't this fun??? You never know which hobby is going to "take". Your Move. Enjoy the ride. Best luck.
 
ken belanus said:
Being around metal lathes at my various jobs, i have been disappointed with the tailstock designs on most wood lathes. Finer, cheaper vee thread forms in the tailstock quill threads are used to avoid manufacturing costs. All lathes should have close tolerance acme threads with coarse pitch between 6 and 10 tpi. Many popular lathes mentioned and recommended by others have nothing against which the quill pushes when you crank the quill...like the wimpy retaining ring used in my Jet 1236. So i eventually had to order in a left hand nut and ran it against the end of the casting instead of the retaining ring which had wallowed out its groove until the only other alternative was to replace the tailstock spindle. I agree that i just wore it out, but it was really an inexcusable design flaw. In defense of the Jet, i will say that I drastically altered my expectations from producing spindles for music stands and similar furniture projects to ballistic lathe addiction and selling a bunch of work from chess sets to bowls each year.

So i now have a Nova mercury mini and a Oneway 1224. Oneway makes the only acceptable tailstock on a 110 volt lathe ( so i did not give fair consideration to the Powermatic line). I know the Oneway is pricey. You can do larger work on the Nova 3000 and the 8 speed drive is great because it goes down to less than 300 rpm for thread chasing and large bowl roughing. I'd love to have one so i could get the ornamental turner attachment. i respect Nova and think it a viable choice...except i do a ton of drilling and like to crank six turns for each inch of depth when hollowing 50 xmas ornaments rather than 14 to 18 turns for each hole. Probably should have sprung for the Oneway 1640 and then got the Nova ornamental turner attachment. There are many trade-offs, but remember the tailstock and consider the needs posed by your turning project requirements.

Unfortunately, you need to spend the money to get professional grade tools to do consistent satisfactory work. My fourth router is a Porter Cable. I could have purchased a quality tool that could run all day every day and just do its job the first time. Did i learn? NO. So the third lathe is a Oneway. Ain't this fun??? You never know which hobby is going to "take". Your Move. Enjoy the ride. Best luck.
Click to expand...

Hiya Ken.....

I like your sense of humor.......provided a few chuckles! 😀

I'm a little confused here.......tell us again why a wood lathe needs to have the square acme threads on the tailstock. Is it because you want to turn the quill crank less turns to drill? I've been sitting here wondering what advantage there would be.......there is no precision needs like that of a metal lathe......just needs to go in and out....I think. I will admit, though, those square threads really do have the look of quality, and their precise smooth operation is nice to have.

This is probably just one of the many things I'm totally wrong about!.....I need to see the light! Heh,heh,heh!

edit: Thread chasing?

otis of cologne
 
Last edited:
Robert Pond said:
Just want to say that I enjoy and have learned alot from reading all the post.Was wondering if ther Delta 1440 is a good lathe to move up to from my Craftmans 12in that is about 20 years old but in good shape Thanks for the in put.
Click to expand...

I have that lathe and if you do a forum search for my name and various keywords like Reeves and Delta you will find that I have a lot of information posted about the lathe.

After owning it for about five years, I would say that it is a decent machine if you are a casual turner who does mostly spindle work, but otherwise I would urge you to stay away from any lathe with a Reeves drive.There is nothing inherently wrong with Reeves drives, per se. The problem is is that the drives are woefully under designed in all of the lathes currently being built that use them although the Jet is a bit heavier duty. However, Delta, Jet and all the others have basically the same problem. The weak part of the design is that the Reeves pulleys are being built with die-cast zinc pulleys which is far too soft for this application. If they were properly designed, they would use machined cast iron pulleys. I have developed several "fixes" to address the problem, but they are just stop-gap measures that slows down the rapid wear-out of the pulleys, but doesn't stop it. The drive system is the only really deficient part of the design and the rest of the lathe is fairly decent. I believe that for spindle turning that they Reeves drive would last a much longer time between repairs, but for bowl turning, the larger loads lead to fairly early failure of the pulleys.

Bill
 
Odie there have been a lot of threads over the years where people have written in because they stripped out the threads on their tailstock. The threads on many lathes are too shallow and the taper adds to the easy wear. An Acme thread is square shouldered and much stronger. The number of threads per inch would seem to me to be a trade off. A smaller number means you feed the quill much faster but the trade off would be how much force you could exert with the handwheel to feed the tool. Of course that's where the problem comes. Forcing the cut wears the threads. Interesting topic.
I will agree that with most inexpensive lathes the tailstock is a very weak link. They don't really consider how we use it. Most people crank the tailstock in to seat drive centers or to try and keep a bowl from slipping. Maybe this isn't the correct thing to do but it's what we turners do. Consequently the tailstocks slip because the locking plate is too small and there isn't enough surface area to really clamp. Then we try to force the lever down which often results in a brocken lever. You could design a stronger cam action for the lever but without a decent clamping plate it still won't help. Cranking the tailstock quill in really hard then causes wear on the threads which eventually leads to slop and or damaged threads.
There's also the problem of the pin that locks the quill from rotating. These are often too small so forcing the quill causes excessive wear on this pin or the groove which of course eventually leads to failure.
Even the quill lock is poorly designed on many machines. Ideally you have a brass pressure plate that is rounded where it touches the quill and the lock pushes this down to secure the quill. many lathes simply use a screw that pushes against the quill. This eventually damages the quill by dimpling it.
 
john lucas said:
Odie there have been a lot of threads over the years where people have written in because they stripped out the threads on their tailstock. The threads on many lathes are too shallow and the taper adds to the easy wear. An Acme thread is square shouldered and much stronger. The number of threads per inch would seem to me to be a trade off. A smaller number means you feed the quill much faster but the trade off would be how much force you could exert with the handwheel to feed the tool. Of course that's where the problem comes. Forcing the cut wears the threads. Interesting topic.
I will agree that with most inexpensive lathes the tailstock is a very weak link. They don't really consider how we use it. Most people crank the tailstock in to seat drive centers or to try and keep a bowl from slipping. Maybe this isn't the correct thing to do but it's what we turners do. Consequently the tailstocks slip because the locking plate is too small and there isn't enough surface area to really clamp. Then we try to force the lever down which often results in a brocken lever. You could design a stronger cam action for the lever but without a decent clamping plate it still won't help. Cranking the tailstock quill in really hard then causes wear on the threads which eventually leads to slop and or damaged threads.
There's also the problem of the pin that locks the quill from rotating. These are often too small so forcing the quill causes excessive wear on this pin or the groove which of course eventually leads to failure.
Even the quill lock is poorly designed on many machines. Ideally you have a brass pressure plate that is rounded where it touches the quill and the lock pushes this down to secure the quill. many lathes simply use a screw that pushes against the quill. This eventually damages the quill by dimpling it.
Click to expand...


OK, I guess I'll have to back-track some.......looking at from your perspective gives the subject a little more meaning for me. You know, when Ken Belanus made his comment, I really didn't know for sure which kind of threads I had on my Woodfast......had to make a run to the shop to find out for sure! Ha! Funny, how I've had that lathe since 1992 and I couldn't remember! My Wood fast has the cheaper v shaped, or standard threads. I disassembled it to check if the "keeper" was wearing. On the Woodfast, there's a groove in the quill crank with a mating metal plate that rides in the groove.......looks pretty sturdy to me. I've never needed to apply much pressure on the threads for drilling, but I've put quite a bit of pressure on them for seating steb center, revolving centers, etc.

Thanks for giving us your point of view, John......

otis of cologne
 
john lucas said:
Odie there have been a lot of threads over the years where people have written in because they stripped out the threads on their tailstock. The threads on many lathes are too shallow and the taper adds to the easy wear. An Acme thread is square shouldered and much stronger. The number of threads per inch would seem to me to be a trade off. A smaller number means you feed the quill much faster but the trade off would be how much force you could exert with the handwheel to feed the tool. Of course that's where the problem comes. Forcing the cut wears the threads. Interesting topic.
I will agree that with most inexpensive lathes the tailstock is a very weak link. They don't really consider how we use it. Most people crank the tailstock in to seat drive centers or to try and keep a bowl from slipping. Maybe this isn't the correct thing to do but it's what we turners do. Consequently the tailstocks slip because the locking plate is too small and there isn't enough surface area to really clamp. Then we try to force the lever down which often results in a brocken lever. You could design a stronger cam action for the lever but without a decent clamping plate it still won't help. Cranking the tailstock quill in really hard then causes wear on the threads which eventually leads to slop and or damaged threads.
There's also the problem of the pin that locks the quill from rotating. These are often too small so forcing the quill causes excessive wear on this pin or the groove which of course eventually leads to failure.
Even the quill lock is poorly designed on many machines. Ideally you have a brass pressure plate that is rounded where it touches the quill and the lock pushes this down to secure the quill. many lathes simply use a screw that pushes against the quill. This eventually damages the quill by dimpling it.
Click to expand...

One of the things that is at least halfway decent about the Delta 1440 is the tailstock, but I am not certain about whether it has Acme threads. It does not use the cheesy clamping plate that most small lathes have to lock the tailstock, but instead used very heavy duty T-slot nuts like you would find on a quality large lathe. This also means that the tailstock does not have the problem of "hanging" that so many lathe tailstocks have. It is interesting that the newer Delta 16 inch VFD model lathes do not use tht T-slot nuts and instead use the cheezy flat washers found on mini lathes. That is one of the reasons that I backed out of buying one. All this doesn't mean that the tailstock doesn't slip since, as John points out, many woodturnes abuse the bearings and tailstocks by using them to "set" a spur drive rather than taking the time to do it right. Most medium and smaller lathes use ordinary ball bearings that are not designed to carry much of an axial load. The better ones, like the Powermatic use angled ball bearings and a few even use roller bearings. The VB uses oil bath bronze bushings and a thrust bearing -- probably the best of all.
 
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