New Laguna 2436

[Randy Anderson]

I finally pulled the trigger today on a new Laguna 2436. In my journey of making large hollow forms I've pushed the limits of my current Jet 1642 well beyond what I likely should have. It's held up well but it's time to move on. I recently picked up a large load of some very large black walnut and have some very large ash that finally convinced me that I can't keep sizing down pieces to make them fit my lathe. I ordered the 12" swing away bed extension so that gives me 48" center to center. That's should be plenty. If not, they make a longer extension.

For anyone else interested Laguna is having a 10% sale starting Oct 1st. My local wood store was able to order it with the discount. Should be here by first of October. Free shipping if I go pick it up.

Now to deal with the downstream changes of a bigger machine. Run a 220V line across the shop, resize the support posts on my deep hollowing rig to the new center height, get a riser for my steady rest to the new center.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Congratulations on your choice, I've had mine for about 6 years.

Something to think about, I purchased mine and pretty much got every accessory. The only accessory that didn't work, or at least I have been unable to get it to work satisfactorily, is the swing away rest.

All of the accessories for the 24/36 were designed for the much smaller 18/36. The tailstock on the 2436 is massive compared to the 18/36 and no matter how hard I tried, it was just too iffy. There is the possibility they may have changed things since, but.....

As for the bed extension, best accessory out there and if you are going to do largish stuff, I would suggest the bed extension is worth it. With the bed extension you also get a tailstock riser, as well as a tool post riser. You can see the tailstock and tool post risers in these pictures.

You can attach the bed extension to the front, slide the headstock down and by changing the banjo from the lathe bed to the bed extension, you can finish off the rear of large bowls/platters without needing to de-chuck the piece.

In case you are wondering, the chuck is a VM120 with Vicmarc's largest faceplate ring.

You may notice my homemade spindle locking mechanism. Two rare earth magnets, a bit of steel and hey presto, you have two hands to manage placing stock onto the lathe. Some people have suggested to use the indent system, but compared to this simple method/tool, doing that is fiddly as anything.

I also have two accessory lights, fabulous, just fabulous with these aging eyes.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Mick, thanks for the info and pictures. I take the tail stock off a number of times during the process for large hollow forms. Sliding the banjo off to slide the steady rest up in place, then back, etc. I'm hoping it's substantial enough to support what I do since yes, lifting the tail stock up and down off the bed would be a challenge. Their videos of it claim you can treat it just like the rest of the bed but, it's only really fastened by the latch. Will see.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Randy, I see where you are coming from more clearly now. With the bed extension, you also get the tailstock riser. This is kitted out with it's own locking lever; meaning you can easily slide it up and down the bed extension until it literally joins up to the lathe beds.

If the swing-away doesn't work out as you hope it will, then this is possibly something to consider.

I generally leave the bed extension in the bottom position with the tailstock riser permanently on it. When I wish to remove the banjo or do anything else, I just slide the tailstock riser to the bed end, slide the tailstock onto it, then slide the whole lot to the end of the bed extension, which is 508mm in length. Once you have the bed extension perfectly aligned with the bed rails, life is simple.

I found that with the tailstock positioned right on the right at the rear of the lathe bed while on the swing-away, the tailstock just seemed to get in the road of doing things. This is apart from the fact the weight of the 24/36 tailstock is massive and I think it pushes the swing-away to its limit. It's also not helped by me having the remote unit on the tailstock arm, as well as my second light.

Ps: you are going to love the two sets of switches. I primarily use the remote switch, but just this week I've been doing green turning a batch of ten bowls. Switching between gouging out the bowl inner, I use the remote, I move the tool rest a smidge for the outside and switch to the main switch; so nice to use and so quick.

I just went into the garage and took these pictures.

 

[William Rogers]

Congrats on your new lathe.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

Congrats on the new lathe, Randy!

 

[Randy Anderson]

Mick, your info and pics have me rethinking my plan but still not sure. Like a lot of things, no simple one size fits all answer. One big concern is when I have a massive log mounted and the tail stock is partially or totally on the swing away will it be able to take the load. It's only fastened in place with that clip. I asked Laguna tech support but didn't get a solid answer on the ability of the swing away to support a large heavy load. The initial blank will be very very heavy (pushing 200lbs) and the tail stock can take quite a lot of weight and stress, especially in the beginning. During hollowing I'll need to mount the support frame for the hollowing rig on the 12" extension which means, no matter which way I go, I will have to manually lift the tail stock off the lathe and set it aside. There's just no way around that step. The hollowing rig support frame takes a lot of mostly upward force when deep hollowing, downward is directed to the tool rest. I'm trying to visualize the steps to be sure. I still have time to change to the fixed extension if I decide to.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Congrats on your new lathe.

Thanks...

 

[Randy Anderson]

Congrats on the new lathe, Randy!

Thanks...

 

[Dave Hulett]

I finally pulled the trigger today on a new Laguna 2436. In my journey of making large hollow forms I've pushed the limits of my current Jet 1642 well beyond what I likely should have. It's held up well but it's time to move on. I recently picked up a large load of some very large black walnut and have some very large ash that finally convinced me that I can't keep sizing down pieces to make them fit my lathe. I ordered the 12" swing away bed extension so that gives me 48" center to center. That's should be plenty. If not, they make a longer extension.

For anyone else interested Laguna is having a 10% sale starting Oct 1st. My local wood store was able to order it with the discount. Should be here by first of October. Free shipping if I go pick it up.

Now to deal with the downstream changes of a bigger machine. Run a 220V line across the shop, resize the support posts on my deep hollowing rig to the new center height, get a riser for my steady rest to the new center.

Congratulations Randy! Several of our club members have the Laguna and love 'em.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Congratulations Randy! Several of our club members have the Laguna and love 'em.

Thanks Dave. Now need to find a home for a still great but very well used Jet 1642.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Thanks Dave. Now need to find a home for a still great but very well used Jet 1642.

Curious, I Googled "used Jet 1642" and got this: https://www.lalsoft.com/?ggcid=3308707

Clearly a dodgy site. But you can get a 1642 for $50!

 

[Mick Fagan]

One thing you may need to do, is to fiddle with certain tools you may have manufactured, or possibly re-model them.

When I moved up from my Nova lathe, my steady wouldn't fit, so a new base needed to be made to fit the old steady onto the new lathe.

 

[Tim Hanus]

I finally pulled the trigger today on a new Laguna 2436. In my journey of making large hollow forms I've pushed the limits of my current Jet 1642 well beyond what I likely should have. It's held up well but it's time to move on. I recently picked up a large load of some very large black walnut and have some very large ash that finally convinced me that I can't keep sizing down pieces to make them fit my lathe. I ordered the 12" swing away bed extension so that gives me 48" center to center. That's should be plenty. If not, they make a longer extension.

For anyone else interested Laguna is having a 10% sale starting Oct 1st. My local wood store was able to order it with the discount. Should be here by first of October. Free shipping if I go pick it up.

Now to deal with the downstream changes of a bigger machine. Run a 220V line across the shop, resize the support posts on my deep hollowing rig to the new center height, get a riser for my steady rest to the new center.

I think you are going to love the 24/36. I recently got mine after using the Jet 1442 for 20+ years. This thing is really nice. Congrats on the purchase.

 

[Paul DuBose]

One thing you may need to do, is to fiddle with certain tools you may have manufactured, or possibly re-model them.

When I moved up from my Nova lathe, my steady wouldn't fit, so a new base needed to be made to fit the old steady onto the new lathe.

Mick, seeing how you've had your 2436 for a while, I thought you might be able to answer a question for me - my headstock gets warm and I think it's probably from the spindle bearing - do you know if this is normal? The spindle seems to turn smoothly and doesn't make any noise. Thanks for any insight that you can provide!

 

[Mick Fagan]

Paul, I do gave some experience of hot bearings. I wasn't sure if giving a link to another wood working website was allowed, so I asked administration and found that this kind of link is acceptable.

After owning my lathe for almost a year, I wrote up about it mentioning various things that were pertinent to me, and some not so pertinent to me. The part that is concerning you, is written in comment number 3.

Laguna Revo 24-36 Wood Lathe Impressions

I was on the market for a lathe, what exactly I wasnÂt too sure about. My leanings in wood turning were heading more towards making bowls and platters with spindle turning being a very nice, but secon

www.woodworkforums.com

On top of that, here are a couple more pictures that I just perused on my backup off computer drive.

The first is the indexing apparatus, it is attached, or coupled with a solid piece of aluminium which the drive belt resides in. This piece of aluminium, as far as I understand things, has balancing holes drilled into it.

The second picture is where the spindle is about to be removed from the lathe.

I hope this helps.

 

[Paul DuBose]

Thanks Mick, very helpful! I'll start looking into bearings, any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks again!

 

[Mark Jundanian]

Paul, have you consulted with Laguna, too?

 

[Paul DuBose]

Paul, have you consulted with Laguna, too?

I did check their website (service), and they list the bearings that are used, but they also list them as out of stock. Looks like they want you to source them elsewhere.

 

[Mick Fagan]

The answer is quite simple, just head to a local bearing shop with the specifications of your current bearings, or better still take one of the bearings with you.

Then request they supply the highest specified bearing in that size/specification range. The difference between the lower end and the higher end bearings was about $10.00 in my case. I seem to recall the total bearing cost for the two bearings was $43.00 AUD; but this was in 2018.

The spindle coming out of the headstock still gets warm, but not hot; this is correct.

The lathes I've used have all delivered warm spindle shafts directly out of the headstock, too hot to touch though, is not right. That said I'm not qualified to give that assessment, but I'm repeating what mechanical engineers over the decades have said to me.

The assessment of my lathe was simple, the owner of the business which had supplied my lathe turned up with new bearings, and an electronic thermometer. The lathe was cold, the ambient temperature was around 18ºC. We switched the lathe on on the high speed belt setting, then ran it at high speed (3,000 rpm maybe?) for around 2-3 minutes, then took a reading of the spindle shaft just proud of the nose cone. I don't remember what the temperature was, but it was already high and almost too hot to touch; new bearings.

An hour and a bit later, we fired the lathe up with the new bearings in, did the same test. The results were an enormous drop in temperature on the electronic thermometer and the spindle felt just slightly warm to the touch.

 

[Paul DuBose]

Very interesting - my bearing is not getting anywhere near that hot. Like I said before, the spindle still spins smoothly and fairly easily. I'll probably hang on to the new bearings and perform the replacement when things get a little bit worse. Thanks again for your help!

 

[Jerry Bochenek]

If you over tighten the pre-load on a bearing it will cause over heating. I had a Jet 1640 where the spindle got hot to the touch when running at top speed. I backed the pre-load off about a 1/4 turn and it reduced the heat on the spindle.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Picked up the new beast today. My neighbor helped me unpack and set it up. Dang, every part of the thing is too heavy for one person to manage. Made good use of my electric hoist over the area that I use to lift heavy logs in place. All set up, bed extension installed and ready for action tomorrow.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Well, a couple of issues I need to work on.

First, I aligned the tail stock and head stock centers per the manual. Horizontal alignment went fine but there's between a 32nd and a 64th vertical delta between them. Headstock is just a grunt higher. There isn't an adjustment I'm aware of for that and not sure what the tolerances are. Called Laguna tech support and they weren't any help. He said to check facebook and other forums.... really??? Anyone have any ideas or advice.?

Second, I get a rapid ticking sound from the rear of the drive motor. Disconnected the belt to the spindle, removed the fan shroud on the end of the motor to make sure all clear. Sound still there and coming from the rear of the motor. Best way to describe it is as if the fan blade were barely hitting something inside the housing. Follows the RPMs of the motor. Laguna tech support says it's a known issue, things need to get "broken in" and it should fade with use. I don't buy that response and if that's his "technical" opinion it wasn't worth the debate on the call. Going to put some time on it today and see if it even changes a bit but suspect I have a bad bearing in the rear of the motor.

 

[Tim Hanus]

Well, a couple of issues I need to work on.

First, I aligned the tail stock and head stock centers per the manual. Horizontal alignment went fine but there's between a 32nd and a 64th vertical delta between them. Headstock is just a grunt higher. There isn't an adjustment I'm aware of for that and not sure what the tolerances are. Called Laguna tech support and they weren't any help. He said to check facebook and other forums.... really??? Anyone have any ideas or advice.?

Second, I get a rapid ticking sound from the rear of the drive motor. Disconnected the belt to the spindle, removed the fan shroud on the end of the motor to make sure all clear. Sound still there and coming from the rear of the motor. Best way to describe it is as if the fan blade were barely hitting something inside the housing. Follows the RPMs of the motor. Laguna tech support says it's a known issue, things need to get "broken in" and it should fade with use. I don't buy that response and if that's his "technical" opinion it wasn't worth the debate on the call. Going to put some time on it today and see if it even changes a bit but suspect I have a bad bearing in the rear of the motor.

There are 4 bolts on the end of the tailstock, I think 3 mm in size. Loosen these and you can then move it for that final adjustment. This may have to be repeated a few times as it is easy to move while tightening back down.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Tim, not sure what 4 bolts you're referring to. Here's a pick of my tailstock base. I have one bolt to loosen and then a recessed screw that adjusts the gap in the underneath mounting plate so no side to side slop but nothing that adjusts the tilt or height of the tailstock. You referring to the bolts that hold the quill in place??

 

[Tim Hanus]

Sorry for not being clear, they are located at the end where the quill extends out of the tailstock.

 

[Jerry Bochenek]

Try adjusting the levers on the lathe. Sometimes out of level floors can slightly twist the lathe bed and cause out of alignment.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Tim, that did the trick. I loosened the four bolts on the front and back. There's a good bit of play in positioning the quill and enough to get it lined up in the same plane as the head stock center. It does take a number of tries to get it right and still have the quill turn in and out easily without binding. I think I got it...THANKS! The handle on the tail stock quill doesn't spin nearly as free as my Jet did but don't think it's binding. If anything it spins a bit more easily than it did from the factory.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Jerry, I checked my level side to side and end to end...very close so don't think I had any bed twisting in play...thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Laguna tech support says the noise from the drive motor is normal and is caused by the way the VFD controls it. I've been around a number of lathes with VFDs and never heard a noise like this. A low pitched tick that follows the motor speed.

 

[Tim Hanus]

Laguna tech support says the noise from the drive motor is normal and is caused by the way the VFD controls it. I've been around a number of lathes with VFDs and never heard a noise like this. A low pitched tick that follows the motor speed.

I do not hear any ticking noises on mine at but that could be my hearing. I have not moved the belt to high speed but don’t think that would make a difference.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Thanks Tim. Something isn’t right. I’ve owned and been around a number of VFD lathes and never heard a sound like this. It’s very irritating and distracting to try and use.

 

[Randy Anderson]

I disconnected the belt from the motor and removed the fan housing. If I reach in and give the motor a good spin by hand you can hear the same ticking sound. So, it's something mechanical in the motor. Assuming a bad bearing or something inside the housing hitting where it shouldn't be.

 

[Tim Hanus]

Definitely sounds like Laguna has something to warrant.

 

[Dave Landers]

things need to get "broken in" and it should fade

Yeah - once whatever it’s hitting breaks, that sound will fade (might be replaced by some new sound, but still counts as a fix!)

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Yeah - once whatever it’s hitting breaks, that sound will fade (might be replaced by some new sound, but still counts as a fix!)

I had to read that a couple of times.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Called Laguna tech support and they weren't any help. He said to check facebook and other forums.... really???

I haven't dealt with Laguna, but from what I have read that is par for the course with Laguna CS.

 

[William Rogers]

Randy, sorry to hear about your troubles with your lathe. I did own a Laguna 18-36, but never experienced the problems you have had. Laguna CS can be frustrating, I know. You just have to keep after them. I ended up replacing under warrant every switch and relay on that lathe. Laguna eventually sent me a whole new headstock and even then I had to replace the electronic board. When I finally got the lathe “right” I sold it. Keep after their CS and hopefully they will do the right thing. A friend has a Laguna 24-36 and has not had any problems. I think his is about 3+ years old.

 

[Charles Cadenhead]

I haven't dealt with Laguna, but from what I have read that is par for the course with Laguna CS.

They need better customer support