New Nova Comet II, on its way....

[Jamie Straw]

Maybe I'm backwards, but I bought my mini lathe a couple years after I had owned a full size lathe. The mini is handy for various things like taking to public demos or to mentoring at our club or for just turning pens, small bowls, and other things like that. What made my mini especially handy is when I bought a Harbor Freight hydraulic table for it. I still find it useful for small projects even though I now have a Robust AB.

If one were to consider at Jet 1236 a "full size lathe" I would be backwards also.🙂

 

[Bill Boehme]

... "supposed to be fixed in next shipment" .....

And, we believe that ... right

 

[Jamie Straw]

View attachment 9731

And, we believe that ... right

Keep 'em coming, Bill, I love them! [ooo, did you mean to hide that "And, we believe...." part? It's in white font!

 

[Bill Boehme]

Keep 'em coming, Bill, I love them! [ooo, did you mean to hide that "And, we believe...." part? It's in white font!

Text is required in order to post, but nobldy said that it has to be visible. Good catch, BTW.

 

[john lucas]

Bill I've been working metal for a long time. I Used freshly sharpened drill bits and cutting fluid and it simply smokes and tries to cut but won't do it. I even used very slow speed to try. I managed to get it cut about 1/4" deep and that was after using 2 drill bits, both sharpened twice before I quit. I use a Drill doctor to sharpen which has always worked before.

 

[Jamie Straw]

Bill I've been working metal for a long time. I Used freshly sharpened drill bits and cutting fluid and it simply smokes and tries to cut but won't do it. I even used very slow speed to try. I managed to get it cut about 1/4" deep and that was after using 2 drill bits, both sharpened twice before I quit. I use a Drill doctor to sharpen which has always worked before.

It has the same disease my shop floor has, evidently. When I built a new wall for the front of the then-garage, I tried to anchor the frame to the floor. Cement drill bits and a rented hammer-drill. Barely made a dent!😕

 

[chrisdaniels]

i've used a PSI Barracude III chuck with the comet, that's the first one I bought and still the one that I use the most often for my small spindle work because I leave pin jaws in it for holding 3/4" spindles. I used the chuck that came with the comet for a while too with the standard 50mm jaws. Now my comet sits upstairs because I just don't have the room for both. I still use all 3 chucks on my dvr xp though. Barracuda with pin jaws, the chuck that came with my comet I leave 50mm jaws on it but I find that I rarely use that anymore because now I use my sn2 chuck with the 100mm jaws for just about everything. I still haven't found which chucking method i'm most comfortable with yet, I like Robo Hippy's method the best but I don't have the right sized forstner bits. I've just recently been switching to using a wormwood screw with my sn2 and 100mm jaws because it still holds well for getting that last little bit off of the foot without tail support at the end.

Chris

P.S. pictures or it didn't happen!

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Jamie,
When you get your Chuck it may have a lot o grease inside.

Nova graciously provides chucks for the youth turning program at the AAW symposium..

We wipe them off with a rag or towel, mount the jaws, put them in the lathe.
The next part is a two person job one holds a ring of paper towel around the Chuck to catch grease being thrown out while a partner turns on the lathe and dials it up to high speed which clears out the grease.

You could just put a small box over the Chuck you could tape in place or hold with one hand.

Al

Al it is easier and less mess to clean the grease off with mineral spirits or kerosene.