Author Topic: Bowl lathe  (Read 3783 times)

Offline JohnHewes

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  • Posts: 37
Re: Bowl lathe
« Reply #15 on: May 07, 2019, 05:30:36 PM »
Just reread my post, I reverse for sanding, not reading! Stupid autocorrect!

Offline Spencer

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  • Posts: 4
Re: Bowl lathe
« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2019, 03:52:43 PM »
If bowl turning is your thing then you can sometimes find a Union Graduate on eBay for about £300. It will probably just be the main body of the lathe and maybe the outboard side. Many seem to be modified to a Disc Sander as they had a large outboard capacity and can go quite slow. I purchased my graduate as the main body, outboard bed and that was about it. I since had a short bed made for the inboard side and it has a nice bowl lathe with a 24" capacity, I hope to upgrade it one day to have a larger variable speed motor but may have to sell it to make room for the many things that come with having a small child. We shall see!

The metalwork that I had done cost about £200, which was ontop of the £200 for the lathe. But I sold my old Axminster AWVSL1000 for £400 so I feel like it was worth it. I had a very heavy bed added as well as a Y shaped base which has wheels which can be jacked up for when I don't need to move it. When I use it I simply lower the feet and the wheels don't make contact with the floor and I have a solid base for turning.

They are decent lathes for modification because they are solid and have some useful flat faces and a large cavity inside for fitting a new motor. As far as I know, there aren't many options for someone who wants a lathe they can refurbish and upgrade over time.


Offline Maca

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  • Posts: 22
Re: Bowl lathe
« Reply #17 on: May 10, 2019, 12:37:16 PM »
Thanks for the advice people.  I'm hoping to get a Viceroy bowl lathe from Paul Hannaby soon.  Going to try and get some photos of my current lathe up on this site and gumtree to make space for the new one.