Good morning all. I received my brand new lathe yesterday.
Little back story...
I got into using a lathe about a dozen years ago when I was given an early 1990's Craftsman 2hp lathe on a metal bed. The 2HP was a huge over-estimate, especially with a motor you can practically fit in your pocket, but I was able to make a few things with it. I used it for pens, and a few smaller things. It used an MT1 taper, and had a weird spindle size, so I found a chuck that came with an adapter, so I started making some other smaller items. I wanted to make bowls and such, but that little lathe didn't seem to have enough power to make anything significant, so I started to save for a new lathe. I didn't have much money, so I was just putting a little bit away at a time.
Well, 8 years ago, the poor old Craftsman gave up the bearing ghost, and I didn't see the point in repairing it, so I took the money I had and purchased the Harbor Freight 12X33 lathe, to use in the interim until I could afford the Laguna 18X36. However, that never really happened as something always came up that needed the money that I had gathered to purchase it. I mean, every time I had just enough to buy it, something came up and snatched it right out of my checking account. The HF lathe always did fine and used the standard MT2 and 1'x8tpi tooling, so I got by with it, even though I always seemed to hit the limitation of that poor old 3/4HP motor.
Knowing I would eventually get a new lathe, when I purchased my home around 5-years ago, I had some dedicated power installed in my shop, one of which is a dedicated 220 for the new, at the time, Laguna lathe.
Well, this year, I was determined to get the new lathe. Bills were always paid, car and motorcycle are paid off, and credit card is low, so after receiving my income tax refund, I went and pulled the trigger.
After seeing a Laguna in person, and finding it had a steel bed instead of cast iron, I decided to ordered the Grizzly G0733 18" x 47" 2HP lathe.
That lathe was on backorder until later this month. I was fine waiting since I could still use my smaller HF 10 x 18 lathe (I had since gave the larger HF to my pastor). But, something kept nagging at me. While the 18" swing was all I ever could see myself using, I liked the idea of having 3HP. I finally decided to go ahead and spend the extra money, since I had it, for the 3HP, G0766 22" x 42" lathe. That was just a quick call to Grizzly to make that change. Nice folks there, by the way.
While working (from home), the lathe showed up yesterday.
My awesome neighbor came out, after I was done with work, and helped me bring it in and put it together. It was crated nicely and took some time to uncrate everything. After getting the legs down to the shop, I took the headstock and tailstock off of the bed, and carried them down and re-assembled it all in the basement. For a 500lb lathe, it was easy to move. I thing it took longer to de-grease the lathe than the actual assembly.
So without further ado, and after an 8-year wait, here she is:
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And, during the time between the old lathe and the new lathe, I went ahead and build a tool rack for the new one. I used to keep a smaller steel shelf with magnetic tool holders next to the HF, but since the new lathe was so much wider, I would not be able to use that small shelving unit, so decided to build this with some wood I had laying around.
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Well, thanks for reading,
Dan
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