Got my money back from Ebay for the above mentioned ragbag lathe. Glad that is over with. Quite literally EVERYTHING I looked at on that lathe had a problem with it. I am firmly convinced that the "manufacturer" had a room full of parts that failed inspection, and they decided to just throw together a bunch of machines using those defective parts, hoping they could get away with it.
Not with my dimes. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect a reasonable amount of quality for my money.
Anyway, I found another lathe, but it is much bigger and much heavier than that Ebay one. More expensive too.
But I've gotten my appetite whetted for a bigger lathe than what I had, and there was no stopping me now.
Bought a work table for it, covered the wood top with galvanized steel sheeting, and surrounded the edges with aluminum angle stock. Supposed to be able to handle 2,000 lbs, so this 500 lb lathe should be a piece of cake for it. Picked the new lathe up from the same UPS freight driver who delivered the first one, and also picked up the return. Then brought it home in Connie's pickup truck. So last week we installed the lathe onto the work table and I have been looking it over with a real jaundiced eye. It is still a Chinese made lathe, but at least it looks like it went through a pretty decent quality control inspection. Yeah, there are couple of things I need to have addressed concerning it, but all in all it seems to be a pretty accurate and solid piece of machinery.
Yesterday Connie and I picked up four (4) small tool chests from Home Depot (curbside service, of course), two of which went under the new lathe work table, and the other two underneath the existing work table in the garage. Turned out looking pretty nice. I had to figure out how to get those tool chests to fit underneath those tables, and yet be able to move them in place without gouging the heck out of my floor. Found these large ball bearing rollers that seem to be ideal for the job. The wheels that came with the tool chests would have made them just way too tall to fit underneath the tables.
Anyway, still haven't USED the lathe, but at least I think I have something worth keeping and will likely do whatever I need concerning using a lathe. Now I just have to fill up those tool chests with some tooling and maybe make some room in my existing cabinets that I have stuffed to the gills. Seems you can never have enough storage space if you are a dyed in the wool tool-a-holic.
