Wood Carving Lathe Discount

Reviews

It is a good beginners book. All of the parts, basic tools, and basic operations are explained.

Despite what "the most critical review" asserts (and, consequently, mistates) is that Conover "states that a minimum entry level lathe will cost you over $1,000." Page 29 of the book states that "a new entry-level lathe costs from $500 to $1000." Conover also provides tips on purchasing used-lathes. Also, the same reviewer implies that Conover is pushing Canadian products (which, as an aside, are frequently quite good). However, the cover pictures a Nova lathe, from a New Zealand-based company. Conover also describes Jet, Delta, and many other lathes from non-Canadian companies. The reviewer seems to have a problem with actual facts. My impression, Conover has written a good, easy-to-read book with a good overview of the subject. Although many topics are not covered in great detail, there simply is not enough room in one book for the myriad of topics possible under the broad heading of wood turning.

If you just bought a lathe and are looking for instructions on how to turn a spindle, find another book. One of eight chapters is on technique. Cutting a cove, the most basic technique, gets two pages. Not included in this instruction is where to place the tool rest. In a "complete" guide, I expect some step by step instruction. I own at least a dozen Tauton books, and this is the first real disappointment.

Very nice format for a starter like me! Terms & Techniques I found very helpful.

Ernie Conover is one of the best(if not the best) writer of books on using the Lathe in the United States. I have all of his work and could recommed any or all for the serious wood turner. The only other writers who would come close to Mr. Conover are two gentleman from Australia. My wood turning library exceeds 24 books, Ernie is the best.

Reviews

...especially for the price. I'm with the majority here. I think it's every bit as good as my previous Jet, and even better as it handles 15" material with ease, and with the extension bed (a must-have item, IMO) stretches it out to an unbelievable 38 inches. I checked out the welds on my tool rest, etc., and can find no evidence of breaking or cracking. The belt is snug and very smooth (previous reviewer:did you loosen the belt tension lock knob and snug up the belt?). It's quiet and does an excellent job for me. Price and free shipping! I recommend this W1752 to anyone who need a mini-lathe.

Looked at most of what is on the market , grizzly, jet , psi, and many more , and for the money, $299.99 shipped to my door and arrived on a Saturday too , you cant beat it ... Packaging was great , in-cased in foam ...... Easy to set up , in 5 minutes i was turning .... vary smooth running , and quite ..... I have a large grizzly and wanted a small bench top model and the Shop Fox is just every thing i wanted !!!!!

Let's see, where do I begin???? This lathe is a bottom of the barrel mini lathe for people who can't afford anything else. The tool rest has snappped off the shaft 6 times, the tool rest will not stay in one place while roughing a larger piece. Things seem to constantly be falling off of this thing. It is made with the cheapest steel I could ever imagine. I didn't even know that they made steel this brittle. The belt constantly slips giving this "machine" very little power. It is very unstable and flys off of the table. It's probably good for pen turning, spindle work, and small boxes.....anything else is too much for this to handle in the long run. save your money and buy something of quality.

I'd highly recommend this lathe. Great value, very accurate and smooth, easy set up (was turning a bowl within 25 minutes after it was left at the door),very stable, overall I'd say you can't go wrong

I totally agree with the first reviewer. This lathe is every bit as good as the JET series in it's class at half the price. Turned a pen this evening and it was so nice to do on a smooth running quite lathe. I also purchased a Baracuda chuck but have not used it yet. I'm thinking that this must be SHOP FOX's well kept secret. Better jump on this before they realize what they have here.

Reviews

Really decent quality set. Nice handle length and a great set - especially for a starter.

Some have complained about the wooden chisel storage box. I ordered for the chisels not the box and was surprised that the box arrived intact and is a fine compliment to the chisels. The chisels required a touch up sharpening but all in all this has been a worthwhile purchase.

A fantastic set for those just starting to turn. They hold an edge well and for a pretty long time. Only negative is that the handles are a bit short, but if you have a lathe, it's easy to turn your own longer handles! GREAT value for the price. You get a lot more than you pay for with these.

After reading all these comments, I thought I was gonna get a broken box and some crappy chisels. And i was right :) but it's not THAT BAD. As i said, you get what you pay for. I just got these a couple minutes ago so I haven't gotten the chance to test them out. And I won't be able to until Christmas. But I'm sure they're good, and sharp. On the other hand... when I opened it up I found that my 3/4" chisel (7th one from the left in that picture) was bent, more than just a little, but I'm still a rookie turner so I'm not sure if its suppose to be like that. But i highly doubt it. As for the box, It's oooook, I just have to re-glue the middle divider. And there's some strange red marker (i hope its marker) stuff on the bottom of it. That's all I've got to say about these. Hope i helped :)

Due to my inexperience I broke the 7/8 gouge on the very first day of use. While trying to turn some "yard oak", I was using the gouge on the end of the piece and had a massive kickback that broke the gouge at the handle. I contacted PSI Customer Service, told them what happened, and with in days, they sent me a replacement part. No hassles, just had to send in pictures of the broken part. Now I just need to learn the correct way to use the tools.

Reviews

I bought this lathe because most of the reviews were good, and it looked solid. Today, only after a few hours of use, maybe three or four, the motor refused to start. Flicking the switch a few times sometimes gets it going, but otherwise it's an 88 pound paper weight. While it was working I was unimpressed, the motor bogged down with little effort on any stock that was larger than a few inches in diameter. I've emailed PSI, and I'm waiting for a response to see if they can get it going again. I'll update this review when they get back to me. Edit: We took apart the VS unit today, and the switch was full of sawdust, so we cleaned it and it works again. My recommendation is to locate it somewhere it won't have sawdust falling in it, and maybe so that the switch isn't on the top. I can't really comment on the customer service from PSI because there hasn't been much time for them to resolve the issue, but I did get an email response from the customer service guy. Bumped it up to three stars because we have used it all afternoon, and it's working fine.

I'm very pleased with the lathe.just got it today and set it up as fast as i could get the box open.to my surprise nothing was broken and set-up went smooth,just had one part extra,I'm sure I'll find a use for the extra part later(chrome piece with a screw going through it 3in. long?).a few paint chips but nothing was bent or broken and all my adjustment knobs where alright as the other reviews had said their adjustment knobs where broken.one surprise was they sent a set of goggles, i was not expecting them at all,but a nice surprise.over all i am very pleased with this lathe as it is my first lathe and i hope to use the heck out of it. i bought it with the extension,i haven't put that on yet, maybe day 2 I'll put it on.the lathe has some weight to it,shipping was a 81 lbs.,and yes it did take two people to move it around.shipping was right on,i ordered it Saturday and got the extension first Wednesday and the rest of the order Thursday and the extension was a back order but i got it first? less then a week and i got my lathe,I'm real happy now

I'm not too easy to please - and I'll return anything that isn't exactly right for me (one reason I like dealing with Amazon) This lathe has passed the test as a 'keeper' -- I've had it about a month, turned about 10 different things - mostly smallish diameter (pens, handles, etc) but the power, the speed adjustability, smoothness of operation are all great. I'm just back to order the extension table so I can do even more with it. Quite a good value, I'd say.

I bought this lathe to learn the basics of turning, and to make some small projects. At first it performed fairly admirably considering the price. I turned a bunch of soup stirrers and some small spindles for various projects. The lathe worked smoothly. I had to do a small amount of filing to get the extension bed to fit to the main body, and more filing and sanding to get the tailstock to actually slide onto the extension. So the machining left something to be desired. Still, I felt I was getting a good deal for the price I paid. However, after about 2 years of very occasional light use, I was turning my first larger project. I mounted a 6" diameter 10" long maple log between centers and the lathe shook all over the place. I was able to eventually turn down to a cylinder and things smoothed out a bit. I began to turn a goblet, but as I was applying finish with light to medium pressure (enough to melt the wax but not overload the motor) the motor up and quit. Of course, I am turning this goblet for my wedding which is less than 2 weeks away so the timing isn't so convenient! I would say I put less than 50 hours working time into the motor, so that's a pretty poor performance in my book. I plan to contact the company to see if they will honor their 3 year warranty and I will post an addendum to this review. Overall advice: look elsewhere. You may think you're getting a bargain, but you'll probably end up buying another lathe sooner than you planned.

My lathe arrived with holes in its box, lots of tape holding the box together and the packing styrofoam in lots of pieces, so that I was concerned about it's condition. Fortunately, its sturdy construction survived the shipper's handling (except for one mounting foot that I had to straighten)- I'm looking forward to many hours of turning with this machine.

Reviews

The book was shipped and received promptly. Great service. Book is more than expected and would recommend to any and all that it thinking about or wanting to know more on the subject.

The book is rather idiosyncratically organized. It goes by joint family and then type, but there is overlap and gaps. For instance it doesn't mention Parsons joints and some of the joint descriptions are really lacking, like the locked miter (totally useless description). Overall better than average with very good production values, but not comprehensive and IMHO poorly organized. The index is also less than great and some of the joint descriptions are at best sketchy to useless.

Item shipped and received with in two weeks of order. I would purchase from this vendor in the future

If I was ever going to say one book comes as close to totally covering a subject this would be it. Then again I am an amateur - so maybe I am easily impressed? I just really enjoy difficult interesting projects that generally have little purpose other than my own pleasure. If this book has a fault it is in that it does not define the difficulty on some of the joints but, it is beautifully organized and about all you need other than a lot of patients and the right tools.

I find this book to be a really great illustration on how to cut every joint in woodworking that I know of and some I've never seen. I think the author does a really good job explaining and showing how to cut all these joints. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recomend it to anyone that enjoys woodworking.

Reviews

This book is a great reference for the shop. It covers pretty much everything one would need to start building furniture the right way. If you're wondering what joint to use or an alternative way of mounting shelves in a bookcase, for example, its a great go to guide.

My husband has been a carpenter for over 20 years. He knows alot, but he says theres always alot more to learn. He loves this beautiful set.

Having just taken delivery of this boxed set I can see that my workshop projects will have to wait a while so enjoyable I am finding these books to read! I was initially looking to purchase only the Andy Rae book to help in some cabinet construction work but having not bought any up-to-date woodworking books for a while I decided to buy the set. Having now briefly gone through all three books I am very pleased with my decision to purchase all. The Rae book, my book of choice, is exceptionally good with clear easy-to-understand explanations of all the subject matter accompanied by excellent line drawing illustrations back with good colour photos as required. The content layout is also very well organised and importantly the reader doesn't get bogged down in heavy text passages on techniques and the like. Importantly even just a quick skim through the various sections of the book leaves the reader with grasp of the essence of the content. This is a book which I see myself constantly dipping into and, as the writer states in his introduction, will be kept very close to my workshop! The Rogowski book on joinery is presented in a similar fashion and recieves another thumbs up although I have to confess that as an amateur carpenter I doubt the need to tackle some of the more ambitious work presented. Nevertheless, I am already rethinking of changing some of the techniques I presently use in favour of those presented by Mr Rogowski. The Bird book on shaping wood looks like becoming another very useful reference and ideas book that I shall dip into as new and more ambitious projects come along. All in all I heartily recommend this boxed set to anyone who dabbles in and enjoys woodworking, and wants to learn more from the experts in a easily understandable and practical manner. Definitely 5 stars to Taunton Press for compiling ths set.

I have almost the complete Taunton series of woodworking books and they are a joy to peruse. Filled with good ideas, tips, tools and what-all.

This collection of books, which is priced substantially lower than bookstores by the way, is really a great wealth of knowledge about woodworking in general. I enjoy woodworking, specifically I'm a carpenter so my days have some variety, but there's only so much you can figure out on your own. You'll learn something just flipping through these books. This collection really gives you a direction to go with your craft and they really help you improve.