I bought this lathe about 6 months ago and overall I am quite pleased with it. I have more enthusiasm than ability but hopefully time and practice will balance this out.
One frustrating thing about this lathe is it really struggles to cope with boring. I have tried all sorts of cutters, twist drills, forstner, flat, fluted and saw tooth bits and they all make the lathe struggle.
So I set about thinking how I could get over this. I concluded that the only way was to fit a more powerful motor.
Easier said than done! A bigger DC motor would require a new control box and even if I could source one it would be expensive.
I did however have a 1 to 3 phase converter left over from when my metal lathe had a 3 phase motor so I bought an 1100w 3 phase motor, made a couple of v pulleys on my metal lathe and mounted it on the back of the wood lathe. Result, happiness! boring is no longer an issue and the phase converter means I retain the variable speed feature.
That’s quite a modification - which will undoubtedly void any warranty issues you may have at a later date.
I just hope that the rest of the machine is capable of withstanding the additional stress to which you may now subject it, and that everything is properly guarded.
Happy turning.
