Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

More Wood Lathes for Sale

I recently came across a new site that is listing a bunch of new wood lathes for sale. I strongly suggest you check them out, they have a lot of good deals, and provide a lot of information on the lathes they're listing. A lot of sites are simply people making a big list of products and expecting you to dig through them to find the information you need, but this site lays it all out for you.

They list the bestselling wood lathes for sale, which is very helpful since in general they sell well because they are very good tools and nice deals. I recommend taking a look at that post if you're interested in a wood lathe, you'll probably find something you like, and if not there is a more complete listing available.

Wood turning has always been a great hobby of mine, but it can be difficult finding tools, and equipment. For whatever reason it seems like there are not a lot of places to shop online and the selection is not always great. However if you're careful and with a little effort there are some really good prices out there. A lot of the wood lathes for sale are offered at pretty significant discounts online compared to retail stores.

It's definitely very important to have the right tools for the job when it comes to woodworking, and wood turning is especially demanding on your equipment. Buying the right stuff will go a log way towards making sure you produce quality work, whatever your reasons are.

The most important choice you have to make is which wood lathe to buy. What size you need, what features are most important, how much do you want to spend. These are all questions that you should be asking yourself before you get started. Everyones requirements are a little bit different and it's important to know what yours are before you make a large purchase.

Make sure to read all the reviews you can find, and if at all possible try and test out a lathe before you hand over your money.

Good luck!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Wood Lathes for Sale

I've been looking to buy a wood lathe for a month or so but I'm having a tough time deciding on what model to choose, and more importantly where to buy one. I've been looking online mostly comparing reviews and retailers.

Amazon.com seems to have a lot of good lathes available and the prices are very good compared to most of the stores around here. There is the issue of shipping costs, which i figure will be a lot for a lathe since they can weigh a lot, but that's a consideration for the future.

The websites for individual companies like Jet, PSI, Grizzly etc. are ok, but obviously kind of biased, and it's pretty tough to find good in depth reviews. This page lists a bunch of wood lathes for sale and I thought it was very good, they have a lot of popular models and some pretty good reviews, but I still haven't decided what I should do.

I'm probably going to end up buying a mini lathe since I'm mostly interested in small projects like pen turning and maybe some bowls, and also my shop doesn't have a lot of room for a big lathe. The extra flexibility of a larger tool would be nice but I really don't think I can justify the cost right now.

The thing I hate most about shopping for tools is going into stores, the people that serve are all inevitably sleezes that just want to hawk an expensive product on you to get a big commission or else teenagers that don't know anything and don't care about helping you. That's why I'm mostly looking online, because at least you can always look at the specs of the lathe and what other reviews are saying.

So far the top contender is the Jet 1014i, it seems like a good compromise between quality and price. It's not too expensive, but not so cheap that I would worry about it coming broken right out of the box, and all the reviews are very good. I'm also looking at a cheaper PSI model, and thinking of it more as a starter lathe that I would have to upgrade in a year or two. Lots of tough decisions.

The only thing I don't like about shopping online is that you can't get a good feel for the lathe, how it handles, whether the workmanship looks good etc. I'm thinking about going to stores to try them out and then making my final purchase online, but that just seems wrong for some reason. Oh well!