For sale on craigslist. Works good.. should I look at it?

Nooooo! I just replaced that lathe. It has a reeves drive as the speed control. The pulleys are not available. I did some research on other pulley options and the closest I could come to was similar ones form Grizzly but the diameters were apparently not the same so the original speed specs were not obtainable. I read where some folks were converting the lathe drives with single pulleys and dc motors from treadmills. 

 

The lowest speed on this lathe was about 450 rpms. The reeves drive is very noisy, also. 

 

I sold mine for $70- without the legs.

I have one exactly like that in my shop that I ordered the 2 pulleys from Ebay one a 4 step and the other a 5 step model and built a metal bracket behind the pulleys for the motor that will slide on a rod to the alinement needed and it works great...No you can't turn a dial and change the speed. But hey I know how to turn it off and change the belt . I talked the guy down to 40 bucks and I showed him why and he was asking 75 to start with...He knew the reeves set up was not available so he was happy to get anything for it. I have three lathes in my shop and it happens to be the best one....

Ok...thx for the info...

With a little ingenuity you can redesign most anything and make it work the way that you want it to.  I bought a cheap Chinese  tool show stand up floor drill press for $110 back in 1996.  I unpacked it and put it together and then spent a week redesigning simple little things that were poorly designed or poorly made.  After two weeks I had a great machine working just as I wanted and every bit as accurate as I needed.  Considering the main stream quality floor presses were running $400 to $600 I would say I came out well.  I used that press regularly up until 2 years ago when the motor died, everything else on it is still in good shape so I am now using it on the end of my lathe.

 

Cheap tools are cheap tools, but if you are willing to go the extra mile and have some ingenuity you can more than make up for the cheap design or components in the unit.

If I could get it cheap enough I would put a freq drive and three phase motor on it.

 

Everyone... Look into Zero-Max gear drives.

 

https://www.zero-max.com/c-power-transmission-products#1

Edited December 25, 20196 yr by Kevin Beitz