Delta 1460 Wood Lathe
After working on the Craftsman lathe, I decided that I wanted to try something with more power for bowl and spindle turning. We lost out on a Craigslist find of a Delta 1460 lathe, and I went on a two-week search for one. Unable to convince any friends they should go look at vintage wood lathes for me in their respective big cities, I just about gave up-- but then my boyfriend spotted the lathe I wanted across the state, and I had a friend who happened to be in that particular area who could help put a downpayment on my behalf.
We ended up buying this lathe from an 80-year old machinist who happened to have a woodshop that his kids didn't want. Not pictured: all the other things we purchased. We probably bought about 50% of his shop, and hauled out another 20% for our friend who helped us out with getting the guy to not sell the lathe before we could make it out there. Mind you, this was mid-pandemic-- so there was some risk in the whole deal, but it was the one crazy winter adventure we took to prevent ourselves from going stir-crazy. So more or less, this was the purchase that spurred on "Woodshop 2.0."
Not much work had to be done to the lathe, except for do the typical teardown & lube, and upgrade the motor....
I also bought hardened steel tool rests, though honestly that probably wasn't as necessary as I thought it would be.
Something I did notice with this lathe though, was that modern live centers would get stuck in the tail stock. I haven't fixed this yet, but have seen that the typical solution is to disassemble the tail stock and add a screw to help push the center out of the taper to make it self adjusting.
We ended up buying this lathe from an 80-year old machinist who happened to have a woodshop that his kids didn't want. Not pictured: all the other things we purchased. We probably bought about 50% of his shop, and hauled out another 20% for our friend who helped us out with getting the guy to not sell the lathe before we could make it out there. Mind you, this was mid-pandemic-- so there was some risk in the whole deal, but it was the one crazy winter adventure we took to prevent ourselves from going stir-crazy. So more or less, this was the purchase that spurred on "Woodshop 2.0."
Not much work had to be done to the lathe, except for do the typical teardown & lube, and upgrade the motor....
- Baldor 2HP 3 phase motor
- LSLV0022M100-1EOFNA VFD, single phase input, 3 phase output, rated up to 3 HP motors. I also purchased the extension touch pad for it so that I could power on the lathe without being in the way of a large mass coming up to speed.
I also bought hardened steel tool rests, though honestly that probably wasn't as necessary as I thought it would be.
Something I did notice with this lathe though, was that modern live centers would get stuck in the tail stock. I haven't fixed this yet, but have seen that the typical solution is to disassemble the tail stock and add a screw to help push the center out of the taper to make it self adjusting.