My lathe is a cheap grizzly lathe that I got about 10 years ago, and an inexpensive chuck (seems like a vicmarc clone, takes the same style jaws). At the time, I thought I would want something this long, but turns out that I really only want to make bowls and shorter things. I have half a mind to chop this lathe down to save some space, but i decided I'd leave it, in the event that I ever want to make table legs or something, I'll regret cutting it down. It has 10" from the lathe bed to the center of the chuck, so 20" swing.
I hated the speed control on the lathe, and it wouldn't spin any slower than about 600RPM, so I removed the odd adjustable v pulleys and controls, put on a larger 3-phase motor with a VFD, added a reverse switch, and now it's alot of fun to use. it will spin real slow (nice for applying finishes). The usable RPM for turning is probably about 60-1500 RPM with the pulley that I have on there now. Slower than 60 or so and it doesn't have quite as much power, but plenty to apply finishes or get a very gnarly chunk started with light cuts. I like it much better than the 600-4000 rpm than it had before, it was just too fast. Also put it on castors, made them outboard for more stability, and also to not raise the lathe up too high. It's been surprisingly stable on casters. a few folks told me that would probably be a bad idea, but it's fine.
Master power switch and VFD are under the head stock, spindle on-off switch, reverse switch and speed control are under the tail stock. I still haven't wired up the original RPM tachometer, I did temporarily wire it up and verified that it still worked with alligator clips, but I just never got around to making it permanent. Also still want to make a cover for the link belt... I'm sure that will probably never happen.
I'd really love to have a nice lathe, but this one has to sit out in the carport so it's subject to humidity and stuff at night and during the winter, so until I have a place where I can actually store a machine indoors, I'll just stick with this franken-lathe.


