Mini Wood Lathe
Mini Wood Lathes For Fun & Profit
Mini Wood lathes are smaller, less expensive, lathes designed for crafters whose space is limited and/or who want to work on smaller items. Pens, for example, or crochet hooks. Many people find this fun and entertaining, and some (Fewer) are able to make it profitable.
Ebay is a good place to start your Mini Lathe education. You will find about 30 lathe auctions and by reading the descriptions you will get a good idea of features, functions and cost. When you are comfortable with what you want/need you will want to visit local stores. The lathes are heavy so there is some tradeoff between and Ebay price plus shipping and a local retail price for a lathe you can pick up yourself. With economic tilmes like they are I think you may be able to find a local sale price that would be very good.
Features to consider:
- Is the lathe rotation speed continuously adjustable, or in there a set of rpm selections? How hard are the belts to change Continuous would seem better, especially if the other requires drive belt changes..
- How powerful is the motor. More power is good if you have the space for larger heavier equipment.
- What is the longest piece you can turn?
- Designed especially for pen turning?
- Will you need a vacuum system to control dust?
- These things are heavy with lots of cast iron parts. That makes shipping expensive and a solid table to mount it on important.
Keep in mind you will need a stand and a variety of tools. There are also different kinds of chucks and other parts you will need/want.
- Drill Chuck
- Pen turning chuck
It would also be worth doing a google search for "mini wood lathe". I would do the search with the quotes because this will keep the results more focused. I found a lot of good information and advice that way. In fact I learned about "Gourd Carving" which is a creaft I had never heard of. It turns out that hard shelled gourds make good craft items and the same woodworking tools (Router, lathe, drills) are useful there too. Gourd bird houses looked very interesting.
This looks interesting and I will be doing more research into equipment, prices and, most importantly, if there is any money to be made with this tool. Hobbies are nice, but if you can show a profit motive and sell enough to actually make a profit (even if small) you have what is required to claim a business on your tax return. That may make your hobby significantly less expensive. Check Craft Business Ideas for more craft business thoughts. In the meantime, to jump start your research, I have set this page to link to currently active Ebay auctions for Mini Wood Lathes. If you click on one of the links below you will go directly to that auction. Enjoy.
