We have had a pretty hectic week this week. I have to admit that I started it off badly, by playing hooky from church on Sunday. I wanted to go to the "Woodworking Show" which is held at least once per month somewhere in the U.S., but only in Dallas once per year in December. I haven't been to it in a few years. This year, I wanted to see if anybody had anything fantastic in a midi-lathe. You see, several years ago I bought a Jet woodworking lathe at the Woodworking Show, which Jet is about the top of the line hobbyist lathe. It cost about $500, but the really big, professional lathes cost several thousand$. It worked great and I liked it, but it was a full-size lathe and took up one entire end of my shop. I couldn't easily work around it, so I finally sold it to a friend in the 6th ward, a nice man who lived in Albuquerque in the same stake as the McGees before he moved here.
But I still want a lathe to do those projects which just aren't easily done with anything else. One trend of the last few years is that turned wood pens have become popular, and bring big prices at all kinds of swap meets, office business dealings, etc. I'm not especially interested in turning pens, but the market for lathes to suit the pen-makers has resulted in most of the tool makers introducing a mini-lathe and/or a slightly larger midi-lathe. They are benchtop machines, so they don't have to take up so much floor space, but they are also very smooth operating because they are designed to turn tiny pieces. And if you really want to do a piece longer than their 14-18" bed, they all have optional bolt-on bed extenders.
So, back to the woodworking show: The last time I went, it was a big exhibition with hundreds of companies tools, so I was amazed to see that there were only about 20 booths set up this year and not a single one had a lathe on exhibit. Of course I found a couple of other things I couldn't live without, but I basically returned home without accomplishing my goal. The only thing left to do was watch the Cowboys come back to beat Detroit before packing our suitcases to go see Ruthie perform in the semester recital.
So I will wait until the coffers have recovered slightly from Christmas and I have a new job lined up, and then I'll order a midi-lathe via the internet.
2 comments:
Umm.....did you say something about a new job? Maybe the next entry in the blog should be a few words about that?
Maybe you should call this post "Blogger Sluffer" since you didn't post about Sunday until the following Friday! - Just teasing. We'll take it when we can get it.
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