Response To Light

I have had my Nova 1624 Lathe for a almost 6 months. It is a quality machine. However as easy as it is to do, I hate changing the belt to change speeds and a small vibration has creeped into it that I cannot seem to get rid of. I have replaced the belt, made sure it’s level relative the floor of my garage and have even tried different chucks to no avail. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about a new, more powerful lathe. Something with variable speed, larger capacity, more horsepower, and something that will quench my lust for bigger and better.

I initially thought I had a great deal on a Powermatic 3560b. It turned out to be not true. At the same time I started reexamining the Busybee’s Craftex CT128. Essentially this is a rebranded Laguna Platinum Series 18/47 Lathe. In the past I have used a Laguna 18″ Bandsaw. It’s awesome. Quality really shines through and the accuracy of the cuts was great. When I was thinking about getting a new lathe back in November this was on the short list but the price was bit more and I needed to put in a 220v circuit so the Nova won. Considering it had many of the same features of the Powermatic, the price has since been reduced by $300, and I didn’t mind putting in a new circuit, the Craftex CT128 was back on the board.

I have to say from a customer service point of view, my experience could not have been better. Since I did not have my truck, I needed to take apart the box at the store. The manufacturer really had everything locked down to make sure nothing shifted in transport. Once in the Jeep I headed home with my new purchase. It would have been nice if I could have just brought it home, put it together and started turning. That was not to be the case as I already didn’t have any space in my shop.

In order to make this work, I ended up taking out my first workbench which was a feat by itself. I had lots of stuff stored on, in and under it. I then struggled to move my new workbench where the old one lived. With that done and a little (or maybe a lot) of cleaning, I was finally able to start moving all of the components into the shop. While everything was heavy, I was able to manage things reasonably well. it took about an hour and half to put everything together including cleaning the lathe off.

It’s at this time that you really start to take notice of the build quality of the lathe and honestly I was a little disappointed. Despite tightening the handwheel there is still a lot of play in the tailstock and the handwheel feels cheap. The outside casting of the banjo was rough and I had to play with it for a little bit to make sure that it would adequately tighten. The tool rest was also not to my liking. In it’s current configuration it would be really hard to do to pull cuts. If anything it’s pushing the gouge away.The tool rest on my Nova is actually one of the better tool rests that I have seen. Well, no problem, I’ll just use the tool rest from my Nova. Wait. The hole is too small. In fact none of my extra tool rests fit. I wasn’t too happy about that. In the end I retrofitted my whole tool rest from my Nova onto the Craftex. It’s fairly finicky but so far it is working. If the hole were just a bit bigger that would have been great.

The headstock is another area of concern. On the Nova, there is a simple spindle lock. Pull out knob, turn upwards, and then it automatically lock the spindle. On the Craftex there are four holes on the headstock. Three holes are for indexing and the third is the spindle lock. My main problem is if you use the spindle lock it’s either in or you have to take it out. There is a really good chance to loose it while working. Plus it’s a bit of a pain to get out if you actually use it for indexing. I actually had to grab pliers once to unscrew it. In addition there is no handwheel and it looks like a bit of work to add one. Also after using a 4 prong Spur Center for a large bowl blank, I could not get it out with just the knock out tool. I actually needed a hammer to get it out. Lastly, despite my best efforts, I still have yet to be able to get everything perfectly level so it doesn’t take much speed to get it walking about the shop (On my Nova, it only did this once when I set the belt too high on a large unbalanced bowl blank).

So how does this compare with my Nova? With the exception of the variable speed and a bit more capacity both in swing and distance between centers, the Nova is a better lathe. The fit and finish is top notch through out. Since they are side by side in the shop it becomes obvious the choices each manufacturer took in building their lathes and now that I have something to compare it to, I really think Teknatool made all of the right decisions.

Let me say this….For a $1000 I recognize that there will be some compromises. I think had I not been turning for awhile most of this would have gone over my head. The Craftex does have the things that I wanted - Larger capacity and Variable Speed (The verdict is still out about power. I was able to easily stall it in the high speed range. I have since move the belt to low speed for more torque.). Despite the issues I have expressed, you do get a lot of lathe for the money. However as someone who is really focused on turning, the smaller details have me worried. I really don’t want to buy another lathe and then have to get another one in a year. While the Powermatic is thousands of dollars more, I am seriously considering spending the money to get one.

I know there are lots of people who have this so I would be interested in knowing their thoughts.

Things have a way of coming together.

First, I have over 500 DVDs that essentially are just sitting on a shelve. What I really want to do is copy them to hardrive and get rid of them. Second, one my usb external hardrives died. With the cost of drives being what they are, I got a 1 Gb NAS with 2 Terabytes of Storage. With these two things as catalysts, I decided I would create a Media server for my XBOX360.

After a bit of research, I decided I would use TVersity as my Media manager. It can serve out movies, audio, and Internet Streaming Video to a wide variety interfaces including web pages, my Xbox360, my iTouch, and others. It also seemed to be the easiet to setup and get going. With a bit of configuration, I had managed to start streaming to my Xbox. Even though I was using 100Mb wired connection things seemed “slow”. I decided to upgrade my infrastructure backbone from 100Mb and Wireless G to Gigabit and Wireless N.

For Boxing Day, I found some phenomenal deals on Gigabit Wireless N router/switches and a couple of Wireless N USB adapters. I also managed to find an inexpensive Gigabit NIC for my server. These upgrades improved things dramatically. But there was another problem. The Xbox is downstairs and mostly used by the boys. What I REALLY wanted was to stream media upstairs to the plasma in our bedroom. And wouldn’t it be REALLY nice if we could stream HiDef media?!?

I looked at several devices but the one that seemed to have it all was a PS3. With built in Wireless, Blu-ray, the ability to stream multiple formats and, oh yeah, it plays games. At the time it seemed like a no brainer. There were a couple of hiccups however. First, the version of TVersity and the firmware that the PS3 had did not play well together. Movies stuttered horribly. I could not even consider HD Movies.

The first thing I figured out was that the PS3 liked the m2t format. Some of the movies I was encoding were mkv or Matroska file format which had to be transcoded on the fly. While my server is a true blue dual processing CPU machine, I am also running my Virtual Machines on it. Anything I can do to keep transcoding to a minimum is a bonus. I found a program called mkv2vob which converts mkv files to mpeg. This seems like a pain except to convert the file to m2t or m2ts is change the extension. If the extension was acme.mpg, I would change it to acme.m2t. That’s it! That’s one thing done.

However, as the PS3 is almost as far away as it could from my wireless router, I was always getting low connection rates. I checked to see if there was anyway to get a USB Wireless N Adapter but everything I read was no go. While I know that you can convert some routers into wireless bridges, I had a hard time trying to figure which wireless n routers could do this. In the end I purchased a D-Link Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge / Access Point. I also changed my router setup from allowing both Wireless N/G connections to just N. While there are a couple of devices that can no longer access the network, the primary devices work great and this alone has more than doubled throughput. Stuttering while watching movies was reduced again and I noticed that I could stream movies formated in 720p.

I found the last piece of the puzzle while looking for other solutions to the TVersity/PS3 stuttering problem. It’s a PS3 Media Server Project. You can get more information here. This is a JAVA based client that specializes in streaming content to the PS3. It works great! With this as the final piece, I have been successfully streaming HD movies without issue. Actually I should say that I can stream 720P and below. Streaming 1080P wirelessly does cause stuttering. However, as my plasma can only handle 720P (It’s 3.5 years old) this isn’t that big a deal.

The other format that works well is VOB. Currently I use MactheRipper to copy my DVDs and then on the actual server I use Join VOB Files Tool to create one VOB file. Sometime this week I will endeavor to find an application that can copy a DVD to one VOB file. Also I have not checked to see if the new files can be streamed to the Xbox360. This isn’t a huge deal but it would be nice to be able to stream to both devices.

I spent a lot of time figuring this out. I have downloaded more conversion packages than I care to admit to. If you are reading this, I hope this helps!

Tim

It’s got rough spots but it works…

For the past 5 months I have been looking for a new jointer. When I first started woodworking 4 years ago (has it really been long?), I purchased a Mastercraft 6” Bench Jointer. While it has served me well, it only worked for shorter pieces and it seemed to tear out everything except soft wood. Given that I am now a committed woodworker for life, I decided I really needed to get a “real jointer”. I went to all of the woodworking shops in my area but I couldn’t really find a deal. While I wanted a jointer, I could not justify the $450 – $750 price that everyone was asking. While doing a quick search of Kijiji, I found an old King 6” jointer at a decent price. I quickly went to pick it up, put new blades in it but after two days of trying to adjust the knives, I gave up. No matter what I did, one blade was always higher than the others.

The day before Christmas I decided to purchase a Veritas Bevel Up Jointer with a fence. Strangely enough, they didn’t have any and wouldn’t have new stock until mid January. After this, I gave up.

About a month ago, a flyer came in the mail from KMS Tools (one of my new favorite places to shop for tools). They had an incredible special on their Maxwood 6” Deluxe Jointer for $299. Maxwood is their house brand – although they are doing away with this line. This jointer normally sells for $549 which is a pretty good price but the $299 is incredible. While I am aware of the “dangers” of buying off brand equipment, I decided this was too good a deal to pass up. I drove the hour up to Red Deer and purchased it.

When I got home, I immediately went about putting it together. First let me say that the instructions are terrible. I actually went online to find instructions for several other manufacturers in effort to figure out how to put everything together. I was able to figure out most of it but by no means was it easy.

In the end, there were two issues. 1) The belt was too tight. Every time I tried to joint a piece of wood, it would trip the circuit breaker. 2) The fence was skewed.

I know I could have adjusted the motor to fix the belt issue and have been done with it. However I really didn’t want to start fussing with and everything else that needed adjustments. In the end, I bought a couple of feet of linked belt and used it instead. Using the correct length, I immediately fixed the tension in the belt.

It is hard to explain how the fence was skewed except to say that two holes were not in alignment and this caused the fence to not be straight. To fix this I used one of the holes and just had to tighten the screw against the fence assembly itself. This is clearly not ideal but it worked. There is still a bit of a skew but only about a 1/2 inch. This is acceptable.

Once this was fixed, I spent more time getting everything aligned. Getting the fence perfectly square was an exercise in patience. It seemed that every time I tightened up the fence adjustments, it would come out of square ever so slightly. It took me about 45 minutes before I finally nailed it. With everything working and aligned I could finally use it.

You might think that with all of these issues I might be unhappy. You would be wrong. With everything adjusted, this jointer works great! Taking light passes and a slow feed, I can now get reference edges in all of my rough lumber. I checked both tables and the fence for flatness and everything checked out. I knew going in that this might take a bit of work and there was a certain amount of risk but for the price the results have been worth it. The 1 hp motor seems powerful enough to handle what I have thrown at it so far. I only take light passes so this should be fine. The surfaces are smooth and square. Tear out is minimal even in difficult grain. Recently I have been recycling wood pallets. The extra long bed has been very helpful here. With the exception of the fence all other adjustments are good. That said, I do wish adjusting the fence were easier. One other note: I do like having the power switch high.

I am giving it three stars assuming I had to pay full price. In comparison to some of the other jointers I have used in the past, the fit and finish is not quite the same as some of the General’s or Delta’s I have used. That said the jointer is working quite well doing what it’s suppose to. At the discounted price, I would it give four stars. You get a lot of jointer for the money.

Hope this helps!

Tim

PS – I would be interested to know if anyone else has this jointer or even what jointer this is based on.

Over two years ago I decided to upgrade from my Ryobi 10″ Bandsaw. I wanted to create my own veneer and I there was no way I was going to be able to do that on my Ryobi. Thankfully there was a Woodworking Show going on and Black Forest Wood was having a phenomenal sale on tools. I picked up a King 14″ 1HP bandsaw with a 6″ riser, a resaw fence and some Viking blades. It took about a week but I eventually put everything together and started to put it to use. I can’t say that the first year was a success. I ruined lots of expensive wood trying to create veneers. A year later at the Calgary Woodworking Show, I asked Mike (who I buy most of my Viking Bandsaw blades from) what the problem was. He said I should tighten the tension on the blade. It seems simplistic but that largely did the trick.

So what else have I done?

I changed the default belt out to a linked one.

I have added a Cobra Coil Tensioning Spring

I have already mention that I added a riser so I resaw

I also added resaw fence.

Lastly, I added a Blade Quick Release. House of Tools was selling them for $40 on clearance. As they normally sell for $100-$150, it seemed like a good deal.

Here’s something I put together for Lynne’s 40th Birthday.

Enjoy

2009!
First, I hope that everyone had a great Holiday Season! There’s been so much that has been going on. First if you want to see some of the stuff I have been working on go to Lumberjocks to see some of my work regarding my woodworking. The last six months has been focused on woodturning but I think I’m getting back to making boxes and furniture. The great thing about woodworking is if you start to get bored there’s always something else to learn or do.

Upgrades

Over Christmas I decided to upgrade my networking infrastructure. Previously I had a wired 100 Mb backbone with 802.11g wireless capability. Most of the computers in the house use the wireless to access the Internet or the file server and I was starting to move large files around. Gigabit is now the norm and 802.11n is becoming the norm.

While I went out on Boxing Day to get a 1st Gen Apple iTouch, I also saw some phenomenal deals on networking gear. With an idea toward setting up a Media Server I got a Wireless N router with Gigabit switching capaabilities. I also upgraded my primary server with a Gigabit NIC. I already had a Gigabit NAS so I was in business!

The Xbox which is connect via a wired 100Mb connection works flawlessly as long as the movie uses the correct codec. The PS3 which only has wireless capability stutters except when it uses a very specific codec. Hopefully Sony will release an update to fix the stuttering (it worked previously before a firmware upgrade). I also need something that with recode my DVDs fasters. Right now it takes forever and requires a lot of manual adjustments. We are close however!

Media Server
As I mentioned, I’ve been working on building a Media Server for my PS3 and xbox360. I am currently using TVERSITY which works reasonably well. Right now I have about 500 DVDs and I would like to recode them and sell them off. Wouldn’t be awesome if you could just say I want to watch 300, go to your library and press play? Not that putting in a DVD is hard but it is a pain to go downstairs and pick one out. I think I have the right infrastructure in place. I just need to find the right combination to get everything in sync.

Dan and Marlene Get Married

Dan invite Lynne and me to a New Year’s Eve party. At this party he mention he had proposed to Marlene and she accepted! Lynne immediately said they should get married in Vegas. Turns out they were going to Vegas the next weekend and we were all off to the races Here’s a quick pick of us just before the ceremony

Lynne and Tim in Vegas 2009

I will post some pictures of the trip in Gallery soon.

Well that’s it for now. Sorry this is so disjointed. (Note to self: Stay away from Rum and Coke when at the computer.)

Nova 1624

About a month ago, I decided I wanted another lathe. I was getting frustrated with my King Mini Lathe in regards to vibration and having to constantly switch the belt to change speeds. I had about $1000-$1200 which put me in the category of mid level lathe. It came down to a Craftex CT128 which is a copy of the Laguna 18/47 and the Nova 1624-44. The Craftex is bigger, has a bit more horse power, includes variable speed and an incredibly sturdy stand. The biggest negatives were that it was 220v and I would have had to wire the garage in order to use it. I also could not find any reviews. My success rate with rebranded equipement such as King has not been the best. The Nova is a bit smaller and does not have variable speed (which was high on my wish list) but it was also cheaper buy a couple hundred and only required 110v which meant I could use it right away. I also could not find a ‘bad’ review of the device. In the end I decided to get the Nova with a new chuck and some chuck accessories and they had sale which included the heavy duty stand free.

What are some of the qualities that make a lathe better than another?

Power - you don’t want it stalling and you need enough power for large blanks.

I can’t really speak to this in any major way. I don’t do large turnings (yet) so it’s hard to judge. Relative to some of the other lathes I have used (General Midi-Lathe, a large Oneway, and large Vicmarc), the Nova seems plenty strong enough for the things I want to do.

2) Capacity — You want to have the flexibility to do large turnings when you want to.

While the stock configuration is just shy of 16″, you can turn it outboard for turnings up to 29″. You can get an outrigger for your banjo but in reading several individual reviews, it seems that most people don’t use it. Lengthwise you can turn spindles that are 24″ but this can be expanded to 44″. In my shop (a two car garage), the size is large enough to be stable but not so big that it takes up a large amount of space. This size should suit me for quite a while.

3) Stability — This really adds to your ability to do fine and detailed work.

Again I haven’t done any large turnings so out of the box it’s quite stable for what I’m doing. The heavy duty stand should only help with this aspect. My midi lathe vibrates like crazy which is noticeable when doing small precise turnings.

4) Speed Changes — The easier it is to make changes the more you will take advantage of different speeds.

This is the reason it’s loses a star. While changes speeds only takes a minute and is incredibly easy to do, it’s not as easy as turning a dial to increase or decrease the speed. To change speeds you simply unscrew the the head guard, unscrew the tee bar , lift the tee bar to lift the motor, move the belt, push the tee bar down, lock the motor, and screw the head guard back on. For a manual speed change I can’t think of a way to make it easier. It also has a belt position window to see what speed you are turning at. On my midi lathe it on the head stock cap and I find myself constantly looking for this piece to figure out the correct position. This is not a problem with the Nova. Because it is relatively easy to do, if I need to change speeds I do it when it requires it. On my midi-lathe, it’s very much a hassle and I only do it if I absolutely do it.

5) Speed Range — Less of an issue with Variable Speed lathes but definitely something to think about.

The better I get the more I take advantage of different speeds. The individual speeds are 214, 360, 690, 1030, 1450, 2180, 2900, 3630. The lathe is slow enough for large turnings but can get up to high speeds quickly. I don’t normally turn anything faster than 2180. I think if you look at recommended speeds for different projects there is an individual speed that is close enough that the lathe will work for you. My midi lathe starts at 600 which is quite high to begin with.

6) Feature Set - Can the motor reverse? Does it swivel or let you move the headstock to the end for larger capacity? Ease of toolrest? Anything else?

One of the big things I was looking for was a motor that can reverse to make your sanding results better. If the motor only goes in one direction you will be spending a lot more time sanding with the grain while the lathe is stopped. The reverse feature doesn’t necessarily stop you from doing this but it does lessen the amount of time you have to do this.

Swiveling the headstock works great and I have not had many problems aligning the headstock and tailstock when this was done.

Installation was fairly easy and took about an hour and half from the time I started ripping the box open to the time was testing it. This bad boy is heavy! I had one of my sons and his friend help me lift it onto my workbench. There were a few moments with some of the headstock components buts it was fairly easy to figure out.

The toolrest is solid and locks into place with little effort. Since I do lots of small turnings I found the original toolrest to be a bit big. I bought a 6″ one from Lee Valley which compliments the large one. The tail stock is a bit tight and could probably use a slight adjustment to loosen it so that it travels a little easier but that’s on me (I’d rather be turning). I had to bore a long hole from both sides of the blank for a peppermill. This operation went off without a hitch. I believe the tail stock has 4″ of travel which is plenty.

It is also fairly quiet. Not as quiet as the Oneway or the Vicmarc that I have used but with the air filtration unit and my radio going it’s not a factor at all.

7) Overall Quality

The build quality for this machine is quite good. Everything is solid and looks & feels great. Again it’s not quite the same as a Vicmarc but I’m not complaining.

Cost

If you look at the lathe review that Fine Woodworking did May/June 2007 issue this was the least expensive lathe in the group and it still held it’s own. The other machines were hundreds or thousands of dollars more without hundreds of dollars more value. Without accessories, I spent under a $1000 CAN so I can’t honestly complain. I think at this price point the Nova 1624 is a tremendous value relative to what you get and the built in capabilities.

Summary

I do my best not to fool myself into thinking something is a great deal if it is not. I have purchased things in the past that seemed like a good deal only to find out in actual use that the item was less than desirable. I can not say this about the Nova. So far it has been exactly as it’s been advertised. A solid lathe with lots of great features at an excellent price point.

Hackintosh 1

Recently I installed the Mac OS onto a generic PC. While there were a few struggles (and I talk about them in my podcast), it really is a great OS. Everyday I seem to learn something new. I actually started out with a Mac Plus and then came back to it when Apple came out with clones. And here I am again!

Enjoy!

To see the rest of the pictures go here.

image #1