Well……bummer. I thought I had rectified my no lathe issue. I found a Jet 1014 Mini Lathe on Craig’s list, new in the box for a pretty decent price. I didn’t have anything more important so I decided to overlook my Craig List curse and go for it. All day long I kept thinking, “man, this is to good to be true”. At 66 years old you’d think I’d have learned to follow that feeling.
So the guy says meet me at Stewarts. That doesn’t sound unreasonable for a craigs list deal. This Stewarts is an hour drive for me.
I get to Stewarts and no lathe guy. I’m at Cumberland Farms he says.
So it’s just up the road a mile or so, but I have no idea where I am so I get lost AGAIN. (GPS had the wrong address for Cumberland Farms)
Finally get to Cumberland Farms and find the guy.
Yep, sure looks like this box has never been open. It’s still got the strapping around it. The guy seems like a nice older gentleman, my age or close. Old enough I guess to confuse Stewards and Cumberland Farms, and I checked the text, it was him and not me!
I bought it but never set it up is the story.
I still got this little fella sitting on my shoulder saying “Don, you know this isn’t right”
The hour drive turns into 3 hours with traffic.
I get home and can’t wait to plug it in.
Set it on the bench and plug it in. Power it up and a nice purring sound. I let out a sigh of relief. I smile at the little guy on my shoulder, but he seems unphased.
Putz around a bit, find a knob blank I had all ready and set it up.
Power on, everything is good for about 8 seconds. Then everything gets real slow.
Now that little fella on my should is laughing at me. I hate when he says “I told you so”
Call the guy, he apologizes profusely and swears her never even opened the box.
Did he. I believe him. The little guy on my shoulder; Not so much.
I called Jet and they said it might just be the capacitor. It’s going to cost me $55 more to find out. If it work I still got a decent lathe at a reasonable price.
If not ugghhh. Motor is discontinued and over $300 if it wasn’t.
Not knowing it at the time I ordered the capacitor but Penn State is under $200 has this upgrade. it gives you variable speed and bump up the HP to 3/4 at the same time. I thought hard about just ordering it, but decided to wait.
The capictor fixed the issue and I am once again a happy lathe owner. This is a good little unit. It’s not the Walker Turner I was used to, but for now it will do what I need it to do.
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