New Take On An Old Question - Sherline vs Taig

[Gary NH]

First post. I'm in New Hampshire, a bit of a tool nut, though more woodworking than metal.

I'm planning an extended road trip soon, where I'll be staying in extended-stay hotels. I want to do some small-scale woodturning, making parts for sculptural projects. I'll need a small lathe that I can move in and out of hotels easily, smaller and lighter than the Jet 1015 I used to have. I believe there are four options:

At the low end of the scale -- Proxxon DB250 and Penn State Penpal. Both are small, inexpensive lathes, mostly for pens and small projects. They're OK size-wise, I'm concerned about lack of power and I've heard some grumbling about quality, aluminum threads stripping out, etc.

Then there's the Sherline and Taig. Both are substantially more expensive than the low-cost options, especially the Sherline. Quality is generally better. Motors are more powerful (I believe Taig is 1/4 HP, Sherline 1/2 HP, somebody correct me on that if I'm wrong. Woodturning tool rests are available for both, though there seem to be more accessories for the Sherline.

My interest is primarily woodturning for now, though of course the Sherline and Taig give the option of working aluminum or mild steel, should my interest go that way.

Has anyone used any of these for woodturning? Any comments appreciated, thanks.

 

[goldstar31]

Respectfully-------No! The topuc has been aired -- and AIRED

An 'emgine lathe' HAD to be capable of making patterns for eventual castings to be machined on the lathe itself.
Again, I have mentiomed ornamental turing lathes, which are essentially enmgine lathes but with accessories generally beyond the imagination of the average.
The late Tom D Walshaw as t¨bal Cain wrote a whole treatise on 'Ornamental Tirning' on one of his Myford lathes. One simply collects enough gears to make curvilnera and rectinear chucks- wrap a wet towell around one's head and see what is created.
Provided one has a lathe which closely follows what Maudsley and Hol`apfell envisaged, the sky os the limit and for lesser mortals there are ordinary wood turning rests which used to be part and parcel of machining.
Much has been done on a various materuals including ivory, bone, stone, plastics and exotic hardwoods.
It's as simple or as diffivu;t as you want

Norman

 

[CFLBob]

Gary, I have two Sherline lathes, and have done some pen turning with them. Smallish diameters, all under 1/2", and only wood. That is, a lot of folks turn acrylic pens, but I've stayed with wood. I also used it to turn some wooden tools to help in a project or two. In no universe would anyone consider me a turning artist.

The stock Sherline motor is 90 Watts, so right around 1/8 HP. That might enter into your thoughts. No deep, aggressive cuts, but the lathe is light and easy to move around.

The stock Sherline uses cutting tool holder fixed to the cross slide. You turn the wood by cranking the long axis to move the cutter and it only cuts straight profiles. They also sell a tool rest to use handheld cutters like big wood lathes.

Other than that, I don't have much experience turning wood with it, but think miniatures and small cuts.


Bob

 

[aarggh]

As an owner of a Proxxon DB250 and a Sherline, they are different purpose machines, but I must admit the DB250 is an unusually gutless machine even for a small lathe, not really much of a joy to use for pens I found. The ridiculous on/off cycle renders it almost unusable anyway. To my mind it's cute and sort of functional, but in a serious toy like kinda way. But it is very portable.

The Sherline is a really beautiful and very capable machine in my opinion. The accuracy is great, and to me the build quality is just superb. I don't have a Taig to compare to, but I have heard quite a bit the Sherline possibly seems to be the more favoured of the two. If you ever get a chance to get a Sherline at a good price, I'd recommend jumping on it, I don't think you'd be disappointed.

And then there are the Manson lathes which are probably the most portable lathes around, if you want to do really small stuff that is! ;-)

 

[stanstocker]

As the Taig uses a proprietary spindle taper you may have a hard time finding spur centers off the shelf. The Taig turning rest is suitable for use with small tools, but neither the Sherline or Taig are going to let you grab a 1/2 inch bowl gouge and go nuts. I do own both machines, no "It seems to me" guessing here

Taig has a larger swing out of the box. If you have room for the Taig standard baseboard, you can replace the weak stock motor with a Penn State 1/2 HP variable speed. Pretty sure I needed to bore out the drive pulley to fit, doing so lost the smallest or two smallest pulley options. Still plenty of speed for my needs over the years. I mounted the motor to an aluminum mounting block secured to the base. Using two belleville washers under the bolt head allowed the motor to stay in place to hold tension without needing a more complicated motor tension setup or using the motor weight on a hinge sort of deal.

Taig also sells full circle and standard soft jaws inexpensively. You could machine them to provide a lighter, somewhat lesser featured version of the Oneway or Nova chucks. Get several sets of the soft jaws and you could have a fairly decent assortment of jaw sets for not much money.

Taigs lathe chucks aren't as posh as Sherlines, but they work well and you can buy a three and a four jaw for the price of one Sherline chuck. As you're holding wood the aluminum jaws should hold the work nicely. The aluminum jaw faces on Taig chucks can get a bit worn or slip when turning steel. Easy enough to recut, but a small and persistent frustration that leads me to have a Sherline three jaw chuck on my ER16 headstock lathe as I do very little wood turning.

If short spindle turning is needed, I'd suggest using one of the Taig collets with the closer nut to hold the driving center. You could then make a variety of driving centers from 5/15 or 3/8 drill rod. A bit of file work followed by a propane torch heat to red and quench and you're nicely tooled up. Using one of the spindle tooling adapters is tempting, but it will eat up an inch of room between centers. Neat gadgets to know about for custom stuff you want to spin onto the spindle nose though!

Bonny Klein used to sell a wood turning lathe under her name that was a Taig machine with a few tweaks for making miniature wood turnings. At least one company builds a longbed lathe using Taig components aimed at pool cue turners.

Sherline does have one trump card in all this for woodturning. They sell a long bed version. If the Taig is too small between centers it doesn't matter how good it would be in other ways, that's a deal breaker. UNLESS (Wiley Coyote eye brow wiggle) you were to buy a second Taig bed and carefully align the two beds. You could still get the tailstock up close to the head. The Taig woodturning tool rest is used in place of the carriage, so with good alignment you could just go to town.

OR (for longer bed ideas)

You might have a look at:

https://bb6corp.com/
They have some woodturning specific application stuff using Taig parts.

Whatever you decide, have a look at Jerry Kieffers portable Sherline lathe setup, might give some insight into road time with a lathe.

https://sherline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/shop_proj_002.pdf
Take care,
Stan

 

[Gary NH]

There have ben several responses, and people offered some good information.

aarggh indicated that the Proxxon DB250 is under-powered, and I have to assume the Penn State pen lathe is similar. So the low end options are out, and I'm looking at the Sherline or Taig lathes. Both are quality machines, with good power. There seem to be more accessories for the Sherline, though the Taig accessories appear to be less expensive.

I ordered the Taig last night, based on the more compact size and lower cost vs the Sherline. I'll be moving it in and out of hotels frequently, so size and weight were important.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'll let you know how it works out.

 

[Gary NH]

Lathe Purchase Update:

I quickly decided that the low-cost options weren’t going to work, so it was down to the Sherline or Taig. I got the Taig, with the 3-jaw chuck that is standard, plus the 4-jaw chuck, the woodturning tool rest, and live center. I chose the Taig because it seemed more compact than the Sherline, and substantially less expensive. The Taig package was around $600. A comparable Sherline would have been about $1050, I think.

I’ve been using the lathe for about two weeks. Here are my impressions:

The Good News:

• Overall quality of the Taig, fit and finish, is excellent.
• Power is decent. I did stall it a few times at first, but once I knew what to expect, I’ve been happy with the power. If anything, the ¼ HP rating seems conservative. I would have said more like ½ HP.

The Neutral News:

• The lathe is heavier than I expected, mostly because of the motor, which is larger and heavier than I expected. That said, the unit is still portable, and I expect no trouble moving it in and out of hotels.

The Bad News:

• In my opinion, the 3-jaw and 4-jaw metalworkers chucks are VERY DANGEROUS for woodturning and STRONGLY NOT RECOMMENDED for this use. Those “knuckle bashers” spinning at several hundred RPM could easily take off a finger. Woodturning requires that you get your hands closer to the headstock than metalworking, and this is far too hazardous for me. Fortunately, I have a SuperNova chuck with the right adapter for the Taig, and I find that far safer. For small, round, pieces, I have a collet chuck, just had to get an adapter for it.
• The Taig woodturning tool rest isn’t very good. It’s difficult to adjust. There are 4 adjustments, but only one is a thumbscrew. The other three are set screws, requiring a wrench. I got the Lee Valley woodturning rest for the Taig. At first, I got just the base, hoping that the Taig tool rest would fit. It doesn’t (of course, that would be too easy). Lee Valley no longer has the small tool rest, just the longer one which requires a second base. That seems to work well enough, though I may cut the longer rest, not sure yet. Neither of these rests slides in the Y axis like a full-size lathe, instead this adjustment is a pivoting action. There is a full-sliding tool rest for the Sherline, but it’s expensive (over $200), and I don’t believe it would fit the Taig.
• The live center is just “OK”. It is mounted solidly in the tailstock, doesn’t slide or attach to the plunge lever like the dead center does. Once you set the tension, it works pretty well for wood, but for acrylic, the point doesn’t spin well enough, so it builds up heat and melts the plastic.

Thanks to everyone who responded and offered their input.

 

[SmithDoor]

The Sherline looks complete great for small spaces.
The Taig has more capabilities .

For a small work shop they both good.
The Sherline looks better for small space and has most of tooling need.
The Taig looks has best compassit.

From what see they both great lathes.
The Sherline looks it would great for a apartment.
The Taig looks best for larger work.

Dave

As the Taig uses a proprietary spindle taper you may have a hard time finding spur centers off the shelf. The Taig turning rest is suitable for use with small tools, but neither the Sherline or Taig are going to let you grab a 1/2 inch bowl gouge and go nuts. I do own both machines, no "It seems to me" guessing here

Taig has a larger swing out of the box. If you have room for the Taig standard baseboard, you can replace the weak stock motor with a Penn State 1/2 HP variable speed. Pretty sure I needed to bore out the drive pulley to fit, doing so lost the smallest or two smallest pulley options. Still plenty of speed for my needs over the years. I mounted the motor to an aluminum mounting block secured to the base. Using two belleville washers under the bolt head allowed the motor to stay in place to hold tension without needing a more complicated motor tension setup or using the motor weight on a hinge sort of deal.

Taig also sells full circle and standard soft jaws inexpensively. You could machine them to provide a lighter, somewhat lesser featured version of the Oneway or Nova chucks. Get several sets of the soft jaws and you could have a fairly decent assortment of jaw sets for not much money.

Taigs lathe chucks aren't as posh as Sherlines, but they work well and you can buy a three and a four jaw for the price of one Sherline chuck. As you're holding wood the aluminum jaws should hold the work nicely. The aluminum jaw faces on Taig chucks can get a bit worn or slip when turning steel. Easy enough to recut, but a small and persistent frustration that leads me to have a Sherline three jaw chuck on my ER16 headstock lathe as I do very little wood turning.

If short spindle turning is needed, I'd suggest using one of the Taig collets with the closer nut to hold the driving center. You could then make a variety of driving centers from 5/15 or 3/8 drill rod. A bit of file work followed by a propane torch heat to red and quench and you're nicely tooled up. Using one of the spindle tooling adapters is tempting, but it will eat up an inch of room between centers. Neat gadgets to know about for custom stuff you want to spin onto the spindle nose though!

Bonny Klein used to sell a wood turning lathe under her name that was a Taig machine with a few tweaks for making miniature wood turnings. At least one company builds a longbed lathe using Taig components aimed at pool cue turners.

Sherline does have one trump card in all this for woodturning. They sell a long bed version. If the Taig is too small between centers it doesn't matter how good it would be in other ways, that's a deal breaker. UNLESS (Wiley Coyote eye brow wiggle) you were to buy a second Taig bed and carefully align the two beds. You could still get the tailstock up close to the head. The Taig woodturning tool rest is used in place of the carriage, so with good alignment you could just go to town.

OR (for longer bed ideas)

You might have a look at:

https://bb6corp.com/
They have some woodturning specific application stuff using Taig parts.

Whatever you decide, have a look at Jerry Kieffers portable Sherline lathe setup, might give some insight into road time with a lathe.



https://sherline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/shop_proj_002.pdf
Take care,
Stan

 

[SmithDoor]

FYI.
The motors on most small lathes use a DC motor for best speed control at low speed.
Most DC motor have almost the same torque at low as high speed, but as the speed decrease the horse power drops. So just use larger larger motor for better low speed power.

Note note a few DC motor have better torque at low speed as in hand tools.
What use on machine tools typically have the same torque at all speeds.