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After having this for a couple of years now I can still say this is absolutely a great purchase. I spent alot of time checking out which lathe I wanted to buy in this size. Most of my woodworking stationary tools are Delta but I didn't feel that they made a comparable unit in this category. Speed changes are effortless; heavy construction virtually eliminates vibration (even when I decide to turn large out of balance blocks). Easy set up, easy to use and high quality add up to a best buy.
It let me complete the entire process, then rejected me at the very end without any explanation. Mounted to the right of the mechanism (i.e. of the belts driving the spindle), the end of the motor extends into the area of the swing (actually, beyond the end of the spindle)., such that some blanks and turnings are blocked. Don't even bother to use their web site to order parts. But if you are mostly interested in bowl turning, I'd recommend a bigger lathe, and preferably one designed for face-plate work, if possible (Jet's JWL1642 would be much better, with its continuously variable speed control, a better placed motor, and more capacity, if you don't need to turn VERY big). total) should be plenty for anyone planning to just turn spindles (or SMALL bowls). Instead of being cast entirely in iron, these banjos have a steel end plate, secured with 4 cap screws. And this machine is not really heavy enough to turn large off-balance blanks without being bolted to the floor - not a biggie since I did that, and a common enough issue with many lathes.
Recently one of the locking levers on the banjo wore out. Again, I tried to order this part on line, getting a message that they weren't able to complete my order, but would attempt to fill it manually (apparently their work-around for a disfunctional web site). NOW, I'm WILD about bowls. I have to use a spindle extender to clear the motor, a work-around not needed on most other lathes.
I do use it hard, to rough bowls from roughly-rounded log sections, and have broken that casting once so far in the process.Also I should add that though I've gotten the spare parts I've needed, and so far quickly enough, ordering them has been problematic. There is also a problem with the banjo design. The worst feature, from a design perspective, must be the position of the motor. Well, the aluminum part wears against the steel in use, and NOT so eventually, fails. Although it does have some very good features, it also has some serious drawbacks which potential buyers should be aware of. The inner part is steel and the outer part is aluminum, fitting together by splines on each part. The problem is that the screws create a weak point, such that under heavy use, such as roughing bowls from large, oddly-shaped blanks, the screws break the cast iron.
Several months later : no change. The rotating head should be (I haven't actually used it that way yet) a great plus for turning larger-than-swing size objects off the side or end of the bed, though the outboard tool rest (which cantilevers off the banjo) is much too flimsy to be useful. I've owned and used a Jet JWL1442 for about 2 1/2 years. I actually received the parts (I bought 2, at less than $7 each) about a week later, but they charged me almost $20 to ship these 2 very small parts, in a small padded envelope, which weighed less that one pound altogether. I think that charge was a bit excessive.On the plus side, those big legs ARE pretty heavy, and their weight combined with the rest (this is the only machine tool I own which I needed a hoist to assemble, at ~380 lbs. I will have to build a separate tool stand.
Contact them by phone if you want to save some aggrevation.Other minor issues are that the 1 HP motor is not powerful enough, tending to stall frequently when turning large items aggressively (or even less aggressively). It's not a bad lathe, and will serve me until I can afford an ideal, big VicMarc or OneWay bowl machine. This is especially evident when reverse mounting a large partly turned bowl, where the chuck is expanded into the interior of the rough turning. When I bought it, I had planned to mostly turn spindles for furniture. When I phoned in my order, their service rep acknowledged that it fails to work at least half the time. The stepped speed control is convenient compared with belts, but the lowest speed, 450 rpm, is not as slow as I'd like for some bowl turning.
The (potential) ability to turn outboard really saves this machine for me, as a bowl turner, though I could certainly wish for an outboard tool rest that actually works.Mostly, it boils down to the fact that this is really a spindle lathe, and NOT really a bowl lathe, though it tries. All that said, for the price I paid (
The Jet 1442 wood lathe has everything you need for turning as a novice or professional turner. It is very stable allowing for some off center turning. The variable speed adjustment is easy to use and increases the efficiency of the project.
I want this review to be helpful to all who may read it so I have divided my comments into four sections, 1) My motivation for purchasing the Jet 1442, 2) My experience with the packing and shipping of this heavy machine, 3) My thoughts on the assembly of the Jet 1442, and 4) My experience using the Jet 1442.___________________________________________________My Motivation for Purchasing the Jet 1442I have been looking for a heavy duty lathe for quite a while. I then added the adjustable feet to the legs and teeter-walked them into position beneath the lathe bed. The stiffeners were about 3/4 inch thick. The legs are balanced enough to stand on their own so I left them standing on the side of the shop.
To accomplish this I needed to make the blank so it was easily separable lengthwise into halves. The Jet 1442 met all of the specifications I was looking for. The lathe bed was bolted to the moisture proof bed. They were so sturdy I decided to keep them and use them as protective pads for the top of my work bench.The two legs were shipped in a separate heavy card board carton. It has a 1 hp motor, a sliding and rotating headstock, a sturdy tail stock, a continuous cast iron bed and a pair of heavy cast iron legs.
In this comparison a total of 18 lathes were tested and American Woodworker awarded the 1442 the Editors choice award for lathes in the $800 to $1,350 price range. The Jet 1442 comes pre-wired for 110 volts but it can be re-wired for 220 volt operation. I then attached the very heavy headstock, the tool rest and the tailstock, plugged it in and verified it worked. I placed scraps of wood under the legs to raise them up by about 2 1/2 inches until they mated with the lathe bed. I also wanted a lathe whose headstock could slide the length of the bed and could rotate through 180 degrees for turning bowls off the edge of the bed so I did not consider any lathes with fixed headstocks.Other criterion that was important to me was a machine with a large distance between centers so I could turn long spindles. In this case, this was my good deal.___________________________________________________My Experience with Packing and ShippingThe packing for this heavy machine was excellent. The answer is a definite yes. Because the lathe reached my door step in perfect condition, and since this was the best delivery service I had ever experienced with heavy tools of this type, I gave the driver a big tip, and it was worth it.
In all my pre buy research, I did not come across a single negative associated with this lathe, so I took the leap and purchased it. The pallet was surrounded by heavy gauge cardboard. It was 35 inches long, and 6 1/4 inches on a side, which is a pretty hefty hunk of wood.I didn't want the blank flying apart when I started turning so for safety's sake I drilled 4 holes, 2 on each end in the flat part of the pommels and inserted 4, six inch lag bolts to add strength across the brown paper boundary and help hold the two section blank together. I had no problem at all with this heavy piece coming loose. I had hoped that the center pins of the two centers would line up perfectly but they did not.
The headstock, tailstock, tool rest, and bed weigh in at 200 pounds and the legs add another 160 pounds for a total machine weight of 360 pounds, so it can absorb a great deal of vibration. Every so often a good deal comes our way. The finished column was close to being perfect. When glue up was complete the blank weighed 38 pounds.
During the turning of this heavy blank, there was absolutely no vibration in this very massive lathe. What makes it difficult is the extreme weight of the lathe. Since I did not have to add any extra sand bag ballast to keep the lathe steady, this really made my day, and validated my decision to purchase this heavy machine over one of the lighter models. As an added bonus, the price I paid through Amazon was $209 cheaper than what I would have paid had I purchased the showroom machine. The brown paper created a "weak" joint that could be easily split with a blade and mallet after the turning was complete. I think I will seek out more experienced opinions before I do anything.___________________________________________________My Experience Using the Jet 1442My first use of this lathe was to turn a 5 1/2 inch diameter, 35 inch long fluted column with 6 1/4 inch pommels at both ends out of a glued up poplar blank. This gave me a greater sense of security knowing that I would not be locked into a 42 inch bed should I ever need to turn longer spindles.
I spent two days turning the column and two additional days of sanding it smooth. The entire lathe assembly was wrapped in a very thick plastic cover and packed in one carton. I was also looking for a lathe with a motor that had enough power so it would not bog down when cutting at the lower speeds. My interest was tweaked further when Amazon.com began offering the 1442 on sale, with free shipping, coupled with a $25.00 off promotion. In my case, I just couldn't wait for another person so I did all the assembly myself. 2.The lathe has a variable speed control that can be adjusted when the lathe is turning.
I have included photos of the packaging in the "User Supplied Pictures" section below Amazon's picture of the lathe___________________________________________________My Thoughts on the Assembly of the Jet 1442This lathe is a very heavy piece of machinery. I was concerned about turning such a heavy and long piece using just the head stock and tail stock centers. The two were misaligned by about a 1/16th inch. I was looking for a lathe that was powerful enough to swing large diameter spindle and bowl blanks. It can swing a 14 inch blank over the bed and a 10 inch blank over the tool rest.
The carton consisted of a well built wooden pallet with a hardwood moisture proofed bed on top. The tool rest, headstock and tailstock came attached to the lathe bed. There are a couple of tricks I used to get around the weight issue.First I opened the carton that contained the legs. I milled down 4 pieces of poplar stock so that all were of identical size. I'm not sure how to adjust this and right now I'm not even sure if an adjustment is called for. I added the flutes to the column using a home built jig consisting of a cradle to hold the round column, with a router table and guide on top.
The carton was marked as being 215 pounds gross weight. I removed the 4 lag bolts and split the column lengthwise into two identical halves by forcing a thin blade in the brown paper intersection of the two column halves. The floor jack made this leveling operation fast and easy.I used mineral spirits to clean all the machined cast iron areas of the bed, head stock, tail stock and tool rest, and then I applied a light coat of Johnson and Johnson paste floor wax to keep these areas from rusting. It has a variable speed motor that can be adjusted in 8 steps through a range of 450 to 3000 RPM.
If you buy this big boy I strongly suggest you have the help of one other person to assemble it. I finally made the decision to buy this bad boy after I checked my back issues of American Woodworker and found a product comparison article for lathes in the January 2003 edition (pages 88-97). I wanted an economical machine that either ran from, or could be wired for 220 volts which would reduce the load current by half and keep my electrical meter spinning at a much slower rate.My search eventually led me to the Jet 1442. I didn't want a lathe that required 2 or 3 hundred pounds of sand bag ballast added to the lower shelf just to make it stable.
I simply rotated the column in its cradle until the flute line lined up with the center line of the router guide and then made the cut, and then repeated the procedure until all flutes were cut. This article featured several of the 1442 attributes, which proved to be very informative and helped me to better understand the quality of the machine. So it gives me room for growth. I then removed the cardboard sides from the lathe carton, which gave me room to remove the tail stock, the tool rest and the head stock from the lathe bed. After I purchased the lathe the price through Amazon was raised by $157.51 so by placing my order when I did I actually saved $366.51. It was a great deal more massive machine than pictures on the internet would suggest.
I contemplated using a faceplate for greater strength but rejected that idea when I couldn't guarantee that I could get it exactly centered on the end of the blank. I lifted the lathe bed up onto the roll around and used it to roll the bed to the area of the shop where the lathe was to be located. The assembly itself is very simple. I was looking for a lathe with variable speed motor so I could rough out large diameter, rough cut, unbalanced blanks at low speeds and still turn smaller diameter blanks at higher speeds. When turning pommels or coved ends on a column it is imperative that the blank be mounted dead center, other wise the square parts of the pommel and the round part of the column will be off center with respect to one another and it will result in a very noticeable error. I then made two glue ups, each consisting two pieces of stock, to form the two halves of the blank.
Extra thick cardboard stiffeners were added to the inside of the package and then the box was banded to the pallet with two steel bands. I then glued the two blank halves together with a piece of heavy brown wrapping paper in between the two. I left the show room with a fairly high interest in this machine. I also liked the fact that both the headstock and tailstock used MT-2 taper centers, and that the tail stock center travel was specified to be 4 inches.I first saw the jet 1442 in the showroom of the local Quality Woodworking store and I was very impressed. I wanted a machine that was heavy enough so blanks that were severely out of round or blanks of uneven density would not cause the lathe to vibrate excessively. My interest was heightened even further after reading all of the very positive 4 star and 5 star reviews on the Amazon website by people who had recently purchased this machine. Therefore I limited my search by not considering any lathes with light weight stamped steel stands, and I focused my attention on machines with a heavy cast iron bed and heavy cast iron legs. Fortunately the four spur drive center and the 60 degree spur center with bearings that are supplied with the lathe worked great.
I turned it on end so the legs were standing vertical, and then pulled each leg out by rocking it forward and out of the carton. The driver unloaded both cartons and wheeled them into my shop. Would I buy this lathe again. Variable speed is accomplished by changing the diameters of the motor and head stock belt pulleys, effectively changing the "gear" ratio between the two.3.The headstock slides the entire length of the bed and can be rotated a full 360 degrees for turning bowls or blanks larger than 14 inches.4.The lathe comes with a tool rest extension for turning bowls.During the time I spent on this column project, I got to know and feel comfortable with this lathe. The user manual claims it can handle up to 42 inch long blanks. The two halves of the column remained glued together and there was only a minor indication of the two beginning to separate during the turning. After reading quite a bit of literature on the subject I decided limit my search to lathes with motors of 1 hp or greater and to ignore the many lathes on the market equipped with 1/2 hp or 3/4 hp motors.I wanted a machine that had a wide footprint for stability and was heavy enough to dampen vibration when turning uneven stock. After the column was turned I wanted to be able cut the column in half lengthwise to produce two identical half columns.
This carton was marked as being 160 pounds gross weight.The delivery truck had a lift gate and a hand operated battery powered forklift. I used two levels placed on the lathe bed, at 90 degrees to one another, and a hydraulic floor jack to raise first one end of the lathe then the other to adjust the feet for level. Tomorrow morning my back will tell me if I should have had the help of a second person.After I installed the drive center and spur center I moved the tail stock as close to the head stock as possible until the centers were almost touching one another. It doesn't make sense to me to purchase an expensive machine and then have to add unsightly ballast just to make it useable. I used a plunge router to route a flute the length of the column and I repeated this every 20 degrees around the column circumference.
When the turning was complete, the legs were still within the penciled outlines indicating the lathe had not moved even the slightest amount. I then bolted the legs to the lathe bed, and removed the roll around. Check out the pictures of this lathe and column in the "User Supplied Pictures" section below Amazon's picture of the lathe.Other features to note about this lathe are:1.The headstock has 12 holes on the spindle spaced at 30 degree intervals, and three threaded holes spaced at 20 degree intervals in the headstock casting. I then removed the lag bolts that held the bed to the shipping pallet.Some time ago I built a heavy duty roll around that as luck would have it, was about 2 1/2 inches higher than the legs of the lathe. According to the literature you can also purchase a 20 inch bed extension, or a 57 inch bed extension with legs.
Using the supplied threaded indexing pin and a combination of these two sets of index holes allows the user to rotate and lock the piece mounted on the lathe in 10 degree increments. They were each embedded in thick molded Styrofoam and packaged one on top of the other. There are only 8 bolts and 4 adjustable feet to install. Before I started, I placed pencil marks on the shop floor that outlined the position of the lathe legs. I am glad I invested the effort researching lathes because I'm pretty sure that I ended up with a high quality machine that will provide years of heavy duty use and more than likely will never have to be replaced by a "better machine".
When I started it up I found it to be quiet and smooth. I couldn't be more satisfied. I purchased this lathe because of the reviews. I set a nickel on edge on the unit and was able to turn it on and run it without knocking the coin over. It is heavy and I took the pieces apart and carried it up to my shop above the garage. The legs are the same color as the rest of the unit unlike one reviewer commented. Everything fit together well. Now I need to get some knives and start cutting something up.
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