Record CL3 Stand or Bench??

[DUNK_WALES]

I have finally chose my lathe i am going to order a Record CL3 but i don't know weather to buy the stand or build a bench, the deal i have been offered means i can buy the stand for £100.

If anyone has any opinions on this i would be grateful to hear

Also i would be grateful to receive any information or opinions on the CL3 Good or Bad

Cheers
Lee

 

[Paul.J]

What happened to the Grad :?: :?

 

[DUNK_WALES]

Oh I'm still getting that my mrs is buying me the cl for christmas

 

[oddsocks]

Duncan, When I had the CL2 I built my own bench (from chipboard to the Peter Child design that he provided when I bought the lathe). When I upgraded to the CL3 the package included the stand so I used that but I needed to cover the top and lower rails with chipboard to give storage (rails) and tools in use (on the top) as the skeleton frame wastes the space.

From my perspective both do an equally good job and building the chipboard one is much cheaper and actually doesn't take much longer than assembling the Record stand and adding the shelves.

Dave

 

[DUNK_WALES]

Dave
Did you notice much of a difference between your cl2 and cl2 thanks
Lee

 

[oddsocks]

Dave
Did you notice much of a difference between your cl2 and cl2 thanks
Lee

I upgraded to get the VSLK (variable speed) and went to the Stile and Bates show a few years ago to buy the upgrade but they had sold out. The show offer for the full CL3 VSLK was tempting enough for me to buy it and then sell the original CL2. I had the old CL2 without the quick release handles and newer banjo - apart from the variable speed the thing I did notice was how much easier to quick releases were.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Lee,

as mentioned in my PM feel free to contact me about the graduate conversion. It really was a doddle in my case. I wouldn't hesitate doing it again.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Paul.J]

I'm not familiar with the CL2 lathe lee,but i did have a DML24 once which i made me own bench for,and found i had very little room below the bars to get at the levers for the cross slide and tailstock.
I got round this by putting blocks under the head and tailstock to raise it up.

 

[oddsocks]

Paul, yes I did the same with my old CL2 (easy seeing as I built the stand) but the new CL3 doesn't have the same problem as it uses the new banjo with a bristol lever at the front. The tailstock is the adjusted from above (lever at the back) but if you need to swivel the head then that is still a lever from underneath.

Lee, re your original post, some other observations...

- The record does not have a hollow headstock - i've never had the need for one, but other makes do have this.

- It does not have an indexing system on headstock (but they can be made or bought)

- it doesn't have a spindle lock, you use a spanner (and I use an old whitworth one ground to fit as the original record one was too flimsy)

For me none of these are issues /problems, and I everything I have used it for (up to 350mm bowls) it has coped with easily and rock solid. The variable speed control is excellent and by selection of the pulleys in conjunction with the VSLK you can get very low speed and high torque. I have no intentions of upgrading mine in the forseeable future. Finally, when I first installed mine there was an annoying squeal from the headstock bearing when run on '10' on the vslk. Record offered to collect and fix but I agreed they could send a bearing for me to install which they did immediately. I've now had the lathe almost 3 years.