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(More customer reviews)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.
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My Motivation for Purchasing the Jet 1442
I have been looking for a heavy duty lathe for quite a while. I was looking for a lathe that was powerful enough to swing large diameter spindle and bowl blanks. 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. 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. 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 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. 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.
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. 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.
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. 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. The Jet 1442 met all of the specifications I was looking for. 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. 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. It has a variable speed motor that can be adjusted in 8 steps through a range of 450 to 3000 RPM. It can swing a 14 inch blank over the bed and a 10 inch blank over the tool rest. The user manual claims it can handle up to 42 inch long blanks. According to the literature you can also purchase a 20 inch bed extension, or a 57 inch bed extension with legs. 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. So it gives me room for growth.
The Jet 1442 comes pre-wired for 110 volts but it can be re-wired for 220 volt operation. 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. It was a great deal more massive machine than pictures on the internet would suggest. I left the show room with a fairly high interest in this machine. My interest was tweaked further when Amazon.com began offering the 1442 on sale, with free shipping, coupled with a $25.00 off promotion. 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. 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). 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. Every so often a good deal comes our way. In this case, this was my good deal.
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My Experience with Packing and Shipping
The packing for this heavy machine was excellent. The tool rest, headstock and tailstock came attached to the lathe bed. The entire lathe assembly was wrapped in a very thick plastic cover and packed in one carton. The carton consisted of a well built wooden pallet with a hardwood moisture proofed bed on top. The lathe bed was bolted to the moisture proof bed. The pallet was surrounded by heavy gauge cardboard. 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. The carton was marked as being 215 pounds gross weight. The stiffeners were about 3/4 inch thick. 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. They were each embedded in thick molded Styrofoam and packaged one on top of the other. This carton was marked as being 160 pounds gross weight.
The delivery truck had a lift gate and a hand operated battery powered forklift. The driver unloaded both cartons and wheeled them into my shop. 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. I have included photos of the packaging in the "User Supplied Pictures" section below Amazon's picture of the lathe
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My Thoughts on the Assembly of the Jet 1442
This lathe is a very heavy piece of machinery. If you buy this big boy I strongly suggest you have the help of one other person to assemble it. In my case, I just couldn't wait for another person so I did all the assembly myself. The assembly itself is very simple. There are only 8 bolts and 4 adjustable feet to install. What makes it difficult is the extreme weight of the lathe. There are a couple of tricks I used to get around the weight issue.
First I opened the carton that contained the legs. 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 legs are balanced enough to stand on their own so I left them standing on the side of the shop. 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. 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. 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. I then added the adjustable feet to the legs and teeter-walked them into position beneath the lathe bed.
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 then bolted the legs to the lathe bed, and removed the roll around. 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. 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.
I then attached the very heavy headstock, the tool rest and the tailstock, plugged it in and verified it worked. 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. I had hoped that the center pins of the two centers would line up perfectly but they did not. The two were misaligned by about a 1/16th inch. I'm not sure how to adjust this and right now I'm not even sure if an adjustment is called for. I think I will seek out more experienced opinions before I do anything.
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My Experience Using the Jet 1442
My first use of this lathe was to turn a 5 1/2 inch diameter, 35 inch long...Read more›
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JET 708358K JWL-1442VSK 14-by-42-Inch VS PRO Wood Lathe with LegsSerious woodworkers will love the durable, stable, heavy cast iron platform of the 14-by-42-inch Jet 1442 Lathe. The 1 HP, 115-volt, single phase, 8-speed drive motor can be used right out of the box without having to add expensive high voltage circuits. The large capacity, 42 inches between centers, allows for the turning of up to 14-inch pieces of heavy stock. In addition to the 4-inch ram travel, the movable head slides effortlessly along the full length of the bed locking in any position required by the user. The head can be rotated 180 degrees for turning bowls or blanks larger than 14 inches. The variable speed drive motor can be adjusted in 8 different positions to provide speeds ranging from 450 to 3000 RPM. The operator can easily set the proper speed whether roughing, general cutting, or sanding. There is also an adjustable tool rest, which can be extended for turning bowls. Weighing in at around 200 pounds, the Jet 1442 lathe will stay balanced and in place no matter how large the project. I’m sure you’ll be amazed at just how quiet and how well balanced the 1442 is. --C. Dwight Barnett
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