The Poolewood Euro 2000 Lathe

Since July of 1999 I have been the owner of a Poolewood Euro 2000 wood lathe. This is an evaluation after using the lathe fairly heavily for about six weeks.

I was informed of the existence of these lathes by a good friend of mine who had used one in the fall of 1998. I immediately checked out their website and just as immediately dismissed ever owning one because of the price. It was a very nice looking machine, and had some impressive capabilities, but it just wasn't in my future as I didn't have $4000 just lying around to spend. All that changed in April of 1999. Uncle Sam had gotten his greedy little hand just a little too far into our pocket in 1998, and we had a sizeable chunk of change being returned to us courtesy of the Infernal Revenue. To be exact, we had a refund of $3800 coming, and we didn't have anything that we needed to spend it on (another big surprise).

So, with the blessing of SWMBO, I contacted David Ellsworth to see about getting some time on the lathe and giving it a good going over. I was very impressed with the machine, and ordered one in April. I did not order the stand from Poolewood for two reasons. First, it was another $500. Second, it was too short for me. David Ellsworth provides a set of drawings for those who wish to build their own stand, and I took advantage of those. I raised the stand 4" so that the spindle centerline would be 48" off the ground, which is where it is most comfortable for me. This had the added benefit of widening the base by 4" as well. To anyone considering buying this lathe, either buy or make a metal stand. Wood is nice, wood is easy, but a wood stand under this machine just isn't going to cut it. The rigidity of steel is what you want. By the time the lathe arrived, the stand had been built and painted to match the machine as closely as possible.

I received the lathe in the middle of July. Delivery is by pick up only at David's place, which was easy because I live very close to him. The lathe weighs 390 lbs. David assured me it was a simple matter for two people to get it into the back of a pickup truck. The reason that is true is that one of them (David) has an engine hoist. This reminded me of the old Boy Scout joke about making a fire with two sticks as long as one of them was a match. We got the machine into the truck with no problems, and in very short order I was at home recruiting neighbors to get it out. This wasn't a problem either, as the machine comes apart into several pieces. The headstock comes off, as well as the tailstock and tool rest assembly. The hardest part is moving the headstock, since it has a giant 3 phase motor in it, and is attached to the controller box by the power cord. Still, with friendly neighbors, it was a fairly easy thing to accomplish.

The machine comes ready to run, once it is mounted to a stand and is connected to the appropriate power supply, which is a 20 amp, 220 volt, single phase circuit. The drive is a 3 phase direct drive, which has its plusses and minuses. On the very big plus side, there is no belt to fiddle with, and rpm from 0-3500 are readily available at the twist of a dial. On the minus side, the headstock is not bored through, which prohibits the use of a vacuum chuck (which I don't have anyway), and requires special attention when using accessories that utilize the #2MT. The lathe comes with a collar that threads onto the spindle. It s essential that the collar be installed BEFORE any MT item is installed. Otherwise, getting it out is going to be an adventure in patience and ingenuity.

The control box has lots of stuff on it, but a lot of it is inaccessible to the operator. Monkeying around with the programming is a quick way to mess the thing up and void the warranty all at the same time. Still, there is plenty to use. There is a main power on/off switch in red and green industrial décor. This is great, and the people at Poolwood are to be commended. But then, inexplicably, they go from industrial strength to cheap Radio Shack type stuff for the run/stop and forward/reverse switches. Speed is controlled by a dial that goes from a true 0 rpm to 3500. Is it a true 3500 rpm? I don't know, but what I do know is that I haven't put anything on the lathe that I want to spin that fast with that kind of power. One very nice feature of the control box is that it is free standing. This is a real boon when turning out of balance pieces or pieces that have parts flying off of them. The control box can be positioned anywhere convenient to the operator, increasing the safety factor by not having to reach past a spinning piece of wood to shut the lathe off. This also works well for sensitive positioning of tools, where it is desirable to position the tool and then turn the lathe on.

The lathe is very powerful, smooth, and quiet. Virtually full torque is available across the entire range of speed. The speed dial is a little finicky, and a quick twist can send you a couple of hundred rpm in one direction or another. With a little practice, it becomes fairly easy to get within 10 rpm of your target speed, which I think is as close as anyone needs to be. The only reason I know exactly the speed at which I am turning is because the readout is digital. It is not advisable to change speeds too drastically though, as the computer can read that as an imbalance and shut the motor down.

The toolrest assembly and tailstock are nothing new or radical. Both are very beefy and lock down tightly. There is one quirk in the tool rest, in that it has a 30mm post. You won't find these anywhere here in America, unless you have them made up special, but it is worth it. It is one big piece of equipment, and as a breaker of tool rests in the past, I am not worried about this one at all. The headstock pivots and moves the entire length of the ways. It does this by loosening a large bolt going up through the ways and into the headstock by means of a steel rod provided with the lathe. There are no indexing pins (which are never accurate anyway), and the headstock locks down firmly. I have gotten it to move, but the movement is very slight, and it takes a lot of pounding with big heavy blanks to do so.

I recently moved to a new location just before taking delivery of the lathe, and have been rebuilding my woodpile. I have been turning a lot of wet wood, roughing out bowls none of my previous lathes would have dreamed of touching. I've been turning a lot of hard (sugar) maple, and even some black locust. Just for laughs, I've weighed a couple of the maple pieces before they went on the lathe, and they both checked in at 74-75 lbs. I roughed them out at 600 rpm to start, and then went up from there. The lathe didn't quiver, shake, or even breathe hard at spinning a piece of wood like this, and me cutting with a 1/2" bowl gouge for all I'm worth. I haven't gotten many large finished pieces off of it yet, but there are some, and they are featured in the gallery section.

So what about my impressions? The power of this thing is extremely impressive. In fact, it's a little scary sometimes. There is nothing to slip if something goes wrong, and things have gone wrong. There is an imbalance circuit of some sort that tells the machine if there is a catch, but it doesn't kick in if the load is increased gradually. I've stalled the thing with my Kel McNaughton tool and the motor just keeps trying. In fact, I bent the medium curved blade of the small KM tool by getting it caught in a piece of hard maple, and bent it so bad that it needs to be replaced.

The controls are straightforward and easy to use. Fit and finish on the machine is what one would expect of something that costs this much. The tool rest has been a little disappointing in that it is full of big nicks (from me), but I'm not sure if that is because of soft cast iron or the fact that I am turning heavily and it is just taking a real beating. The custom rests I had made all have a hardened rod across the top, so we'll see if that improves things.

Pivoting the headstock in either direction is fast and easy enough that it has become a regular part of turning for me. All the big lathes I have ever owned have had pivoting headstocks, but this one is far and away the easiest to use and most accurate. Everything moves smoothly, but it takes some effort, and I never forget that this is one big machine. So far I am very pleased. I've never been able to turn on a lathe that could take what I could give, but this one does and then some. My work has improved just by stepping up a notch in machine quality, and I look forward to improving it even more as I learn more about the machine and grow in my abilities.  One of these days I'll buy the optional outboard tool rest assembly and turn some really big stuff.

Poolewood Vital Statistics

Swing: 20" inboard, the floor outboard.

Distance between centers: 40"

Spindles:  #2MT, 1 1/4" x 8tpi on headstock

Motor:   direct drive 3 phase 2 HP motor using a converter to run on single phase 220v current

Weight with stand, 630 lbs.

Questions or comments?  Email me.