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The Nichols Lathe Featured in American Woodturner

BIG, BRAWNY & SOPHISTICATED

A new generation of lathes

KEN KEOUGHAN
Excerpts from American Woodturner December, 1996

There is a whole new generation of lathes out there. They are powerful enough for humongous platters and hollow forms, precise enough for small intricate work....

Nichols

John Nichols eats, drinks, sleeps, and dreams lathes. So, I think, does his wife, Ruth. He apprenticed as a mortician, spent twenty-three years in the US Navy, has performed electrical maintenance in power plants, and been production manager of an animal feed processing plant turning alfalfa into feed for export to the Orient. Six foot six inches tall and disarmingly garrulous, he may be the John Wayne of lathe builders. "Want a nice lathe, pilgrim?"

About ten years ago, Denver Ulery, an in-law of John's, asked John what he could do about the cast iron tool rests that his students at Overlake School kept breaking off at the stem. John got a shoe box full of pieces, looked them over and made a batch of steel tool rest replacements. That got him interested in lathes. Really interested. "Denver kept batting my ear about the idea that long-bed lathes couldn't cut it for turning bowls. You can't get at the bowls on a long bed...We need a lathe for bowls.'" One think led to another and John decided that "if you're going to work 200-pound out-of-round, out-of-balance pieces, you need a heavy duty lathe made entirely of metal." This realization came to him about four years ago. He sat down, paced the floor, scribbled, and sweated, and two weeks later he came up with his first prototype. "It was mostly cutting torch and hammer, you understand, a little crude. But at that point I was operating on three credit cards, a dream, and the sure-fire inspiration of poverty's door-step."

Today, the Nichols lathe is one of the most respected and probably one of the most controversial on the market-respected because of its excellence; controversial because of its originality. Let's look at it:
  • Beds that cross at 90 degrees.
  • Front- or back-of-the-lathe turning
  • capabilities.
  • Beds that can be
  • extended or
  • telescoped.
  • Massive tool rests,
  • anywhere you want
  • them.
  • Custom-designed to
  • individual specs,
  • including:
    -Type of turning
    -Height of turner
    -Power
    -Controls
    -Pulley configuration
    -Safety features
    -Hoist (600-pound capacity)
    -Leveling jacks; 900-pound-
    capacity floor casters
    -Four bed options
The list goes on and on. To buy a Nichols lathe, you fill out a three-page questionnaire. He sends you a videotape showing how to assemble it once you get it, various customization that have been done, how the options work, and what they are for.

This is a massive piece of machinery. Everything about it is big and strong. It's about as tough as the boring bars he was demonstrating with at the "Turning Ten" Symposium in Greensboro.

Flaws? People have questioned his bearings. Response: "We use two sets of double-row spherical roller bearings. They can certainly take the weight we use and they work extremely well over very long periods of time in terrible environments at speeds double ours and running 18 to 24 hours a day. I've had one spindle assembly returned for a replacement, just as a matter of course. In another instance we think the problem was the machine needed to be run up to reasonably high rpm levels from time to time."

What about the tailstock? Can it be aligned? Answer: to a fair-thee-well. But if you slide the telescoping bed in or out, it must be realigned to be dead accurate. That's the price you pay to be able to change the length of the bed.

Are they evolving or changing? Yes. Daily. That's why they are customized. He's done one lathe for a young fellow afflicted with cerebral palsy. Now he's looking for a turner or would-be turner bound to a wheelchair.

These machines are as precise as they are strong. You can do extremely delicate work on a Nichols lathe or hoist up a 600-pound burl and have at it. Does Bonnie Kline need one of these? Possibly not.

User responses


Rodger Jacobs on the Nichols- "The Nichols lathe is versatile. Any swing, any length, any motor size. Good safety features like belt covers and guards. L-shaped front and back beds allow a tool rest to encompass 180 degrees of work piece. If you want a vacuum chuck that will suck a golf ball through a garden hose, it's available. The bed on my Nichols telescopes out to 7 feet, so I have a short bed or a long bed. John listens to and works with his customers. His lathes are in a constant process of woodturner-inspired evolution. The best feature is that John really cares about his machines. These lathes are his creation and he wants to find good homes for them."

David Barriger on the Nichols- "I've been very pleased with it. It's steady enough without sand or tire leads to do most of the work that I do. The variable speed gives me excellent control with out-of-round, out-of-balance pieces. I also like the bed off to the side that lets me put the tool rest beside or behind the work piece. On some of my pieces have been using the steady rest that I bought with the lathe, and it works real well.

"Despite its mass, the lathe is easy to move around. I have mine on casters with jacks to raise it up above the casters and set it steady and level."

Ray Allen on the Nichols- "I wouldn't take three times what I paid for it."

He says adjusting the tailstock can be a "little tricky" because of the sliding beds, "but it's only a matter of a couple of minutes to adjust it. And I'm working on some pretty big pieces". Most are up to 30" in diameter and 26" deep.

He made a very interesting point. "I turned apiece that was 36" by 32" tall. You know what I found out? I found out you couldn't get that sucker thru a standard door."

"Overall", Ray says, "I'm very well satisfied with my Nichols lathe. You'll never find a fairer person to deal with than John Nichols."

We as woodturners are fortunate to be alive and turning today. These lathes have been designed by and for woodturners. They are being manufactured by companies whose woodworking focus is turning wood. They are not Taiwanese Wannabees. They have not been developed as an extension of an existing line of tools. Nor have they been battled to a mediocre standstill by corporate cost accountants. "Marketing" costs are neither doubling the price nor devouring the profits. In face they are more than a cut above most, if not all of their competition. Yes there is a whole new generation of lathes out there...big brawny, sophisticated.

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