i've put my trust in powermatic. hi, i'm nick cook and i've been turningwood for about 35 years. for the last 15 years i've been involved with the people at powermatic on developing lathes. the 3520, the 3520a and the 3520b have progressed to become very fine machines. now we've developed over the past five years, the4224. it's taken all the features that we put on the 3520 and then added more to make it the ultimate in woodturning. a great lathe is the sum of all the details and wepaid close attention to all the details that we've added to this machine. firstand foremost is the sliding headstock. now i can move the headstock over eitherjust to get closer to the machine
without falling over the leg. i can pushit all the way to the end turn a larger piece. the two locking cams on the backensure that the headstock's not going to move, so that you don't damage the pieceas you're turning it. the hefty 3 horsepower motor is three-phase, but you don't haveto worry about that. the inverter takes care of that by taking single-phase 220power and converting it to the three-phase motor. that combined with the three-step pulley gives you the maximum torque for larger pieces and maximumspeed for smaller pieces. digital readout shows you exactly how many rpms thespindle is moving and you can also reverse it. that allows you to sand andfinish the piece a little easier.
we've added a vacuum chuck. a venturibuilt into the headstock that allows you to connect your shop air directly to themachine and have vacuum. we've added a spindle lock. nobody has a spindle lock like this. it'sone of the best features of the machine and with it now you can put things onthe chuck, take them off without any assistance. the speed control is the bestthere is. it has a linear potentiometer and a speedrange from 40 rpms up to 3,500 rpm's. you have a digital readout, so youcan tell exactly how fast the machine is going.
unlike the dial indicators that are onsome lathes. we've added indexing to the head. not only 36 points like most latheshave. we've got 14, 36 and 48 this allows you to index very quicklyand efficiently without having to take the cover off the headstock or anythinglike that. the lighting system. i can't turn withoutlight. it's the best lighting system there is. we've got four 110 outlets, so you can plug in your drill, your router or whatever you need. we've improved the tool rest. the lockingmechanism is such that it stays where
you put it, it locks in place more firmly. thetailstock has an acme thread now. this makes drilling much more positive andmuch faster. as a production turner, i find it necessary to duplicate things onmany occasions. the comparator, the ability to put an original piece backhere and then use my calipers to move the measurements over to the duplicatepiece, makes it a lot easier to make multiples. we've got a tool caddy for allthe accessories. the live centers the drive centers and all that and all of thatsits on a bed of cast iron
as a woodturner, what i tell everybody isthat you want to get the best there is when you start. and the biggest is almostalways the best. i tell people that you can do small things on a big lathe, but you can't do big things on a small lathe. so if you're interested in getting into it big-time,start with this one. for the last 90 years, powermatic has been setting the goldstandard in woodworking machinery. committed to quality since 1921,powermatic has been providing generations of woodworkers with the tools and theconfidence to create and inspire.