General Lathes

General is a Canadian company that makes wood lathes. They are based out of Drummonville Quebec, where their factory has been producing lathes and other machine tools and accessories since 1946. They are well known for their very high quality, attention to detail, workmanship and materials.

You can read some reviews of general wood lathes over at Wood Lathes online. They feature several of the more popular models from General and provide in depth reviews of many different lathes.

General is one of the few North American companies that still manufacture their products in North America, most lathes are built exclusively in Asia, largely China and Taiwan. There are a lot of advantages to buying a Lathe made in North America, but in the end it comes down to a trade-off between quality and price. You can guarantee that a Canadian manufactures lathe will be very well built, but because of the cost of labour it will also come out more expensive.

General also produces lathes in Taiwan under the brand General International, these are still very nice tools, and quality control is excellent, you don't get the same thing you would from a North American lathe but still overall a very fine product.

Another great resource is this page on General Lathes, they feature many pictures, videos and links to wood lathes for sale. If you're in the market for a great woodworking lathe it would be hard to go wrong with any of their models. With over 60 years of experience, they know what they're doing.

General makes many different sizes of wood lathes, from the 25-200M1 which is essentially a mini lathe all the way up to full size models that will allow you to turn projects of any size. They are a bit more costly than some other brands, but you definitely get what you pay for, some chinese made laths are shoddy in construction and materials and this really shows through in your final results.

A wood lathe is the sort of tool that can last you a lifetime, in fact many lathes can last several generations, or at least the ones manufactures in the 30s could, modern tools are not made to the same standards. In any case it is best to pay for quality up front rather than use inferior products that need to be replaced every few years because they break.

If your new to wood turning, the wikipedia page on wood lathes is an excellent read.

Enjoy!