My life was one that a lot off woodworkers envied. I had a kitchen manufacturing factory and if that was not enough I had a workshop at home to die for. Life was good and weekends were spent turning and making boxes, my two favourite woodworking disciplines.
Then the bubble burst, the markets turned, developers stop placing orders for cabinets and we lost the factory. I tried to stay afloat and turned my homeshop into a production shop. But unfortunately here at the southern end of Africa, people are more concerned with saving a couple of Rands (8.163ZAR = 1US$) than with quality and handmade furniture.
I soon realised that this was not going to feed my family and I started looking for a job. Now these are hard to find anywhere in the world but in South Africa, we have a whole bunch of factors that is working against men of my background, as well. When the process of finding employment started to drag on for too long I was forced to start selling off my tools. This was the saddest day of my life, especially because second-hand woodwork tools do not fetch a whole lot, and when people find out how desperate the situation is,it gets even worse.
But I persevered and finally found very good employment. I put inn every effort and reached the personal goals set for myself, in record time. To achieve this however, I worked long hours and this started to take its toll. Then, the words every man should hear from a loving wife and the best mother in the world! “You cannot continue to work like this without a hobby, why don’t you do some woodworking again?” Bingo!!!!
We did the sums and increased our savings portion of our income slightly, to start saving for a new lathe. I was adamant that I was not going to buy any tools until I had enough saved to buy everything I needed to turn comfortably. It is extremely frustrating if you are used to have everything and then have to go back to making do.
When I had enough saved up I contact my regular tool supplier and told him I am back and would like to place an orde rfor a Nova 1624. He then said if I am interested the son of one of his best clients is selling a very good condition1624 and would I consider looking at a second hand one. It is not their policy to sell second-hand, but this is a special circumstance. It turned out that the owner passed away 2 months after buying the lathe and that the lathe has never been used.
Well here are some pictures of my “new” Nova 1624 and someother items that I bought. The chuck and jaws were part of the lathe purchase and even thou the boxes were covered in dust, the different jaw sets were still fastened with the original cable ties and packed in the greased plastic.
To my wife “Thanks my Love, I promise to always be there foryou and the boys!”
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