Well ok...Lets talk about horses again. If you put a Clydesdale on a treadmill and ask him to run toward some beer, he will be able to run at a certain speed and burn a certain number of calories. If you place a drag on the treadmill, he will have to burn more calories to acheive the same speed...Loss of power.

The motor doesn't care about beer, it can only acheive up to 1/2 HP. When it is under a no-load condition, it runs freely and does not put out 1/2 HP. As you increase the load, the power consumption increases, and therefore the HP increases....until eventually, the motor is peaked and suffers a complete loss of power caused by the motor exceeding it's designed current/load limit.(Stall)

All devices in the mechanical circuit are additive to the total load experienced by the motor. This includes bearings, shaft alignment, pulley alignment, belt tension...then on to adding a 5 pound weight, misalignment between Head and Tail Stock, Pressure of the Live Center to the wood, Radial pressure caused by the wood grain, axial pressure on the bearing races, off-balanced wood etc....

After all these things are added up, the remaining available HP is what you have left to work with. So all I'm saying is you could probably put a Ammeter on the power line of both lathes under a no-load condition, and one of them will probably show a higher current draw, indicating that one is working harder than the other with no wood involved. Or, you can place your hand or a dull tool on the wood and apply pressure to see how much it takes to make the motor stall.

All the while, keep in mind that not all 1/2 HP motors are equal. Some companies will make same-rated motors with less than desireable laminations in their motor rotors and stators. I assume Jet and Rikon use different motor manufacturers.

Anyway...don't mean to be argumentative. Just was involved in one or two motor projects once.