Early one afternoon in March, toward the end of a very unseasonal snow shower, a truck, thankfully equipped with a lift-gate, pulled up into my driveway with the One-Way 1018 lathe that I had ordered the previous June. The driver said the lathe and stand weighed 384 pounds. That was easy to believe while Matt and I wrestled it through the snow around back to the walk out entrance to my basement. I've had a chance to use it for a few months now, and I would like to tell you about it. Throughout this review I'll be comparing the 1018 to my 15 year old Myford ML8.

The 1018 didn't take long to set up once I got it inside. The stand doubles as the shipping container. All I had to do was take off the shrink wrap holding a piece of particle board to the front of the stand and unbolt the stand from the skids. The lathe was bolted to the middle shelf, which was in turn bolted to the lower shelf. It didn't take long to undo that and mount the lathe on top. The stand had suffered some paint damage in transit, but a can of matching spray paint was included.

The lathe came with a safety drive center. The tailstock center is the very nice One-Way tailstock, but without the accessory cones. It comes with a 4 inch faceplate and a rod to aid in faceplate removal. The faceplate can be locked on to the spindle with set screws for secure reverse operation. A 3/16 inch knock-out rod is supplied.

The lathe spindle center is 12 ½ inches above the stand, and about 43 ½ inches above the floor, depending on the leveling foot setting. The lathe is 36 inches long, the stand 40 inches long. The lathe will turn a 10 inch disk over the bed, and a 7 inch disk over the banjo. The capacity between centers depends on what centers are used. The capacity with the supplied centers is 13 ¾ inches. The distance between the spindle nose and tailstock ram is 19 3/8 inches. The tailstock ram has a 3 inch travel.

My lathe is part of the second batch One-way has produced. I think the only thing that has changed is the optional stand is now made of metal. I got the metal stand, not wanting to wait until I built a wooden one. It's very sturdy, being built of 1/8th inch thick steel, including the back, and welded into one piece, not assembled after delivery. Unfortunately, the stand does tend to pick up and magnify the noise the tool makes while cutting. It can really ring annoyingly. To combat this I used some 3/8 x ¾ UHMW strips as spacers between the lathe and the stand. This helped, but it still rang under certain conditions, so upon the advice of Kevin Clay at One-Way I fastened down the middle shelf more securely. I turned some ¾ inch maple dowels to cross pin the shelf in three places, drilled corresponding holes in the back of the stand, and drove in some wood screws. The combination of tactics works pretty well. The stand has some neat leveling feet. The adjustment range is more than adequate, and it you want to you can bolt the stand down through them. I didn't want to bolt the lathe down, so I just slipped some dowel rod through to keep them lined up and in place.

The headstock on the One-Way is a jackshaft design. If you only think about it casually, you might think of this as just extra parts and an opportunity for power loss, but the great thing about it is that by moving the step pulley down, the headstock can be much narrower right behind the drive. This lets you get much easier access to your turning at the headstock end. By way of comparison, the width of the headstock on my Myford ML8 is 6-1/4 inches. The One-Way is only 4 inches. Using a bevel gauge, measuring the angle between a line parallel to the center and a line that just clears the headstock from the top edge of the nose of the spindle, the Myford is 130 degrees, the One-Way is a more accessible 155 degrees. The belt cover is .070" thick steel, and because of the angle it is hinged at, closes itself.

The only thing that disappoints me about the headstock is that it isn't drilled through to 3/8" like my Myford. The supplied knock-out rod is only 5/16th inch, and since my drill chuck and collet chuck are threaded in back to accept 3/8th inch threaded rod, it slips in rather than knocking them out. The biggest rod I can fit through is 11/32nd inch, so I'll buy some drill rod and make another knockout rod, or make a short piece of 3/8" rod to screw in to my chucks. I welded a piece of 3/8" threaded rod onto a length of 5/16" threaded rod to use as a draw bar. The headstock is indexed to 24 divisions, just like the Myford, but on the One-Way they're numbered and the indexing head doubles as a hand wheel. I added numbers to my Myford, but you have to take off the belt cover to see them.

The tailstock assembly is heavier than the one on my Myford. The tailstock ram on the Myford is ¾ inch, the ram on the One-Way is 1-1/4 inch. The wheel on the One-Way is a half inch bigger at 4 inches, and the handle on the wheel, unlike the Myford, can spin. The tailstock locks very securely in place on the ways with a locking lever, and there is very little play. The wheel that locks the ram could be a little more secure. I may make a replacement that uses a handle for more leverage. The tailstock isn't bored through, but it does self eject. It's not a lathe designed to turn lampposts on anyway, so it doesn't much matter that it isn't bored through.