My club may be looking to replace our aging and not very popular Poolewood Euro 500. This is our club night lathe for the demonstrator to use; we have Axminster M330s for our outside events.
We obviously need a lathe which can handle a lot of different projects, as we can never be sure what the demonstrator will want to show us. A swing of 9 inches diameter or more seems apt, and at least 2 ft between centres. Variable speed makes sense, as watching a turner who doesn't know the lathe struggling to swap the belts over is not exactly gripping stuff. I guess a 1HP motor or more would be right; a spindle size for which we can get new inserts for our chucks would save paying to replace these (we have 2 SuperNovas and an Axminster) - since the M330s are 1in x 8tpi, keeping this size would be a boon, but not essential. Budget: I'd like to keep it below the £2,000 mark if possible.
There must be experience out there of each and every lathe currently on the market - if you are able to offer suggestions that come near to the above spec, I would be grateful.