Turning · review
The most capacity per euro of the European lathes on this page — and a listing whose title and part number name two different machines.
The end of it The best capacity per euro here, on a listing we cannot fully trust. Ask the seller which machine it is.
Every figure is a manufacturer specification, read off the listing itself, and the judgments are ours — drawn from how the specification behaves in this class of machine and from what long-term owners consistently report. Where a figure is missing, we say so rather than fill it in.
400 W, four speeds, workpieces up to 1,000 mm (39.4 in) long and 350 mm (13.8 in) in diameter. The title reads DM1100T. The manufacturer part number reads SC-DM500T.
Those two fields name different machines. We cannot tell you which one arrives, and neither can anyone else reading the same page.
We considered leaving the product out. We have kept it because the mismatch is useful information: it is exactly the sort of detail that a buyer discovers after unpacking, and exactly the sort of thing an affiliate site skips because it complicates the sale. Ask the seller to confirm the model before ordering.
Ø 350 mm (13.8 in) and a meter between centers at €170 is a great deal of lathe. The tension in the specification is the 400 W motor: enough for spindle work along that meter, and marginal for a 350 mm (13.8 in) faceplate blank.
A lathe spins an unbalanced lump of wet timber at several hundred revolutions a minute. Everything you feel through the tool — chatter, a surface that will not come clean, the machine creeping across the floor — comes back to whether there is enough mass to absorb that.
A light lathe is not unusable; it is a lathe that has to be bolted down and its stand loaded with ballast. Sand bags in the base of a stand are the cheapest upgrade in turning, and almost every owner of a light machine ends up making it.
Every chuck, faceplate and screw center you will ever own has to match the lathe’s spindle thread, and several standards are in common use. An adaptor exists for most combinations and it moves the work further from the bearings, which is exactly where you do not want it.
Read the thread off the machine — not off a forum post about the same model — before spending anything on chucks.
Read on the day this page was built: $480 at the American Amazon shop.
Read from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and price both move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 2026-08-12. The live price is at the top of the page.
| Motor | 400 W |
|---|---|
| Speeds | 4 |
| Maximum workpiece | 1,000 mm (39.4 in) long, Ø 350 mm (13.8 in) |
| Part number on the listing | SC-DM500T — which does not match the title |
| Amazon reference | B08X7CF9J7 (identical on 6 markets) |
| EAN | 4046664113874 |
Its title names the DM1100T and its manufacturer part number reads SC-DM500T. Those are different machines in Scheppach's range. One of the two fields is wrong, and from outside there is no way to know which. Confirm with the seller before ordering — this is precisely the kind of mismatch that ends in a return.
For light cuts, at low speed, on dry timber — just about. For hogging out a green blank, no. Swing tells you what fits over the bed; power tells you what you can do with it, and these two numbers are further apart here than on any other lathe on this page.
A listing is not an offer: the reference exists on these stores, availability changes daily.
7.8/ 10
The best capacity per euro here, on a listing we cannot fully trust. Ask the seller which machine it is.
Long spindle work — stair balusters, table legs — if you can confirm which machine you are buying
Listed because the blade or part names this saw.
Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for woodworking machines and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.
Entry lathe · €155 in Germany
The cheapest full-size wood lathe here, and the one that most clearly needs bolting down before it is any good.
Best for: A first lathe for spindle work — chair legs, tool handles, stair spindles
≈ $490
230 V · Ø 254 mm (10 in) swing · 5 speeds
A properly built small lathe with five speeds and a stated swing — the first machine here that publishes what it can turn.
Best for: Bowls up to 254 mm (10 in) and spindle work, in a workshop that wants a machine rather than a starter kit
12 × 21 in · 60–3,600 rpm in three ranges · reverse · 24 index positions
Sixty revolutions a minute at the bottom — the only lathe here slow enough to start an unbalanced blank safely.
Best for: Bowl work up to 305 mm (12 in), where the first minute at low speed is the dangerous one
≈ $990
