Harvey TURBO T-60S Review

Tool: Turbo T-60S Lathe Shop Now

Manufacturer: Harvey

MSRP: $4999.99

The first time I heard of Harvey International was in 2018, when it was announced they acquired Bridge City Toolworks. Within the year, I started to see an offering of power tools from Harvey that, on the surface, seemed to be priced very reasonably for the features they included. Last year, at AWFS in Las Vegas, I got to visit with their founder, Mr. Jack Xu, and that’s when I came to appreciate the backstory and reason behind Harvey.

Mr. Xu had been in the manufacturing industry for years, building machines for nearly every manufacturer in the United States. Over the years, tool companies kept asking for cheaper tools, requiring compromises during the manufacturing. With the end-user’s interest in mind, Jack said “that’s enough” and decided to manufacture tools to his own standards and sell directly them to woodworkers at a lower price point.

When I had an opportunity to add a Harvey T-60 S lathe to our shop, I knew it was one I wanted to test out. In Short, the Harvey (at nearly half the price of the other high-end lathes) is every bit as good, if not better, than the others. Keep in mind, I’ve turned on almost every lathe that’s out on the market.

You couldn’t ask for a better headstock/tailstock alignment out of the crate.

The design, fit, and finish of the T-60 are impeccable. The indexing system on the headstock is the tightest of any I’ve used. While not the heaviest lathe, its 726lbs is plenty for out-of-balance blanks. The 2 H.P. servo motor is small, quiet, and powerful. Even with big blanks and heavy cuts, I haven’t been able to bog it down. Harvey even includes a convenient swing-away for the tailstock (below) as a standard accessory.

I’m a huge fan of the Harvey Big Eye fence (that video is on our YouTube channel), and I’m glad the same quality and thoughtfulness carries over into their power tools. I think we’re going to see the Harvey’s presence continue to grow in the foreseeable future.