IMO, You will do fine with that lathe. You lose a bit of torque that you'd have with a lathe that has more HP, but the HF lathe will spin the wood in a circle well enough.
You'll probably want to buy a 4 jaw chuck, and upgrade the drive center and live center. For that, I would stay away from the HF offerings. Penn State Industries would be a good place to go for those.
You could turn calls on the faceplate that comes with the lathe, depending on how you go about it. Here's one way:
http://www.customcalls.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1211135908. I just find that the chuck gives me more options, especially if you want to turn other things or drill out call blanks.
Same with the centers- the ones that come with the lathe will work, but upgrades will make turning easier and probably improve the quality of your work. I like the 60 degree tailstock center from PSI because it gives me more room to work around the piece-
http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LCENTLT1.htmlI really like this drive center-
http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LCENTSS11.html. It grabs the wood real well but doesn't mark it up much. When/if you replace the variable speed HF lathe, you'll need to re-buy the centers in #2 MT since the lathe you'll be getting will probably have that size arbor rather that the #1, but imo having the variable speed luxury is worth the $40 in centers. The chuck will fit any lathe as long as you have the right spindle adapter.
While you're at it, pick up a pen mandrel. You'll have fun making those too. Good luck!
