lathe ponderings

[Long John]

Friends,

As I am beginning to take on more challenging and interesting projects I am beginning to think I might ought to obtain a small lathe.  I anticipate needing a lathe to make screws, lock tumblers and other components that are rightfully turned.

I have noticed that there is a 7" by 10" lathe offered by MicroLux, Harbor Freight, etc.   Does anyone here have any experience with this unit.  There does seem to be a user's group and a lot of accessories for this lathe.  I frosts my tail to buy something made in China (I NEVER shop at Walmart for that reason)  but the only alternative seems to be one made by Sherline which is about 1/2 the size (3.5" by 8") and weight (24 pounds versus 90 pounds) for twice the money and far fewer accessory items that would be desirable for certain parts of a project.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

JMC

[ehoff]

I can't say I've ever used one of these smaller lathes, but there seems to be allot of users. You may also want to check out Grizzly as they offer a similar lathe and you can get parts from them. I have a Grizzly mill drill and and happy with the machine. Also grizzly's manuals are very good.

I have an Atlas/Craftsman 10" lathe, while its nice for making screws, turning down breech plugs, etc. I wish it had a big enough spindle bore to handle a barrel.

[billd]

I have a bench model Grizzly mill drill.  Piece of junk. Cross slides work pretty smooth but the increments are wrong. Quill is so sloppy you control depth.
Bill

[billd]

Above should read "you can't control depth".  I can't edit a post on a Blackberry.
Bill

[Acer Saccharum]

If you get a lathe, you will really want a minimum 1 3/8 hole thru the spindle. This thru hole is really important for holding a barrel by the breech end, with the rest of the barrel going out to the left, thru the spindle hole.

A 6" Atlas can sometimes be found. They were pretty junky. Maybe a 1/2 thru hole.

The thing that worries me when buying a Chinoise piece of equipment is that the screws are tapped really poorly, the fits of the slides are not all that good, and in a very short time, you will be looking for something better.

I feel that Enco, Jet and Grizzly are better than some of the cheapo tools. At least you can get parts, for a while.

Here is a Grizzly lunchbox lathe: http://www.grizzly.com/products/7-x-12-Mini-Metal-Lathe/G8688
If you get this one, John, you can put it in the jeep, and I can show you how to cut threads while sitting at the kitchen table.

For a LOT more money, you get a 40 mm spindle hole: http://www.grizzly.com/products/Gunsmith-s-Bench-Top-Lathe-with-Stand/G4003G

A small enco, nearly $700: http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAGE=551&PMITEM=110-0800

A medium sized bench lathe, with a  1 1/2 bore, about $3100 basic,  http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAGE=553&PMITEM=510-2589

[g.pennell]

I went a different route.  I had been eyeing lathes for some time, and happened on a 13"x6' South Bend with a bad motor, for really cheap ($250).  I bought a replacement motor (single phase) and made an adapter to bolt it into the old girl, and had her spinning in practically no time.  A little more in tooling, and a QC tool post, and she's got a lot of life left for a hobbiest.  Spindle hole is 1 3/8 I believe, certainly big enough for barrel work through the headstock.  If you have room, used full-sized machines are out there, and sometimes you get a BUNCH of tooling thrown in...

Greg

[JTR]

You could always go with a used machine instead of a new one.
Look in your area Penny-Saver or news paper ads. With any sort of luck you'll find one that someone bought, got tired of it, and just wants it outta there! Used ones in good condition seem to sell for only about 25% of the new cost, and as Greg said, probably will include the tooling the guy bought as well.

And believe me, if you have a lathe, you'll find a lot more uses than just making a few screws!

John

[Long John]

Friends,

Thanks for your opinions; they are very helpful.

I am thinking of a bench-top mini-lathe because I don't have the space for a proper, full-sized lathe.  My whole gunmaking "shop" measures 12' by 6' and already has a bench running along each long wall.  (Acer has seen my little "fun-room")  So I have to get something that is tiny if anything at all.  I realize that a mini lathe would never be able to be used to cut a new threaded hole in a barrel for a breechplug but it probably cpould be used to make the plug.  The Chinese ones are cheap but if they $#@* out in a year of moderate use then I might as well bit the bullet and get something that is a real tool.

JMC

[billd]

I'd look used before I bought Chinese.  Maybe they work OK but I'm in a machine shop every day and when I try to use one of these imports it just isn't "right".

I searched far and wide looking for a used one I would be satisfied with. The problem is most are 3 phase and some can't be given away. The single phase one's usually sell for more.  I don't have 3 phase power, so it's buy a converter or a new motor, both expensive options.

I found mine on Craigslist. 220, single phase!!!  It was two blocks from my work still sitting in the same place the original owner put in in 1962.  I drove past it every day for 30 some years and never new it was there. 

The owner died in the mid 80's and his brother coated it with oil and it sat ever since.  His daughter decided to sell the property and stuck it on Craigslist.

Bill

[Joe Stein]

John, 
If you haven't already used the search function, you might go back and look at this thread:  http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=144.0
then check out these sites: http://littlemachineshop.com/Info/minilathe_compare.php
http://www.toolsnow.com/metal-working-tools/mini-metal-lathe.html

This will get you started.    Like you, I hate to buy Chinese, but even a lot of the name brand tools are now made there.  (I'll stop before I get political.)                      I have one of the Cummins lathes.  It took some setting up, but it works well, and is pretty accurate, if I do my part.

-Joe

[FL-Flintlock]

I don't know how the HF lathe is but some of their stuff isn't too bad at all.  Years ago I had one of their radial drills and it was dandy, tight all the way around, chuck didn't slip, nothing to complain about.  I still have a 7x12 HF metal bandsaw, all cast iron, way better than Jet and a lot lower in price, only thing that didn't hold up was the plastic coolant tank.  Depending on the item, more often than not, you can get parts for HF for quite some time especially on machinery when they don't change the design much, if at all, over the years.  You may sit on hold with c/s for a while, best to email unless you have time to kill.

As other's said those little lathes are very limited but often come in real handy for doing the little stuff ... I lost a pin in the chip pan on my lathe a couple days ago, the proverbial "needle in a haystack" is a good analogy.    A mini lathe is definitely an asset to have.  One thing about it, no matter what size lathe you have, you'll always need/want one bigger/smaller.  I have a 14x40 w/ 1-9/16" bore that does almost all I need but I'm in negotiations for an old but lightly used 18x144.

If you're looking for a larger one, 3ph machines can usually be had a lot cheaper than 1ph.  There are many different solid state phase converters, I can only speak for the ones I carry, will handle up to 80% of 15Hp and offer the option of variable speed and user-defined time/velocity soft-start on some which give considerable advantage over a motor change and usually at the same, if not less, cost.

Some words of warning when buying an old machine ... just because it's "old" doesn't mean it's worth buying and it's often not worth buying at the price the vast majority of them are priced at.  I looked at many over the past year from a 1913 Hendy the seller wanted $1500 for to a 1980's Okuma priced at $9000 - lacking anything short of a total re-build, neither one was worth more than scrap iron less the hauling & handling costs.  Occasionally you'll find a gem but more often than not, you're buying someone else's problems like the beautiful looking 14x40 LeBlond I went to look at, seller was firm on the $5k price ... once the tailstock, bed and carriage had been replaced, it may have been worth that price but as it sat with better than 0.100" slop all the way around, it was worthless.  What really gets me are those who shell out $1000-$1500 for a 1950/60's zinc gear Atlas with half the gears broken/missing, go on fee-bay and dump another $3-500 for parts then work on it for a month of Sundays only to end up having nothing more than a shined-up #$@*.  Think & inspect before you buy!

[Acer Saccharum]

Good advice, Mark, on oldies not always goodies.

I tend to steer away from the small lathe, because I will always want a bigger one, because it's my business.

But for making screws, rr tips, polishing tumbler trunnions, a small lathe can be the cat's meow. You won't be doing breeching on it, or making bullet molds, but it would be handy as heck for many of the small tasks around the gun shop.

[David Rase]

I have had a 13" x 36" Sheldon lathe with a 1 1/2" spindle hole for about 25 years.  I use it all the time for large and small projects.  A couple of years ago I stumbled across an EMCO (made in Austria) compact 5 lathe.  It was completely tooled with collets, 3 jaw, 4 jaw, face plate, indexing head, milling attachment, xX Y table, rests etc.  I started out using it for lock work and now find myself using it for more and more work every day.  It is such a precision machine though it does have its limitations.  It is amazing how much work you can accomplish with a small bench top lathe.
DMR

There is my bench top lathe set up on the right.  Lathe and drill/mill table mounted together.

[westerner]

I've owned an old Sheldon lathe for about thirty years.  It spent most of it's life at the Fort Lewis small arms shop.

Has a flaming bomb on the bed.  Still does the job.

Made a bullet starter for an old target rifle yesterday.

Buy American.   



              Joe. 

[westerner]

A handy link when looking for an older quality lathe.

http://www.lathes.co.uk/index.html


                                     Joe.

[44-henry]

I own a Protech 7x12 import lathe and it works fine and can be improved if you want to spend the time. In additon to this lathe I also own both the Sherline and Taig and a 10" Delta/Rockwell lathe. The Sherline and Taig are finer quality, but you have to purchase the accessories to do the same functions as the Asian 7" lathes and their capacity, like you mentioned, is only half as much. I have purchased several of the import bench top lathes for our manufacturing program at the University of North Dakota and students generally seem to like them. The bench top lathes are a research interest of mine and I wrote my dissertation on their use in educational settings.

It also pays to be careful about making the claim that all older machine tools are better values as that really isn't always the case. Older tools often require odd tooling that is hard to find and expensive to boot. You also run into issues finding replacement parts and the tools themselves are often severely worn. For every example of a mint Southbend found with all the accessories you will find many more of just plain worn out tools that are going to cost a lot in time and money to restore. I've had plenty of experience with vintage machine tools and generally will recommend a good quality Asian import over many of the vintage machines for a beginner. Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate vintage tools, but you need to make up your mind whether you want to machine parts or restore machines with your time.

[FL-Flintlock]

Good advice, Mark, on oldies not always goodies.

I tend to steer away from the small lathe, because I will always want a bigger one, because it's my business.

But for making screws, rr tips, polishing tumbler trunnions, a small lathe can be the cat's meow. You won't be doing breeching on it, or making bullet molds, but it would be handy as heck for many of the small tasks around the gun shop.

Tom,

The 18x144 I'm after is actually in very good condition, doubt it's got more than 50 hours on it, if that much, the only positive/negative is that it has been almost completely disassembled by someone trying to move it - positive in that it makes it very difficult to sell as-is and it'll sure be easier to move, negative in that it'll require a lot of work to put it all back together again but that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.  I gave-up on the other long-bed I told you about a while back, he's not budging on price and it probably needs more work than putting Humpty Dumpty back together.

The 14x40 is a good intermediate size but like you said, one always finds the need for a bigger one - I was pushing the limits sleeving a pair of axles, an extra 1" sure would have been welcome.  Same thing with spindle bore, 1.375" was good, 1.5625" is better but still limiting.

I can make a good argument for going the other way too because as I've learned the hard way, sometimes medium or small isn't small enough.  I hunted the chip pan for more than hour to find that little pin ...  I'd sure like to have a Taichung mini but they're a bit beyond what my budget will allow.

[Dphariss]

Most used lathes are just that, used.
The best old lathe I ever saw was a P&W tool room lathe, a big one, huge, long gearbox with only about a 30" bed that a friend bought to make bullet moulds. Tight, large dials with  with IIRC .0001 increments probably from the 1950s. But was US Navy originally and apparently never used much if at all.
Lathes used in production on some shop or factory will not be this good. Most will cutr a taper at when they were used most. Just a fact. However, for the person only making one of something this can often be worked around and decent precision maintained. It just takes care in setup. But a job shop/factory etc can't afford this so when repeatability is lost the lathe goes out the door and is replaced.
My Lablond is not perfect but its far, far better than the boat anchor Clausing I had been using. But I still got 1300 for the Clausing and I told the guy it was very loose and was not repeatable.
Buying a lathe would really require running it, ideally, to see what its really like. But this in not an option in most cases.
The person here wanting a lathe for a gunshop is ahead to buy reasonable quality import lathe, new, with a decent size headstock hole and be done with it. But remember that many lathes with different labels, Grizzly, MSC etc are made in the same plant in Taiwan but depending on the badge the price could near double.
Look at the package that comes with the lathe it may or may not vary. You need a 4 jaw independent and a 3 jaw chuck. Quick change tool holders are well worth having. But get holders for a 5/8 tool.

Gotta go to the big city for shopping

Dan

[P.W.Berkuta]

Many years ago I started with a 3" X 18" Sears Atlas with change gears - did fine to play with. Then I traded up to a 10" X 24" Atlas with change gears given to me by the local tech school - this had US property tags on it. I then traded that for a 12" X 36" Jet with gear box which I have now. You can do a lot with what you got but you will be limited by the lathes capacity and your skill. If you just want to make small parts go with a small machine - BUT you will be trying to make BIG parts and end up breaking something and not being able to replace the part then you will be the owner of a "boat anchor". All the imports that I know of do not have harden gears and if you get heavy handed with the gear box you will wipe out the gears (ask me how I know this) -- I had to replace 3 gears in the Jet which I had to have custom made at a cost of $350. You can find a used lathe for a some what "reasonable" price but the owner will want more for it than it is worth - unless it was from a house clean out from someones death then you might get a "buy".
I got 2 three jaw -6" chucks, 2 four jaw chucks, a slew of collets (1/16" to 1-1/8") and a bunch of tool bits and accessories for $800.00 and he delivered it to my house -- that's a buy!!!

[44-henry]

You are right about not having hardened gears, most of the gears in the 7" lates are actually plastic (though there are aftermarket steel ones available). This is really not much of a problem in my experience as the plastic gears act as shear pins and limit damage to the harder to reach and more expensive headstock gears in the event of accidents or operator error. Given reasonable care the plastic gears last a long time and are inexpensive to replace.

[Dphariss]

Its possible to make small parts with a big lathe. But trying make anything of any significant size with a 7" lathe can be frustrating.
I would not think of having a lathe much under 12" unless I could have a big lathe and a small one.
A lathe with a headstock hole large enough got a 1 1/8" barrel or larger makes a lot of things much easier.
Dan

[huntinguy]

I have a TWS branded lathe. It is a Taiwanese lathe. Be careful with these (they are from the early 70's and were sold under more names that I could count). Though it is accurate enough for most things the issue is the spindle threads are metric diameter and SAE pitch. The threading dial locks in too course and it is easy to split threads.

I also have a Enco with cam locks. It has a similar issue with threading. It is similar to the Grizzly 12 inch gap lathe. I have to admit I do like it though.

Both of these lathes are 12x36. The first is belt the second geared head. Both have theirs pros and cons. Pro on both is spindle bore is about 1.75. The belt lathe you have to open the back cover to lock in the thread gears. You can't open the cover if you have a barrel sticking out.

I have run Craftsman (aka Atlas) 10 inch. They are fun to play with. The flat bed ways are not very rigid and they are light. If you take your time you could do much with them. The down side is the spindle bore is small, fine for airgun work but nothing else.

South Bend 9 inch are a good tool room lathe. Easy to change the motor. Later models had tapered bearings, early models had Babbitt. I really enjoyed running them. Accurate, easy to thread with. Bore is too small for barrel work.

IF, and that is a big IF, you could get your hands on a South Bend heavy 10 you would have it by the tail. Head stock is not too long, bore is fine for most barrel work, controls are simplicity.

I understand size is an issue but, anything smaller is just not going to do what you want... unless all you want to do is make screws and flash hole bushings.  I would settle for nothing less than a Atlas 10x24. If you are lucky you can find the milling attachment as well as lots of others. I saw one at a garage sale once. The guy had it fully tooled and built into a nice wooden cabinet. At first I thought it was an old sewing machine... until I lifted the lid and saw the most pristine Atlas I have ever seen.

That brings us to the final (well for now) question... What will you want to do with it? Not what do you want to do with it but look to the future and anything that may be on the list and make sure the lathe will do it.

[FL-Flintlock]

But remember that many lathes with different labels, Grizzly, MSC etc are made in the same plant in Taiwan but depending on the badge the price could near double.
Dan

Actually, the majority of Taiwan-made machines have increased in quality to the point of being on-par with, if not exceeding, any of the top professional machinery brands.  The cheaper/less expensive machines are made in China and the Chinese quality varies greatly according to the machine spec's.  Hardened gears and ways come out of China too, all depends on the spec's provided by the buyer.  Price is not always indicative of the quality level either.  I picked up a 3-jaw mini chuck on a #2MT shank made in China, jaws and shank are super hard and ground dead-on, zero run-out, my cost was around $55 at the wholesale - come to find out the same chuck made in the same plant carrying an American name brand sticker sells for $180, only difference is the price.  Same deal with the 1/2" shank indexable bits, at the wholesale I paid around $80 for a 5pc set that is the same 5pc set selling for $160 with the only difference being the brand name packaging.  Big price difference on the inserts too, the coated carbide I pay around $75/10 while the same exact inserts with nothing more than a different label on the package sells for $185 - all of this stuff comes from the same Chinese mfg's.  Not just Chinese stuff either, take a look at PSA backed sanding discs, there's only three plants that make the common white and gold colored sterate treated aluminum oxide, they come from Finland, Mexico or China and no matter what brand name is on them, they originate in one of those three places.  I sell the ones in the generic box marked with nothing more than "Finland", same exact sanding discs stamped with a brand name and put into a black or white & blue box will cost you and additional $14-28 per roll of 100 discs.  Just a little FYI, the highest quality comes from Finland, Mexico is so-so and China isn't worth buying. 

[lew wetzel]

buying older used machines is not a bad idea for the p.tme gunbuilder or hobbiest..buy larger than so you will not be hindered by size if you need to make something out of the gun realm...u can usually buy old tooling for cheap ...just watch what u buy used....most are whooped with alot of backlash and worn shives on belt drives.i am the plant machinist at the foundry and all my machines are old....never trust the dials but always use a mag.base and indicator your work that way.......they are whooped but i can get good parts off them.......patience and good indicating.....good luck finding what will suit your needs....

[44-henry]

Grizzly's  G4003G Gunsmith lathe has got a lot of positive reviews from folks that have run it. Take a look at that machine if you really want to get into something bigger (just in case a mint Southbend doesn't make itself available). If you want to spend a bit more look at the Grizzly G0709. Asian machines in this price range are far from junk and they come with a warranty and ready source of spare parts if you need them in the future.

There are some folks that just get all riled up when anybody suggests that they buy anything but American Made. Unfortunately in the machine tool market (and most others I guess) there aren't a lot of options. South Bend Lathes are still being made, but the kicker is they are made in Taiwan (I guess the heavy steel stands are still manufactured here if that counts for anything). The only other lathes that I know for a fact are made in this country are the small Sherline and Taig (might be more but I don't know of them). I do know that the newer manufacture, better middle cost tools made in Asia (mostly Taiwan) are good quality and are perfectly adequate for most machining jobs a hobbyist is likely to do.