HF Metal Lathe

[Stevej72]

I was over at Harbor Freight yesterday and they had a metal lathe on Sale for $360, I think it was 7 x 12. Has anyone had any experience with one? It really wanted to come home with me yesterday, but I thought I would check it out a little first. Thanks!

 

[skiprat]

Steve, I don't know anything about that particular lathe, but it sounds like a bargain to me. My metal lathe is somewhat bigger than that but I'm very glad I got one. Depending of course what you intend doing with it, here is what I considered before buying.

1. Unless you have loads of money to spare, most of the metal lathes available are Chinese clones of well established brands. At first this put me off. Now I'm quite happy.

2. What accessories are available? Can you get a decent 4 jaw chuck?
Are the morse tapers standard? Spares and service? Can you get a vertical slide vice for it?

Edit in; Here's a link to his site. Although primarily for a 9x20, there is loads of cool ideas.
http://bedair.org/9x20.html

3. Tool post. Will it accept 'better' quality bits than the cheap starters that you often get with it?

But all being said, the ability to make bushes or even your own kits is a great reason to get one. Go for it.[] I have mentioned this guy before, but google Steve Bedair. He has an awesome site and great links to other sites. There is nothing worth knowing about metal lathes that you can't find there. []

 

[skiprat]

Thats strange????? No matter how many times I tried, when I added the link, it kept putting it in the middle of my reply[:0][?]

 

[Stevej72]

Hi Steven, Thanks for the reply. I did go to that guys site and look. It sounds like he is happy with his 9X20. I'll have to go back over to HF and compare the two. Space is becoming more limited in my shop, and along with the cost difference I would like to get the 7X12.

 

[btboone]

I have a similar one from Enco. It's about what you would expect. It can do just about anything the larger ones can do, but has to take lighter cuts. The drive belt is pretty thin, so I would expect it to break with some use. All of the handles and clearances are smaller, so it takes getting used to. If the choice is between this and not having a metal lathe, it is definitely worth the gain in capability. Not quite as handy as a larger lathe, but definitely better than no metal lathe.

 

[bgray]

I second Bruces comments, but I'll add....

Think about going up to a 7 x 14 if you are going to stay in this 7" range. If you plan on drilling with this lathe, you'd be surprised how much space your drill chuck takes up on that little lathe.

Then you put a drill bit in that chuck, and you are pretty limited. The extra 2" is well worth it.

 

[jcollazo]

Check out http://www.littlemachineshop.com Their primary purpose is to support these mini metal lathes. You'll find a chart there that list the lathes side by side. The interesting thing is that of the models listed, which includes the HF, They're all made in one of two factories in China and the parts are, for the most part, interchangeable.

 

[Glass Scratcher]

You may also want to look at:

http://www.fignoggle.com/index.htm

http://www.7xlathes.com/

 

[splinter99]

I work for HFT and have sold many of them, The people that buy them are always happy with them as I have never had one returned..We have a school about 10 minutes from here that teaches special effects for horror movies (Run by Tom Savinni)(Bet you didnt know that Pittsburgh is a horror movie mecca)They just bought 3 of them for making glass eyeballs and I sold one to one of there past students for the same reason..He told me "If you have seen an eyeball in a recent horror movie, chances are it was made on the HFT mini lathe..Im thinking about getting one soon myself

 

[drferry]

I recently purchased a Shop Fox M1016 10" X 20" metal lathe from utterguystools on eBay. The lathe is made in China, but seems to be of excellent quality.

Let the buyer beware, however, that this thing comes in a crate on a pallet and has to be shipped by truck. The truck could not get up my twisty driveway and I had to to go to the depot and have it fork-lifted into a friend's brand-new GMC Denali. I'm glad he wasn't with me! The thing weighs 397 lbs, not including the crate, so i had to knock the crate off still in the car and then 5 of us muscled it out onto its table which we had up on a dolly.

Now comes the really hard part, however. I haven't used a metal lathe since I took a metal machines class in college. I am thinking of taking a night class for some refreshing.

It is my goal to start on turning brass candlestick parts to fit to wooden turned pieces, since it seems the cast brass candlestick parts are no longer available. Then I would like to start turning pen parts when I have a little more experience.

Is there a forum that more specifically deals with metal lathing? Does anyone have stuff they have made this way? I can't find much by doing a search.

David R Ferry<b></b><b></b>

 

[Randy_]

Originally posted by drferry
<br />.....Is there a forum that more specifically deals with metal lathing? Does anyone have stuff they have made this way? I can't find much by doing a search.

Widen your search a little. I'm sure there are forums dealing with the subject of metal lathe work.

IIRC, there is a forum on Yahoo devoted to making metal pens; but i don't think they are real active? Someone will be along shortly with more details....it is not an area that I pay much attention to.