Metal lathe

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Chris Bar

Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
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243
Location
Tennessee
Considering adding a small metal lathe to shop but have never used one. HF has several but have no idea if they should be left at the store or might do small stuff ok. Available are an 8x12 precision, 7x12 and 7x10 mini's and a 4x5 micro. Prices with a coupon seem to be ok, if they are decent pieces of machinery, but have much better use for funds if they are junk though. I generally stay away from HF equipment but sometimes, for some unknown reason, I insist on taking chances. Any specific experience with these?
Chris
 
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I wanted the 7x12 HF mini but wound up with the 7x10 because they had it in stock and simply could not wait for an ordered unit. The lathe is working out fine, it's big enough to handle the small jobs I have for it and small enough not to take up to much space. There was very little adjustment to the lathe out of the box and it works great. I have lots to learn.... LOTS TO LEARN! But eventually I hope to be able to put out pens as nice as skippy and his calibur of artists.
 
If you want to learn how to run a lathe there is a book called "How to run a lathe" by South Bend that is suppose to be vary good do a web search and a pfd comes up, I thought it was hard to read, also there are a few web sites out there that deal with home shop machining that can help with the HF lathes and some of the problems you may encounter also look on Yahoo groups I belive there is a group for the 7X12 lathes. I am lucky I have a Logan lathe a Bridgeport mill, and a horizontal mill and know how to use them with out hurting my self, be careful even a small metal lathe can hurt you if your not careful.
http://www.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_use_a_lathe.htm
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/
http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/default.php
 
One advantage of the 7x lathes is that the parts are interchangeable with most of the other 7x lathes on the market (Grizzly, ToolsNow, Enco, MicroMark etc). As a result, aftermarket add-ons are more available.
 
Was reading the above reference reagrding the HF 7x12 which stated that the speed gears are nylon. If this is correct I can do without the HF even with a 20% coupon. Thanks for all the information. Will be contacting Grizzly for specifics on their metal lathe.
 
Chris Bar said:
Was reading the above reference reagrding the HF 7x12 which stated that the speed gears are nylon. If this is correct I can do without the HF even with a 20% coupon. Thanks for all the information. Will be contacting Grizzly for specifics on their metal lathe.
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I was reading on the Micro mark site, and I believe that you can purchase metal gears that "may" fit the other metal lathes of the same size. Not sure, but you may want to look that one up too.
 
Chris Bar said:
Was reading the above reference reagrding the HF 7x12 which stated that the speed gears are nylon. If this is correct I can do without the HF even with a 20% coupon. Thanks for all the information. Will be contacting Grizzly for specifics on their metal lathe.
Click to expand...

Chris; Many of the Mini lathes have one plastic gear used as a sacrificial gear. The idea is that the gear will break before something more expensive.
Nylon gears have the advantage that they are self lubing,
 
check littlemachineshop.com to see if they have upgrade kits for the gears. they have upgrades for everything else on the little monsters. Warning you can triple the actual out of pocket cost of your lathe in short order this way. Nice place to know about though.
 
That Plastic gear is their idea of a shear pin, Most larger lathes use a shear pin in the drive /lead screw so that if too much force/pressure is generated against the drive/feed, the pin will shear, I've sheared 2 of those gears in 10 years of owning a Jet 9X20 and I think it gets far more severe use than any rational person would attempt. like turning 3 inch Stainless taking .040 cuts in 416 OOOps . The worst problem with the entire 7x series of chinese lathes is their DC converter system for the variable spindle speed, but for the money, and since it's hard to find any good Boxford or Emco Maier lathes at a reasonable price, even a Myford is an excellent machine,
 
Sacrificial gear, that makes sense. Now if I can get over the hurdle of the final metal lathe costing three times the store price to make it work right...I'll have a new 7x12. I keep thinking of new stuff I can do with a metal lathe....thanks.
 
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