More stupid questions about metal lathes

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aggromere

aggromere

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I've been researching for a couple months now about metal lathes and have decided to get one.

I really like the Micromark one, it has metal gears (i think that is good, maybe not) and you can get it with digital readouts installed (is that worth having).

I have looked at the grizzly's, the sherline's and others and now I saw a mini metal lathe from Proxxon at woodcrafters. Never seen that before. Anyone have one?

Also, one lathe I was reading info on said it would only cut threads left handed. Is that important?

I guess my main question is, Do all lathes come from China? It seems they make almost everything I can find on the internet.

Just looking to gossip a little about metal lathes, I will probably get the micromark one, but they are currently out of stock.
 
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Depends, Are you left handed?

Seriously, I think most make only right handed threads which is the norm, So a left hand thread lathe will be very limited in matching existing items. I don't recall ever seeing any that can cut both thread directions. At least none below the $10k mark.

Many of the similar sized lathes from different brands are nearly identical in castings and what not. They may have a slightly different motor, or have tighter specs, but the basics are the same among many of them at each size level. Most are made in China if not all.
 
I'm not sure if they all come from China, but at least 90% of them are made in the same factory in China. By the way that factory is called Sieg and you can see it here: http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_lathe/Sieg/Sieg.htm They get painted different colours and have different names put on them (i.e. Grizzly, Harbour Freight, etc.) and some of them have different options installed but they are essentially the same lathe.
 
DRO are a very big plus. you can get away without them but they make life a whole lot easier.
 
Russianwolf said:
Depends, Are you left handed?

Seriously, I think most make only right handed threads which is the norm, So a left hand thread lathe will be very limited in matching existing items. I don't recall ever seeing any that can cut both thread directions. At least none below the $10k mark.

Many of the similar sized lathes from different brands are nearly identical in castings and what not. They may have a slightly different motor, or have tighter specs, but the basics are the same among many of them at each size level. Most are made in China if not all.
Click to expand...


any lathe that cuts right handed threads can cut them left handed if you can turn the tool 180' so it cuts the other side of your part...(you also have to flip the tool over)

just to let you know......
have fun
 
Here are some web sites with info on metal working, do a search on them and you should be able to read for a month, from what I have seen the small 7X lathe are all the same externally, but may be different internally, gears are OK as long as you don't crash the lathe, gears break or strip, belts slip, some gear head lathes have a plastic gear that is replaceable after a crash.

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php
http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/default.php
http://www.freelabs.com/~whitis/ebooks/index.xhtml
http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=7X+lathe
 
austing458 said:
any lathe that cuts right handed threads can cut them left handed if you can turn the tool 180' so it cuts the other side of your part...(you also have to flip the tool over)

just to let you know......
have fun
Click to expand...

Call me feeble minded, but that doesn't make sense to me. If you rotate 180 and flip the tool, you'll be turning the same as before, just on the opposite side.
 
Russianwolf said:
Call me feeble minded, but that doesn't make sense to me. If you rotate 180 and flip the tool, you'll be turning the same as before, just on the opposite side.
Click to expand...

If you flip the tool over and spin the part in reverse, the leadscrew will spin in the opposite direction and thus you cut left hand threads.

I would suspect that the carriages on the little lathes might not hold accuracy when the cut tries to lift the carriage instead of push it down against the ways.

A better solution is to make a tumbler reverse mod to make the leadscrew spin in the opposite direction (typically needed on 9x20 lathes which often lack a reverse)
 
No stupid questions. I've had mine for about 8 months and am just starting to use it daily.

The micromark says it's got newly designed elements, and the digital spindle speed read out looks spiffy, but I doubt I'd use it if I had it. Frankly, it is almost identical in appearance to my Enco. The spindle gears are metal, but the interchangeable gears are plastic.

I think it's a question of how much you want to spend, and how you honestly anticipate using it. As soon as I got my 7x10 I wished I had gotten longer. There was a pretty log learning curve for me since I hadn't used a metal lathe since 7th grade and for the first few moths all I made was swarf.

I wound up spending $399 for the lathe from Enco (worth waiting for the 20% off everything sales), then added the Little Machine Shop's bed extension for about $120 about a month ago, making it 7x14 for much less than a 7x14 out of the box. Now it does everything I want. You can read my review of installing the bed extension from LMS at http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=64769.

Plan on spending a bunch on accessories almost immediately (quick change tool post, bits, precision protractor, boring bars, cutoff tool and holder, maybe a four jaw chuck, bunch of other stuff). Little Machine Shop has a package of little upgrades that really improve the user friendliness of the small lathes. Also, plan to get Jose Rodriguez' 4 hour DVD on using the lathe, although that's not the only instruction you'll want. I also got his DVD on grinding tool bits and a couple of books used on Amazon. Also, spend a good amount of time on www.mini-lathe.com, and plan on joining the 7x12 Yahoo User Group.

In all, it's a significant investment but I have to say that I can do things on it I can't possibly to on the wood lathe, and I'm glad I bought it.

My wife, on the other hand, just rolls her eyes. :-)

Doug
 
Just remember, bigger lathes (and tools in general) allow you to do things that others can't, so a small differential in price can easily be overcome by making parts not easily possible before. Never skimp on a machine tool when it can earn you money. I had a $7000 day today. That would not have been possible with lesser machines.
 
I appreciate all the good feedback and info and after long consternation I just bought the mini metal lathe from the little machine shop. I ended up spending about 1200 bucks. But I think I got everything I need to get started. I will post pic's when it gets here.
 
I stumbled across one of these bad boys when a business partnership went sour. Now for your reality check......tooling made the price of this machine look like pocket change. Mind you this is both a lathe and a mill, so there are some extras I bought that would not be used for a straight lathe. I make a ton of jigs, fixtures and gadgets for my pen turning, as well as, other things I do around my shop. It's a piece of equipment that I now consider part of my arsenal and would never part with it. The cost of having things fabricated and machined by someone else will pay for this machine in a very short time.

And yes....it's made in China....:(

Grizzly Combo Lathe Mill G9729

Dave
 
Once you climb that capability ladder, you never climb back down. It's very cool when you can start using them like Dave says as part of your arsenal to do the trick stuff that you would normally have to pay others to do.

Need a pulley? Make one!
 
I forgot to add a downside to my lathe/mill or those much the same. They do not have digital read out and this requires you to know exactly what your doing and how to compensate for the backlash of the machine. A few mistakes though and you will figure it out quickly.

BTW....my tooling cost me almost twice the value of the lathe as advertised on the Grizzly site. And there are still a lot of extras I would love to own yet. Most of my tooling was bought through reputable machine shop supply stores.......not from places like Little Machine Shop dot com, Harbor Freight, Grizzly or Busy Bee here in Canada.

Word of warning....you get what you pay for. Some of the lathes on the market have plastic gears and if you stop to think about this, your turning down metal. How long do you expect the plastic parts to last? A good example of this is Harbor Freight and a few of their lathes. I know......I used to own one of their lathes and a mill....the mini versions.

Small lathe = small cuts = a lot of time.

Dave
 
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