Hi all.
My father will travel (orchestra tour) to China and will visit Beijing, Nanning, Liuzhou, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hangzhou and back to Beijing.

So I am trying to look at this as an opportunity to bring a micro or a mini lathe. (I live in Mexico btw).

There are some lathes that I have seen and I like their form factor, the Cowells lathes, I know those are exeptionaly well built machines and they come at a premium price so I guess finding similar quality in china will be difficult. I guess I can settle with a moderate good quality.

http://www.cowells.com/images/90MECLIP.JPG 90ME lathe.
The 90ME lathe weights about 22kg and I hope there are micro lates in that weight range so it could be brought in the return flight.

So if anyone knows about getting this kind of a lathe in China please communicate. If there is anything elese what could be brought from China, advise as well.

Thanks .
Konstantin.

P.S. Ah , I would like that the lathe had a thread cutting capability.

Just adding thread cutting to a lathe adds extra weight, something to consider.

As to the lathe in the picture I've never seen it before. Looks like it is designed to address the watch makers market, thus MIGHT be better quality than some of the cheaper chinese lathes.

That being said my advice is to start searching the internet for chinese machine tools. A lot of interesting stuff never gets imported into the USA. Mexico I don't know about, so I can't help there. In any event some time ago I did find a Chinese web site, apparently government runned, that had links to many manufactures. Unfortunately that was some time ago. Enjoy the web though you might want to set up your browser to indicate english as a language preference, some ot the chinese site offer little in the way of translation. the ones that do are often limited to really poor english tranlations.


Personally I'd go for a larger lathe and simply have it shipped home. Agian don't know how that works in Mexico but there is likely to be taxes. The problem is that the large crates make it hard to ship as luggage.

Dave

China produces mini lather
Feature:
Safety magnetic switch
Variable speed 150-3000rpm
Strong power motor 350W
Power feed & hand feed

Standard Accessories:

3-jaw chuck
Dead center MT1
Change gears
Hexagon wrench
Spanner
Splash guard
Chip tray

Optional Accessories:

Steady rest
Follow rest
Stand
Turning tools 8X8mm
Live center MT1
ER16 collet holder
ER16 collet chuck
Face plate 100mm
4-jaw chuck
Back plate
Oil gun

Try this site.
Link to China suppliers (http://chinasuppliers.alibaba.com/)
China Supplier Lathe search (http://chinasuppliers.alibaba.com/search/china_products.html?SearchText=lathe&IndexArea=product_en)

super small CNC precision lathe
How about some thing that is so small you could take it back as hand luggage, Machine Base Size 150 x 100 mm
Max. Cutting Length 10 mm, Max. Chucking Diameter 5 mm

http://www.nanowave.co.jp/products/mts2_e.html
james

That's going to be a lot of hassle if you ask me. Why don't you just drive up to SoCal and check out the machinery yourself? There are far greater advantages for you by doing this.

Check in the net for surplus equipment or China Machinery importers in the said area or check the yellow pages when you get to San Diego. You may even learn something from talking to the dealers directly plus language barrier problems will be minimal when the time comes that you may need service or parts.