I am looking for the absolutely best mini lathe (and mill) money can buy. I am looking for a lathe which can hold tolerances of +/- 0.0005" for my small parts. The Proxxon Benchtop PD 230 E lathe and Proxxon Benchtop 3D Mill FF 230 seems to fit the bill. Both are about $1000 each. The lathe is size of Homier, but it concerns me that it's weight is only 30 lbs.

Any Proxxon lathe users out there?

I would really apprecaite any help. Thanks

Wahid

Maybe I'm a little off base here but a $1000 each for those machiens seems a bit stiff. especially for 30lbs of metal.

The big issue iw that you have not indicated what you are intrested in doing. The lathes might be fine for pens but not likely to produce dune buggy parts. The best lathe isn't defined by cost (atleast at first) but by the requirements at hand.

If you are looking to work on micro type parts then a Sherline of Tiag might be a good choice. A slightly large lathe could easily be justified though.

When it comes to larger lathes at this point you have the chinese low cost units and then a few others at much higher cost.

As to the lathe weight, certaily 30 lbs is an issue if you expect to machine large parts. That doesn't mean though that there aren't satissfied Proxxon users out there.

Dave


I am looking for the absolutely best mini lathe (and mill) money can buy. I am looking for a lathe which can hold tolerances of +/- 0.0005" for my small parts. The Proxxon Benchtop PD 230 E lathe and Proxxon Benchtop 3D Mill FF 230 seems to fit the bill. Both are about $1000 each. The lathe is size of Homier, but it concerns me that it's weight is only 30 lbs.

Any Proxxon lathe users out there?

I would really apprecaite any help. Thanks

Wahid

Good advice from Dave.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but...
You question is pretty meaningless, as it implies a lack of experience.

The best small lathe that money can buy is probably something like a Hardinge as you can't substitute for mass and rigidity, but if you are cutting long thin parts in drill rod, you will still get flex in the part of more than 0.0005", unless you start adding your skill and experience. At that stage it is the skill of the operator rather than the quality of the machine which determines the quality of the end product.

If you take the time to do all the mods and improvments to a chinese lathe, you will probably end up wih a more capable machine than the Proxxon, as it will be more massive. You will then have more experience to determine your needs and ablities.

When considering cost, the basic price of the lathe will be dwarfed by the cost of tooling.

OK.

To be more specific, I am looking for a small lathe which can turn 2” diameter aluminum and up to 3” in length. I don’t want a cheap machine and poor build quality and slop everywhere on moving parts. I was at Harbor Freight and looking at the mini lathe. A guy walks over said he bought the same one and after all of the fixes, it still had .006” taper when he turned 1” in length.

I am a mechanical engineer and I buy machines worth over million dollars for my company. I know what precision is and I am looking for a small lathe which can make accurate small parts. Please see the article link below.

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/100402.html

Wahid

Hi Wahid,

That helps. 2" diameter parts 3" long are really not that small.

While these model lathes can turn stuff this size, the very low motor power drives you to taking untold fine cuts.

If you have the space for it, something like a Hardinge/Myford/Emco will turn this size parts with better surface finish, faster than a hobby lathe can. I would certainly not have bought a 7x lathe were it not for space constraints.

Interesting that the guy put you off the 7x mini lathe. Headstock alignment is one of the (few) bright spots in Siegs quality control. You will find few complaints about headstock alignment on the mini lathe sites. Mine is very well aligned:

http://www.wrathall.com/Interests/machining/Alignment_check2.htm

Accuracy is not one of the limitations of the mini-lathe in my opinion. I can turn bearing shaft to within a 0.0001", but there I am using my skills rather than anything inherent in the machine. You must note that I learnt these skills from Swede and his Hardinge won't do this inherently either.
http://www.5bears.com/cnc16.htm

For boring, or turning long skinny parts, it is flex in the boring bar or work which will be limiting accuracy, not the machine.

I bet Swede's lathe can hog down a 3" diameter to a 2" diameter feature a hell of a lot faster than my mini-lathe. or a taig or sherline, or Proxxon can.

Here is the best data on different lathes.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/index.html

Thanks for the info.

I have four bedroom house and one of the rooms on second floor is my hobby room. That is why I need a small lathe.

I like the fact that Homier's 7x12 lathe weight is almost 3x the Proxxon. Would I be better off by putting in little work on Homier to make it "more accurate" then Proxxon?

The show room Homier has a lot of slop on the slide. Can I eliminate it?

I also have access to a machine shop who will make any part needed to make the lathe better.

Wahid

One more thing. I am also considering the Lathemaster 8x14 lathe. Is it really a good lathe?

Wahid

since money was no object you should go for the Swiss made Scaublin lathes
http://www.smsa.ch/pl-102b-e.html you cant go much better than this.

Schaublin lathes differ from more common engine lathes in that they do not have a carriage feed hence no threading.

The machines are the model 70 and 102 plain turning lathes. These small super precision lathes have a very strong following among watch and precision instrument makers.

Wahid

The hardware and tool stores that I have seen selling these chinese machine tools seem to let real idiots set them up for display. Normally the machine comes covered in red grease, with some casting sand in the nooks and crannies, and all the handles and knobs either reversed or removed. It would seem a no brainer to me to take a half an hour to set up and adjust the machine to be some what representive of it's out of the box potential. Sadly this seems to be asking too much, as normally the machine feels like a real piece of junk.

The slop in the cross slide of the 7X is normally from two "features". The cross slide nut is designed to be tilted with a set screw in the middle and two retaining screws to remove the backlash.

The second feature causing backlash is the lack of a decent thrust bearing set up. Just lapping the standoff can address this, but a better solution is to add bearings to the standoff.

http://www.mini-lathe.com/

I can't give you a qualified comparison to the proxxon or lathe master 8x14 because I have never used them. You really don't see much info on the Proxxon's n the web. The lathemaster 8x14 has a pretty dedicated following.

Do you get many Emco Compact 8 and compact 5's in the states? The compact 8 was supposedly the lathe the chinese copied for all those 9x and 8x models.

Anout 20 years ago, Prazi had a booth at the IMTS show and, even though I was working a booth at the show, I took some time to look over their machines. At that time, they were pretty darn good quality machines, FAR better than the stuff you are seeing today that looks like a machine, but really isn't.

That was over 20 years ago and I have no idea what they are like today, could be made in china now too for all I know. But atleast they are worth a look see.

Chris

You mentioned you were looking for a mill as well. Try this:

http://www.minitech.com/hardware/mills/mini-mill_4/mini_mill_4_index.htm

sheck out the lathe CNC ZONE member 'Stevie' is making.. it's awesome.. I saw it running last night... he has a thread in here somewhere. he has really documented it well, and it will be very powerful.

Hi All
A couple of comments, firstly if you are looking at machines that have slop in them, and at doing work on them to “tighten things up” then they are unlikely to be a machine suitable to hold +/-0.0005”, which is a fairly tight tolerance. I have an Emco, a Hardinge and a Colchester and for me on the smaller jobs the Hardinge, wins hands down over the smaller lighter machines. Rather than look at the hobby machines (no disrespect to anyone) look at second hand industrial machines. There is no such thing as a machine which is too rigid, however a machine which is not quite rigid enough for the job you are doing is next to useless.

I also strongly agree with the earlier comments that it is not just the machine, but the operator as well which matters when you are holding tight tolerances. Silly things like heat build up in the headstock and/or job can create tapers on long jobs or dimensional changes on multiple parts.

Thanks for the info.

I have four bedroom house and one of the rooms on second floor is my hobby room. That is why I need a small lathe.

Well that is a huge limitation as far as being able to put a used industrial machine up there. You simply will not get the best performance out of a precision lathe without a stable surface to mount it on. The other limitation is weight, an industrial machine that is suitably stiff will not stay up there long unless you have a very well constructed house. So I'd ignore some reccomendations to go the industrial route and accept some limitations.

All is not lost though, as you seem to have described needs else where that would indicate that a small bench top lathe would do the job for you. The question becomes how small is acceptable. I'm going to suggest nothing less than a 9x20 in the chinese variants.


I like the fact that Homier's 7x12 lathe weight is almost 3x the Proxxon. Would I be better off by putting in little work on Homier to make it "more accurate" then Proxxon?

As far as I know the small lathes all come from the same country and are all built for a price. All of them require some work to get performance where one would expect it to be. As to the Proxxon I don't think it can do what you want from the description you give. I'm not even sure that a 7" lathe of any manufacture would be your best choice. Especially when the 9" lathes are not that much expensive.


The show room Homier has a lot of slop on the slide. Can I eliminate it?

Well I don't know about specifics of that lathe but there are a few things to consider. First is that the machines all require set up out of the box. This is pretty much true of any machine purchased, but maybe is more extensive with respect to the imports.

Second if you have the ability these lathes can be tuned to be significantly better than they are out of the box. That implies having the mechanical skills and possibly access to other machine tools to in effect rebuild the machine into a better tool.


I also have access to a machine shop who will make any part needed to make the lathe better.

That is a good thing in my estimation as it implies that you can fix anything that MIGHT be an issue. Strong emphasis on might as you may find the lathe far better than expected.

In any event I'd suggest looking at some of the mini lathe and 9x20 lathe sites on the web. Here you will find info on how to address a number of issues specific to the different models available. Here I'm talking about things such as the cross slide clamp on a 9x20 and such. There are a number of things that are considered must dos and a lot more that are nice dooos.


Wahid

Now I've gone on at length about the chinese 9x20's simply because I see them as bargains. That is all well and good but they certianly aren't the best offerings in that size class. If you have the money, seriously consider a Myford lathe! Still a bench top unit but far closer to ready to run out of the box. Just be prepared for the sticker shock. IF I remember correctly the swing is a bit less (more like a 7" lathe) but is a solid offering otherwise.

Also consider that if you expect to run the spindle in reverse or experiment with CNC then the 9x20 might not to the trick. The issue is the screw on chucks. They are less than optimal for the above usages. But that is for specfic usage of the spindle. Many of the 7" lathes are much better in this respect.

Dave

Schaublin lathes differ from more common engine lathes in that they do not have a carriage feed hence no threading.

The machines are the model 70 and 102 plain turning lathes. These small super precision lathes have a very strong following among watch and precision instrument makers.

Wahid

This one have carriage feed and threading capabilites http://www.smsa.ch/pl-102vm-e.html :D

Hi All
Just a small point, Industrial does not necessarily mean big and heavy. It means machines that are designed to run 8 hours a day, five days a week, for years without wearing out. Boxford, Myford, Emco Denford Wabeco and other manufactures do or did, produce machines like this. Typically they weigh in between about 90 and 350 lbs. My point is that you can get a solid accurate machine that even if slightly worn will produce good results, rather than getting a light weight machine tool, that you will have to spend time and effort on in order to do what you brought it for.

Wahid, if money is no object, there is no finer small toolroom lathe than a Hardinge (a Rolls Royce of small lathes), it will be heavier but you will have the best, take a look on ebay you can buy a good one reconditioned, I say reconditioned with tongue in cheek, I have used one for over twenty years and it was at least 20/30 years old at that time and used every day, and I can say if the machine has not been abused it will need very little reconditioning, maybe a paint job at the most,

You get what you pays for,.....................Edmund......................




I am looking for the absolutely best mini lathe (and mill) money can buy. I am looking for a lathe which can hold tolerances of +/- 0.0005" for my small parts. The Proxxon Benchtop PD 230 E lathe and Proxxon Benchtop 3D Mill FF 230 seems to fit the bill. Both are about $1000 each. The lathe is size of Homier, but it concerns me that it's weight is only 30 lbs.

Any Proxxon lathe users out there?

I would really apprecaite any help. Thanks

Wahid

I would check into wabeco, otherwise I own a taig, its worth every ounce and dollar I have invested into it, truth be known a good machine cannot hold a good toelrance unless the operator knows how to hold it, a bad machine to some extent can hold a tight tolerance if the operator is good.

chris

A site that i find really helpful when looking for a lathe as it gives info on all different makes and where to get hold of them from is http://www.findamachine.com/ It also gives you specifications on 1000s of lathes (http://www.findamachine.com/lathes).



Rachel

Here's a site that has reviews on 7x mini, proxxon pd400, taig micro, and 8x14 lathemaster. He also has some mini mill reviews, along with other tool reviews.

http://thms.tedatum.com/

Look under the workshop pulldown menu.

Good luck with your search,
Jack

Hello.
Try this site. After reading this review I purchased a Harbor Freight 8x12 lathe.
Yours,
Al
www.annisquamgranite.com-ReviewHome.htm

Those Schaublin's really look nice but @ 1300# definately not a fit for a bedroom.

Given the space, and after a little thought, and I have enough money to buy one based on the exchange rate, I would buy a Myford, they are on the edge of being able to be handled by a couple of guys(for beer and pizza of course) and they are as far as machine excellent, plus they have t-slots all over the place which makes them very much like a larger taig(or vs versa I suppose). The attachemnts avaliable for them rivals a southbend or atlas and they are made with qaulity in mind. You can easily turn it into a dividing head and mill which are very usable.

chris

One of the nicest lathes I have seen is a German made Wabeco but it is not cheap. I have my eyes on one and had a little play at an exhibition it was beatifully finished, its smallish with a 2hp motor, but weighs about 130lbs.
In the UK its just over £2000. Just over 3 times the price of a Chinese lathe

Clive

Hi. I went ahead and purchased the Harbor Freight 8x12", it is a Chinese built mini-lathe but it has been given extremely good reviews all over the internet. I have never operated a lathe before but this lathe and help from forums have allowed me to start up safely and start cutting chips. I can recommend this lathe but one has to consider my inexperience before they commit. I am in the process of making a steady rest and a follower rest and tap & die tools for my lathe - it is great fun and education.
Yours,
Al Fiallos

I have a customer that purchased a WABECO CC-D6000Ehs from us about 2 years ago to develop & manufacture model airplane landing gear parts.
Business is doing very well and he now replaced his WABECO with a $70,000 HAAS lathe.
He states that the HAAS holds tolerances down to 0.00002". BUT he states that he has to admid that the WABECO lathe was holding about the same tolerances!

Markus Menig
MDA Precision

That is a pretty interesting tolerance 0.00002 ?

Have someone ever used paxton/patterson training centre lathe?Please let me know all about it.Thanks

I have to call shenanigans on a Haas holding twenty millionths. Plenty of specialized lathes will hold those tolerances, but Haas ain't one of them. Even trying to measure .00002" is iffy unless you've got the proper facilities to do so, and I'm confident in saying that no model airplane builder has the equipment to check anything to .00002" with anything resembling a degree of certainty.

no model airplane builder has the equipment to check anything to .00002" with anything resembling a degree of certainty.

.......and whats wrong with a rule and a 2x magnifying glass? lol

Not a darn thing! Centuries of effective use of those two implements are on record.

It's just that very few rulers are graduated in .00002. =)

totally agree, 00002" is nonsense. There are way to many experienced people here to see that post and not take exception. Breath hard on that part and there goes your measurement. Take away one of these zeros and I will say it is possible and even then .0002" is exceptional. Was this maybe a typo error?
Steve

Hi everyone, first post for me here...

What would you recommend for someone looking for a cheaper machine than a Wabeco but better built than a chinese? I'm having hard time finding any "benchtop" <250lbs good machine cheaper than a Wabeco that is not hated on what I read on the internet...

Thanks

As much as I hate to say it, the Wabeco is the BEST benchtop lathe for the money. Unless you need the ABSOLUTE precision of a Schaublin, the power & reliability of the Wabeco is unsurpassed. I've done my homework on all the available brands, the retrofits, the "improvements"...and dollar for dollar the Wabeco is the best benchtop lathe around. Hell, I don't even own one, but I have used several and have acquaintances who own them. They're almost impossible to find used...search eBay or Craigslist. The reason for that isn't because no one would be interested in a used Wabeco, but because the Wabeco owners aren't interested in "upgrading" their equipment. It's just that good.

In Europe they're used as production machines. I'm sure that those in Europe can purchase a Wabeco for far less than I can purchase one in the US. Here a CC-6000e HighSpeed Wabeco Lathe would cost me $14,500 out of the box. No tooling, no accessories. But I could also put that machine to work TODAY and make that money back by the end of January simply by taking on all the small jobs that the shops around here are backlogged on. I could purchase two and pay them both off by February. I have considered it many times. The only drawbacks to me are the weight (which directly affects rigidity) and through bore. The ability to turn something occasionally in the 1.5-1.625" range would be VERY nice, due to some of the overflow work in my area that I could pick up. Without that, it would be several weeks of feast and a few of famine.

Or this-

http://www.cnczone.com/classifieds/showproduct.php/product/1646/cat/4

I even have a 2 axis DRO and servo motor if you want to make a package deal...

So the best is the schaublin, and the second best is the wabeco.
In class of small lathes, price not issue but quality, under 300 kg, for smallish parts.

Does anyone have prices ?

I looked for the schaublin prices but could not find anything.

Im in europe, but for these price levels of machinery you can get it shipped from anywhere to anywhere, shipping is relatively cheap.

Anyone have a price list for schaublin ?

Anyone know of any other high-precision small lathes ?

You could probably email these folks for pricing on Schaublins-

http://www.smsa.ch/pl-e.html

As for other high precison small lathes take a look at Emco (not Enco). They also made some very nice small mills (as mentioned earlier).

Finding something in the price range of your initial post that will realistically hold half a thousandth is going to be a tough row to hoe. Keep in mind many manufacturers claims to accuracy (especially lightweight machines) are given under absolutely ideal conditions and rarely could they consistently achieved. IMHO...

Here's a schaublin 102 :
http://www.thomabv.com/details.asp?kenteken=sch1

The price is without VAT. : 7500 Euro.

The txt is in dutch and it doesn't say what's included for the price.
I even doubt it's new, it could be revised.

I worked on schaublins, back in school, and IMHO they are the best.