Hi, I am about to purchase my first lathe and needed some guidance as to what would be the better choice. I am looking for something in the range of 19+ inches between centers, and at least a 3/4" spindle bore. I think I have narrowed down my choices to a Jet, Grizzly, Central machinery or Prazi. I converted an import mill to CNC and I don't want to have to mess with the lathe like that to get it accurate and repeatable. I want a good lathe out of the box as I see no need for a CNC lathe. Can anyone give me some lathe advice? Thanks. Oh, and rate quality by $ amount please. I know Prazi's rock, but $3600.00. Ouch!!!

There is a russian late/mill combo machining centre called ERTEN.
Looks great but I havent seen any info on that lathe on the web. Home page looks broken.

Prazi looks nice, german made. Expensive too.
Check out http://www.mini-lathe.com/ review's section. Not quite 19" but you can get an idea on quality.


Konstantin

Thanks, that site helped. It seems that Prazi is the only one here that makes a unique lathe. The rest are all copycats.

The Emco's are also good quality & accurate...

Klox

Here's the link: http://www.emco.co.uk/pdffiles/conventional_en.pdf

Klox

PRAZI,PRAZI,PRAZI!!! Would be my choice. Of course that's 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

Yeah there is no doubt Prazi is numero uno, but they cost about 5 times as much. I just went to Harbor Freight today and the exact 9" x 20" lathe I was looking at was on sale for $650 as opposed to $800. I couldn't refuse so it looks like I will compromise and save $2000. We will see if I made the right choice.

I have a Jet 9X20 that has about 10 hrs use on it I'll sell you for 500$. You can e-mail me for pics if you are interested. I'll throw in some tooling, live center, etc. It comes with 3 and 4 jaw, face plate, extra belt, change gears, all the usual stuff. Oh and the stand.

Nervis3@netscape.net

I'm in Phoenix, AZ

Yeah I would be interested in some pics. E-mail them to jrhelicopters@hotmail.com. My main problem is this... How to ship it to 80526 Fort Collins, CO under $300. If you can find a way to do that. I will probably take it.

I'll shoot yoy some pics today. CO is pretty close, if you like it after seeing the pics, why don't you come down and pick it up. That way you can even see it under power before you plunk down the hard earned.

Dave