Lathe advice; Taig or Harbor Freight?

[apullin]

Hey folks. I'm sure you've heard this question a million times; I'm slowly reading through all the old posts to get the popular opinions, but I'll ask anyhow:

I'd like to buy a small lathe for small/hobby parts. I'll definitely be doing a CNC conversion to it, since I have a spare (ancient) DeskCNC controller board.

My real question is, are the HF 7x12 machines total junk? If so, is it worth getting the Taig for the reduced feature set?

I'd likely be using the headstock riser block on the Taig, trying to do the CNC carriage drive through the power-feed screw, and replacing the spindle motor with a more powerful brushless one.

[knudsen]

Check the benchtop machines forums, they cover both Taigs and Chinteck

[jrrdw]

I have the Harbor Freight (Central Machinary) 8X12 and it's completely manual so a conversion to it would be easy I think. It has turned out to be a nice little lathe. On a scale of 1-10, I give it a 7.75.

The only cons are the drive belt from the motor to the 1st pulley set is toothed. The head stock doesn't swivel and on my machine the head stock is about .0001 below the tool bit center so I grind the cutting bit to adjust.