Purchasing a lathe, looking for opinions.

[Thazul]

Hey All,

I am looking to purchase a lathe, and mainly I wanted to get a 1" spindle bore or larger. Ideally a 1.5" spindle bore would be better but I am not sure that is within my budget.
Currently I don't think that being able to make reverse threads is important to me. The main thing I want to be able to do initially with my machine is to turn the ends down on some ball screws & lead screws (annealed of course).
My understanding is that if I have a large enough spindle bore, I can let the screw stock go threw the spindle bore, and turn the end down sticking out of the chuck.

I have been reading about the different lathes out there in my price range (around $1500)
At first was eyeing the BusyBee 10x18. Shipping to the States would be a bit to much, and thought that was a waste, could possibly get a bigger machine.
So currently I am looking at the Grizzly 10x22 G0602. Any of ya have this one, What do you think?
I also was looking at the HF 12x36 Geared Head Precision Gap Bed Lathe, but this one is abit more than I wanted to spend (This ones around $1700 after coupon)

My knowledge and experience with metal lathes is very limited, all opinions and suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks in advance,

Andy

[Willbird]

I have been looking at the griz machines, have not had my hands on one just looking at pictures, I'm sure if you look around locally you can get your hands on a jet lathe to see what you think, I was very underwhelmed with their 9" offering, it is kind of chintzy....the 13 and 14 inch models look a bit more "real"

Bill

[Dugg]

My opinion is, well just that, an opinion. All brands of CCCC (Cheap Chinese Communists Crap) lathes are about the same. None of the brands gives you anything in writing as to the accuracy of the product and suitability of intended purpose.

Jet lathes come with a "Certificate of Tolerence". I think of it as a certificate of dubious value. If the Certificate meant anything, they would provide it prior to the sale, not after the sale. And just what would such a certificate say?

We have a couple of Kent USA lathes at school - typical CCCC with just another nameplate. Although, they did make good on a warranty issue on the drive gears. These lathes aren't bad for turning, but are marginal for threading. Marginal means it's possible to get a a decent thread, but it happens unpredictably and good threads can't seem to be repeated on a regular basis.

When Harbor Freight uses the term precision in describing their lathe(s), I suspect this could mean the delivery truck takes the same road from the factory to the shipping port each time.

If you want me to buy your lathe, you'd better come up with some verifiable documentation as to it's accuarcy in turning and threading as well as as service life of these tolerences........ and before the sale, which might expalin why I don't have a lathe.

[GaryCorlew]

here is a couple of more for you to think about Lathe master http://www.lathemaster.com
And also precision matthews
http://www.machinetoolonline.com/PM1027.html
Myself I am leaning towards the precision matthews

[Adobe Machine]

A lot of members of this forum have these smaller lathes that seem to produce deceant results . I believe the proper tooling, speeds and feeds ( as applies to these smaller lathes)and correct set up is as important as the lathe itself to certain extents.

My son has a small HF type lathe, and with triangle, positive rake inserts can turn very hard alloy steel to .001 or less, thread the same alloy steel to specs and the product looks good. Basically with the threading kit, right and left hand holders and one straight holder he has almost as much in the tooling as the lathe. Albeit, it is slow,this is not a production machine, and he has skill learned in my machine shop.

When he first got the machine, he spent a good 3-4 days taking it apart, replacing all the crappy fastners with # 8, alinging, adjusting and lubing the machine.No doubt these machines were assembled in a big hurry, by non -skilled hands. But the machine is sufficient for his hobby needs. I still occasionally make and ship parts to him for our Bi-Plane, but that is combersion and expensive, so he learned to slow down and work with the little lathe..All depends on a person's needs and skill leval.

Adobe (old as dirt)

[Thazul]

When Harbor Freight uses the term precision in describing their lathe(s), I suspect this could mean the delivery truck takes the same road from the factory to the shipping port each time.

Dugg,
Lol! I think you might be right, my HF Mini mill is so so... Do you have any suggestions/links for some non CCCC machines, that might be close to my range in price?

Myself I am leaning towards the precision matthews

Gary,
Ahh yes the matthews! I was looking at this awhile back and I lost the link.
I am glad you brought that one back into the picture, deffinately a consideration.
Anyone have any opinions on the matthew?

A lot of members of this forum have these smaller lathes that seem to produce deceant results.

Adobe,

I too have noticed this, with some care and proper know how these machines can be quite nice. I have alot to learn yet. Unfortunately for me the Harbor Freight Mini Lathes don't have a large enough spindle bore for me. Even the 9x20(which is only $550 w/ coupon) only has a 0.75" spindle bore
I wonder if i could enlarge the bore and fix its rigidity problems for only a couple hundred more? Because $550 is a really great price.

-

Thanks all, keep em comin'

Andy

[Willbird]

I did not comment on the HF lathes...that was not accidental :-).

Most of the gunsmiths that build rifles that shoot 5 shot groups into less than .100" center to center of the widest holes seem to be using the lathes referred to earlier to as CCCC :-).

The rub to the whole deal is there is NOTHING to consider between the $3000-$5000 CCC lathes, and a $15,000-$50,000 lathe with an american name on it.

Used american iron.........sounds good....I have 2 in my garage, a SB9A and a Hendy conehead 16" x 8'.......I do not know WHERE I would find another if I needed one, and neither of those lathes is suited to how most gunsmith's fit rifle barrels (with the barrel inside the headstock tube)..the Hendy headstock is too long, the SB9A one has too small a through hole, AND it will only do about a 16" barrel between centers...and this will follow many other older lathes out there, if you have a 2" headstock hole your going to have a headstock 30" long...thats just how they made things.


Bill

[LUCKY13]

I have looked around & researched a lot of lathes & miles lately. The old American Iron is going to be good if you can take the time to fined one that fits your needs & go through reconditioning it.


On your budget its going to be hard to get much. The PM machines seem to be a very good import lathes. Some one meantioned the Jet machines & I heard a lot of good about them. But from what I have read & learnd if I was going to buy in your price range it would be this one.

http://www.machinetoolonline.com/PM1127.html

If you could step it up a notch then this one.

http://www.machinetoolonline.com/PM1236.html


I have not owned any of them but tracking different buyers & there results have brought me to these two results in this price range. IMHO the Grizzly & HF machines are not going to come close to the PM machines.

I would spend as much as I could, it will pay off in the end the better the machine is you buy. Take your time & go look at any old machines you can find. You just might find a deal on some old iron that doesnt need much to be working for you. DO some research on setting a lathe up & reconditioning them so you know what your looking for when you go look at a machine, it will help you alot.

If $1500 is what you have to spend then you may be stuck in buying one of the cheaper mills, in that case I would buy the first mill I listed and go on with it.. Just my opinion.


Jess

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Guys, What would you think is the "optimum" CC distance, spindle bore, swing over crosslide, swing over ways etc. for this small to medium sized lathe? I just finished a "workspindle" for another type machine. 2 9/16" thru hole 22" long. Might be a bit expensive as designed with high precision bearings. etc. Scaled down to use smaller bearings etc. it could be made less expensive and is designed for CNC application (belt drive servo motor)

[Willbird]

RZ I have been thinking about that........see the CCCC lathes part of the expense is in stuff we really don't even NEED if we're gonna cnc it. So why can't we have a 16" x 48" with 16"-20" of cross slide travel so we can gang tools. It doesnt need a compound slide they can just keep that in china.

So I think if the Grizzly 16" x 40" is $6200 then leaving off all the stuff we don't need or want, it ought to be only $3k maybe less........belt drive is fine, and maybe even desired.......all we really need is 2 speeds and a 5 hp motor with a VFD.

22" long is still just a TAD long for doing rifle barrels..but as long as the bed is long enough to allow you about 26" between centers that would be fine.

There are MANY many older american made lathes out there where the headstock bolts onto the ways..........what you are describing...could be adapted easily to those existing machines....

There was some study done during one of our world wars by our govt to see what was needed to make existing lathes good enough to do high precision work...as it turns out the one thing "wrong" with say a south bend 9" lathe for high accuracy work can be corrected by pouring a huge concrete base and bolting the machine to it...thus making it more rigid.

I'v thought more than once about making a new headstock for my 16" x 8' Hendey...the base iron is massive...I wouldnt throw away the orig parts..simply crate them up for future generations :-)

http://www.lesebergs.com/hendey-01.html

Thats not my lathe, but it is similar....and you can see the qualities and construction methods I am speaking of......I almost had a 1930's leBlonde with no carriage or tailstock for a cnc project....but somebody else got an email there quicker....brackets to hang LM slides on the massive bed shown in those pictures above come to mind easily...probably without even modifying the base iron one bit.

Bill


Bill

[RICHARD ZASTROW]

Bill, I can bring the length down to about 17". How about thru bore? Remember the thru hole in the chuck. The bigger the thru hole the bigger the bearings. The front bearings would be as large as chuck and speed requirements dictate. For height, the base of the headstock could be a variable thickness or the old riser trick. The belt/sprocket setup allows your choice of motor type. At low rpm, some direct drive types build up a lot of heat. The newer torguey ones can go from zero rpm to rated high limit without heating up if well tuned. But those are not cheap. The size I,m dealing with now are in the $6k area. The belt drive servos of the same size are $2k plus belts, sprockets etc. How about 36-40" cc?

[Willbird]

36-40 CC should be fine........the longest typical rifle barrels are 30"...2" thru bore is decent 1.5" is about bare minimum (look at what size a 5c drawbar needs) .... Some guys want the shortest darn lathe they can find because their basement guys, I'm a garage guy so gimme length :-)...even if all you do with it is make a plywood gizmo to set your tools in use on :-).

The shortest rifle barrel without NFA paperwork is 16" but that is not so common, accuracy barrels go from 20" upwards, 24"-26" being the most common.

Automotive serpentine belts would be nice as drive belts ??? That would give us some ideas as to what pulley ratios we can easily achieve. I think a plain old 1750 rpm 3-5 HP 3 phase motor with a VFD ? or do we need a servo to provide a stable controlled rpm ?? A countershaft between the motor and the spindle would be fine to allow lower gearing...maybe the high/low speed shift could be done there ??..I don't know if planetary gearing like a TH350 GM trans uses would be smooth enough or not..it would surely take the HP...the TH350 and TH400 use 2 planateries working together to get 3 speeds(2 reduction one direct drive). The powerglide used 1 planatery to get one reduced 1 direct drive gear.

The chuck will dictate the upper rpm limit..........I'm just trying to think how low the rpm really needs to go. Maybe it would need 3 speeds to run say 100 - 2000 rpm with decent torque...that was what brought 5hp to mind instead of the 3hp more common on the CCCC lathes with gear heads.

In my brief journies thru the bearing catalogs I do see what you mean about the dia/rpm situation

Bill