Opinion of Seig C6B lathe

[paulC]

I'm thinking of buying one of these hobbyist lathes.
I'm after a small lathe that I can move around if required. This weighes 145KG.
I only want to be able to make small bearing mounts, turn acme thread to fit bearings and the like. Nothing too heavy.
Anyone got any comments good or bad on this lathe?
Paul

[paulC]

Anyone.

[Alan Wright]

Looks like there are not many with C6B's in a position to reply. I have a closely related lathe (largely parts compatible), sold by Lathemaster as
the 9x30. It is not made by Sieg but I've bought parts via the Grizzly
G0516 pages. This one did not come with variable speed but I added it.

pros:

- chuck mounting scheme is very nice, changes are quick and safe
- carriage and compound are good and will support an AXA size QCTP
- requires no modifications out of the box to do serious work (but see cons)
- nice size and weight for a bench, desk, or stand

cons:

- tailstock lacks lever (camlock) control (but easily added)
- no quick change gear box (though change gear setup is good)
- switch from power feed to threading speed and back is a pain
- no power cross feed
- C6 may not come with threading dial (but can be bought at LMS)

Pretty good for a small chinese lathe, so long as you can live
without some features. The variable speed of the C6B will be a
plus. Good luck!

Alan


Alan

[paulC]

Thanks Alan. I will have a look for those problem areas when I go to inspect one.
Paul

[Alan Wright]

Here is a lengthy review of a C6 lathe that forgot about:
http://www.mini-lathe.com/C6_lathe/C6/c6.htm

Alan

[paulC]

Originally Posted by Alan Wright Here is a lengthy review of a C6 lathe that forgot about: http://www.mini-lathe.com/C6_lathe/C6/c6.htm Alan

Hi Alan.
After having a look at the machine I ended up purchasing a C4.
The C6 looked nice but I could get more tooling for a C4 for the same price as the base C6 machine. I also felt it was proberbly too heavy for me to move around.
The C4 had the Tailstock camlock and cross slide powerfeed you mentioned as missing from the C6 but of course its a much lighter machine.
Both the C4 and C6 have no threading dial but with these machines being able to reverse so easily I'm hoping the I won't have to disengadge the half nuts so the lack of a dial is no biggie. Just hope the motor stops fast enough to aviod crashing.
At the moment I'm mostly looking at small work so hoping I don't out grow the C4.
The lathe is still in the box at the moment. Just preparing a bench for it and trying to figure out how I'm going to lift it. Will proberbly use a hand cable winch I have but have to figure out how I can slide it across. If I had the lathe working I could make a pulley. Chicken and egg thing.
Thanks for your help. I found it very useful.
Paul