Looking For Best Mini Lathe - Money No Object!

[wahid]

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

[wizard]

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

Originally Posted by wahid 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

[RotarySMP]

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.

[wahid]

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

[RotarySMP]

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/ma...ent_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

[wahid]

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

[wahid]

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

Wahid

[ISO Coder]

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.

[wahid]

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

[RotarySMP]

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.

[Chris D]

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

[DerekZahn]

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

http://www.minitech.com/hardware/mil...ll_4_index.htm