mini metal lathe

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altaciii

altaciii

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Joined
Jan 17, 2008
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Location
corpus christi, texas, USA.
Well it looks like I have permission from the boss to toss some more cash into my pen shoppe. I think Santa is considering the following

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93799

I am already droolling but whats y'alls thoughts on this lathe and how can I use it to improve the quality and the artistry of my work? I know that hf comes out with specials around this time, is this the best price or should I be on the lookout for internet specials, and how much extra "tooling" am I going to have to invest in? Any advise will help.
Thanks
 
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I have this metal lathe. I make all my between center bushing, all my shell casings are done on the metal lathe it comes in handy. I got mine for $329.00.

There is a lot of tweaking that I did to mine for it to perform. It is very accurate.
As for tooling I went with a quick change tool post from the Little Machine Shop. My drill chuck from my wood lathe works on the metal lathe.

Before you Buy check these sites out.
www.mini-lathe.com
www.littlemachineshop.com
 
I have a friend who has one. He even bought a better chuck, a QC toolpost, and a DRO. Put many hours of tweaking and massaging into it to get it to perform.

And it's going to get sold some time right after New Years (or earlier if there's an interested buyer) so that he can buy a classic piece of iron like a South Bend or a Hardinge. If you're interested, I can give you his email addy.
 
Take a look at this as well. http://www.toolsnow.com/browse.cfm/4,876.htm Basically the same lathe, but with more accessories that come come with it. Either way you will enjoy this. A great addition is a 3MT collet chuck holder and a full set of collets. Usually available for a good price on ebay. They come in very handy for many pen operations and more.
 
I have the Homier Speedway. It is the same lathe as the HF one. The short opinion is I love it. It does take some fine tuning but beats my wood lathe hands down for precision and smooth operation. I easily have ten times the money invested in it and accessories for it. if I am looking to upgrade one of the two lathes the little guy always gets first consideration. If i ever figure out a good tool rest for turning pens and how to turn a 24 inch peppermill on it the wood lathe is out the door. I actually turn pens on my wood lathe and then move them to the mini lathe to do the finishing. the EVS is so nice.
 
Is there a small to moderate metal lathe that doesn't take a a lot of fine tuning before you love it. MY bandsaw took a lot of fine tuning. I swore I would never go through that again.

Marc
 
Marc, Yes actually there are several of them but I cannot think of the actual names of them off the top of my head. As a general rule look for anything in the $700-$900 range price wise. That is not meant to be snobbish or anything it really is true. all the pieces have been machined and lapped to a much higher degree of accuracy when you buy the. The lower cost HF and other models are sort of the raw material to then hone yourself. I did all but a couple of the improvements in a couple of days on mine. it was largely taking it apart piece by piece, re lubing a lot of it. taking the shims that the tool holder rides on and lapping them. adjusting them so that they are consistent as the banjo is moved across it's range etc. none of it was really hard or frustrating. and only a little time consuming. in the end you are supposed to have the same quality of a lathe as it's $900 brother. at least that is what the members of the Yahoo mini lathe group say. Oh I also upgraded the electronics in mine. about $20 at Radio shack.
 
pipecrafter said:
And it's going to get sold some time right after New Years (or earlier if there's an interested buyer) so that he can buy a classic piece of iron like a South Bend or a Hardinge. If you're interested, I can give you his email addy.
Click to expand...

I recently put one of those classic pieces of iron up for sale with tons of
extras and got one nibble. (That nibble offered half.)

There's some good old lathes out there gathering dust. I've looked at the
new ones, but I know that I'd end up putting a lot more money into the
extras and in the end, I'd wish it were one of the old ones, anyway.
(unless it was CNC, that's different)
 
Thanks Daniel. I look at it this way. I have a day job so shop time is precious. I figure my time at $25 an hour. So all those tweaks you listed take a $500 lathe and make it a $900 lathe. And whenever I tinker I wind up on the phone to the manufacture trying to order the screw I just lost. It's just plain embarrassing.

Marc
 
I am not sure about lately but a couple of years ago there where some deals on the next step up in size metal lathes. there where some that came with a huge variety of accessories which can end up costing as much as the lathe in pretty short order. and where already top notch machining wise. The fastest way I can think of to find the best deal at any given time would be to visit the Yahoo Groups 7X12 mini metal lathe group. the 9X24 (or whatever it is) is just as popular there as well. It is where I went to finally make my choice in metal lathes and how I found the Speedway which was lower priced than Harbor Freight. I have never been sorry with my choice so the information for me was pretty complete.
 
NewLondon88 said:
There's some good old lathes out there gathering dust. I've looked at the
new ones, but I know that I'd end up putting a lot more money into the
extras and in the end, I'd wish it were one of the old ones, anyway.
(unless it was CNC, that's different)
Click to expand...

Mine is a South Bend Model C (change gears). I haven't called South Bend to get a copy of the build card for it yet, but it's a mid-century piece for sure. I couldn't be happier with it. Max speed is only about 700 RPM, but since I cut mostly plastics and metals on it, it's perfect for what I do. I think I paid $350, and it's easily worth more. The only thing missing is a complete set of change gears, though I have enough to do what I need to do.

And it came ready to run. There's a small amount of lash in the apron, but that's expected. A replacement half nut would probably fix that since the screw is in great shape. Same thing with the cross slide. The only thing I've entertained getting is a QC toolpost (even though I've gotten adept at changing holders out of the rocker) and a turret for the tailstock so I can leave my most common bits chucked and ready to go.
 
One small lathe to consider is the MicroMark. It is essentially the same lathe as the HF and the Grizzly and the Homier, but a lot of the upgrades are already done to it and it has "true-inch" read outs on the dials. It is more money, but I think it takes less rebuilding before it is ready to use.
 
altaciii said:
Well it looks like I have permission from the boss to toss some more cash into my pen shoppe. I think Santa is considering the following

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=93799

I am already droolling but whats y'alls thoughts on this lathe and how can I use it to improve the quality and the artistry of my work? I know that hf comes out with specials around this time, is this the best price or should I be on the lookout for internet specials, and how much extra "tooling" am I going to have to invest in? Any advise will help.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Tell Santa that I hear Harbor Freight is having a Black Friday Sale... up to 79% off on some items.. over 900 items on the sale list. (Or at least that's the advertisement I heard here in Tennessee.
 
hilltopper46 said:
One small lathe to consider is the MicroMark. It is essentially the same lathe as the HF and the Grizzly and the Homier, but a lot of the upgrades are already done to it and it has "true-inch" read outs on the dials. It is more money, but I think it takes less rebuilding before it is ready to use.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with this. HF's support sucks if you have any issues. Micro Mark's support is top notch and the lathe is on sale right now. Just FYI, the Micro Mark lathe is the next model up from the HF lathe.

I bought one and just love it. I didn't have to do any adjustments everything was right on the money. Bed is perfect. And there is none of the red goo that takes hours to get off. You can't go wrong and it is only $50 bucks more than that HF unit and it has 14" length not 12".
 
pipecrafter said:
Mine is a South Bend Model C (change gears). I haven't called South Bend to get a copy of the build card for it yet, but it's a mid-century piece for sure. I couldn't be happier with it. Max speed is only about 700 RPM, but since I cut mostly plastics and metals on it, it's perfect for what I do. I think I paid $350, and it's easily worth more. The only thing missing is a complete set of change gears, though I have enough to do what I need to do.

And it came ready to run. There's a small amount of lash in the apron, but that's expected. A replacement half nut would probably fix that since the screw is in great shape. Same thing with the cross slide. The only thing I've entertained getting is a QC toolpost (even though I've gotten adept at changing holders out of the rocker) and a turret for the tailstock so I can leave my most common bits chucked and ready to go.
Click to expand...

I got the South Bend 9A, but not as good a price as that! I agree on the
QC toolpost .. it can help with repeatability if nothing else. Mine came with
the threadcutting gears and I was looking forward to some experimenting
there. Just don't have room or time for it (after putting several hundred in
upgrades into it!)

I have seen the half nuts on Ebay often enough. There's more lathes being
disassembled and sold off as parts as there are lathes being sold as
working lathes.

I watched a short vid somewhere that had a turret on the tailstock. At
least I think it was. Looked like a QC toolpost, but it rotated around the bit.
That made it easy to make rounded ends.
I still haven't had time to figure out speeds, bit types etc. I think all the
cutter bits I have are the same type, just different sizes.
I need to get a training video for very very beginners.. :tongue:
 
On the learning curve. It sure is nothing like a wood lathe where you just sort of eyeball a speed that looks right. even the bits are ground according to what type of metal you plan to cut. Speed and feed rates are not only according to what you are cutting but the diameter of it. i have had pieces that I had to change the speed half way through the turning etc. I still try to just keep an eye on it and adjust as I go but this does not ever work well. I need to learn to use the charts etc.
 
Alex:
I bought a metal mini lathe before I bought my wood lathe. Apperantly I really like making square things round : ) Anyway, the research that I did before I bought it is that all mini metal lathes are made in the same factory in China. They are painted differant colours and have differant options installed but other than that they are the same lathe. If you don't believe me then have a look at your lathe in a different colour http://www.siegind.com/Products/br-c2-lathe.htm
Just decide on the options that you want and the price you want to pay and go for it.
 
I think Bruce is absolutely right. Sieg pretty much makes all import lathes these days. The differences, however, can be astounding. For instance, I know of one guy that had an Enco branded benchtop lathe (9x20 I think) and had a a problem with the gears. When he went to replace them, he bought Jet gears instead. The difference? Enco spec'd phenolic gears, while Jet's gears are metal - they are, however, identical lathes in most respects. So I think the quality depends on what the branded "manufacturer" specified for options and materials.
 
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