Help a noob

Henry is correct. When cutting threads on my old mini-lathe I rarely used the motor. Instead, a simple accessory to make is an expanding mandrel that fits temporarily in the spindle so that the lathe can be turned with a hand crank. It makes it much easier to cut threads than twisting the chuck. Don't forget to remove the handle before using the motor though!

Henry made another good point about the C0. I (and others) remarked that it was too small. What we mean is that it's too small for the kind of work we want to do! When choosing a lathe, what you are going to do with it matters. There are a few examples on the forum of disappointed chaps who've bought equipment without realising it had limitations that made it unsuitable for their purposes. A C0 is not suitable for making motorcycle parts, but I think you know that. What you're asking and thinking about buying a lathe is all sensible.

Dave

It looks as though I'm a little late to answer your question here however for the benefit of anyone else reading this here goes!

I have a CJ18A lathe that I geared down to increase the torque which is really the big problem I found on the small lathe at low speeds. Even the lightest of cuts seem to quite happily stall the lathe at low RPM. Obviously a smaller diameter thread will pose less of a problem than a larger one.

One of the first things I ever made on the lathe was an expanding mandrel to allow me to attach a hand crank onto the spindle out the rear of the machine. This helped massively when turning a thread into a small relief groove up to a shoulder (because a) the lathe kept stalling and b) when it didn't it kept crashing into the shoulder).