First lathe

Hi,I am hoping to take early retirement sometime this year and I'm looking to purchase a mini lathe to turn perfectly good metal into tiny pieces of swarf or after a bit of practice small parts for a motorcycle I'm restoring and a bit of model making.

The more I read about the various models the more confused I get so hopefully some of the more learned amongst you might be able to give me a bit of advice.

With my budget I have been looking at the Warco super mini or the Conquest lathe super plus some tooling or should I consider the Sieg super c3, Axminster series sc2 or the Conquest db7vs and a bit less tooling.

Also some of the pro's and con's of the above machines would be much appreciated, or maybe there is someone out there who is looking to upgrade and is looking to sell on a used but not abused well sorted lathe of a similar size as space is a bit of an issue.

Regards

Joe

In terms of pro's and con's they're all from the same place, give or take a little. I know each reseller add their own touch so you need to become familiar with the various features and then distinguish which one comes with what, and what is important, straight away I see the Warco WM180 comes with a thread dial indicator, which isn't expensive, but could be useful to you?

Don't forget to check out SPGTOOLS and also AMADEAL.

I have spoke to and bought from Chester, Arc and AMADEAL, and have always been well looked after. I spoke at length to the guy at SPG at the last harrogate show and he had a fantastic deal on a small lathe.

If your going budget, I'd go for the super mini, I doubt the more luxurious looking models off much more in terms of ability or quality, I went to the model engineering fare and got hands on at the Chester/Warco and SPG stands, and was very surprised by the small size of the DB7VS/WM180 (all basically the same) - I left thinking I might as well get the smaller cheaper models (becuase actually, they're no smaller, and might be bigger!) although the width of the bed might be wider on those more expensive models but I'm just guessing (also at the time, some had 3" spindles, some had 4", so I was looking for the larger of course)

SPG sell basic packages and you just buy the bits you need,I find them cheaper, they're a smaller company so I guess less overheads - you can get a SP2109 for the same price as the DB7VS/WM180, and its actually a larger machine, the next size up DB8VS/WM240 are the same as the SP2109, but as I said, no extras, you could just get what you need, when you need it, or pick things up second hand - you do get the basics, ie a 3 jaw chuck but thats it - I would recommend you buy a fixed and travelling steady with the machine to ensure compatibility there and then but other bits like chucks and tailstock drills are very standard sizes and you'll typically be able to get one from anywhere/second hand

Warco and Chester sell packages with just about everything you could need already included - Also AMADEAL were selling packages including turning tools, micrometers, verniers, all the other equipment you'd need to actually get making something to tolerance which is great for a beginner - you may not understand why some things are in the package until you need it!

Edited By Russ B on 11/03/2016 21:36:09

It's take your pick really.

Swing seems to be constant between centre distance may not be on some models. Some are metric some are imperia. l in either case they can come with screw cutting indicators. Some do some don't. If you anticipate cutting many metric threads a metric lathe with indicator would be a good idea. It's also a good idea on an imperial machine.

The machine HP / Kw is an odd areas as it can be difficult to find out how it's spec'd. Input, output,how it should be spec'd also if it's a continuous rating,

The centre distance is important. Imagine drilling a hole. It needs space for the chuck, a drill chuck, the drill and the work. Short blacksmith drills are available up to 1" dia but in the drill chuck they probably aren't much shorter than a standard length 2 morse drill.

John

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I do mainly motorcycle parts, think about the spindle bore size if you ever need to turn fork stanchions etc.

I bought the Warco WM 250V-F at the Harrogate exhib' back in 2012 along with the WM 16 mill; both came as packages with all the bits you will need to get started, the lathe came with all steadies, chucks, faceplate, drill chuck centres etc. Some suppliers charge extra for these as 'optional extras'.

Decide what you intend to use it for ( apart from small motor cycle parts...  ), what space you have, & budget as much for tooling, Just get the necessaries at the outset, as you will eventually amass quite a bit, ( oh yes you do ), as often quoted... 'get the biggest you can afford as you can always do small stuff on a big lathe'...

Happy hunting

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 12/03/2016 08:12:01

Some great work has been produced on mini lathes, but if it was my money I would be looking at second hand stuff. A myford ml10 possibly or you should be able to pick up a Boxford Cud or Bud for your budget.

I suggest looking at this thread:

www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=115654&p=1

Although most mini lathes come from the SIEG factory (Warco's and a few others come from Real Bull) each supplier can specify what they want from a wide menu - including the quality fo parts that aren't obvious.

It's also worth buying from a reputable supplier.

Look at what sort of support you may want and the specification you want - the cheapest deal may not be the best for you in the end.

> Some great work has been produced on mini lathes, but if it was my money I would be looking at second hand stuff. A myford ml10 possibly or you should be able to pick up a Boxford Cud or Bud for your budget.

At the Manchester show Chester sold a tall pile of mini-lathes - I reckon the pile went down by about four between my two visits to their stand about an hour and a half apart! I bet they sold more mini-lathes in one weekend than ML10s and Boxfords change hands in entire month.

They may not be the ultimate lathe, but they are bringing a huge number of new people into the hobby, and the demand has driven significant improvements in quality, reliability and spec. over the last twenty years.

Neil

Hollowpoints point on the ML10 is very sound, beautiful tidy compact machines with the good old English quality and Myford owners can be be quite proud and look after them, there are plenty of other, often very underrated branded that are equally or better build/equipt but it's a case of taking your pick, my guess would be spares support and general online knowledge of the ML10's is far greater than any others.

I didn't want to buy second hand when I first started because I didn't know the difference between a bad one and a good one or how to tell what can be adjusted and what's just plain old nackered - the newer Chinese machines will probably give you similar issues though sadly - often they need a strip and rebuild by someone who recognises and is able to correct any little roughness or burrs when they see them and is able to reassemble them good and set them true.

I know I'm probably not helping much at this stage, you've pretty much just got to take the plung, if you know lathes, go second hand, if you don't, go new with good support (I think ArcEuro are possibly the best in terms of attitude to support and giving the support but that's just my opinion, I seem to recal there machine were lacking a few bells and whistles but they were branded Sieg rather than "own brand" machine so possible a bit better general quality)

For what my opinion is worth, in the future you may find that you want to machine something a bit larger.

If you have the space and the capital, my advice would be to buy a larger machine, (all other things such as quality, being equal). As someone said to me, "You can do small work on a big lathe, but not the other way round"; despite the splendid work that many folk do do on small machines.

Mini lathes tend to have plastic gears, (Arc sell metal gear conversions). The Chester Conquest manual advises against roughing cuts greater than 0.010" (0.25mm). My worry over converting to metal gears, (much as I am tempted so to do) is that you might then find the next weakest link in the chain, and it could be an expensive one, such as control board or motor!

My mini is a "standby" machine, (for when I don't want to disturb a job set up in the larger lathe) bought from a chap who bought it and then found it too small for what he wanted to do. My Myford ML7 with a 2MT headstock was too restrictive. I M O 3MT is much more useable, hence my preference for a larger machine.

Hope that this is of some help.

Howard

If the plastic gears are in the motor drive train they went plastic due to noise having never heard of herring bone that can be a lot quieter.

An old idea on min spindle bore is 1" clear as it's reckoned to cope with most things that are made on lathes - sub 1" and less than 6" long. 18" min centres what ever the swing in a fairly large range at the smaller sizes. Life ain't that simple in this world though. A decent sized hole in the chucks helps. Centre's tough but another thread suggests they are moving up. Sometimes rather badly from one I owned.

If some one does buy an ML10 I would strongly suggest that the get the later one that uses taper roller bearings like the Speed 10 and not the one where the spindle run directly in cast iron. That way the bearings can be changed if needed. Lathes co reckon in cast iron is wonderful but I have seen too many that are well worn out.

Neil's comment's about the mini lathe size are correct. A lot can be made on them one way or another.

Really often this sort of post comes down to budget. Bigger and better - well if some one buys a lathe and 12months later decides they need something else used prices suggest that the cost of ownership wont be all that high really. I'd suggest looking at the various models as I indicated and don't just buy because one model is a bit cheaper than another or one has all chucks etc and another doesn't. People can add bits and pieces as they go along and need them.

Despite the bad press with Brian's lathe I would have a look to see what Opti offer as well. Germany doesn't seem to know that screw cutting indicators even exist though.

John

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In my view there is no such thing as good and bad lathe, milling machine or whatever. The days when British machine tools and the US machine tools were regarded as the best in the world has long gone. A beginner will get some useful experience and learn a lot even with a clunker umpteenth hand lathe. As the old saying goes "When you are first starting out any old thing will do, but when you decide to take it up seriously - get a good one!"

Well as far as chinese machines its take your pick. Don't be conned into believing all chinese lathes are actually made in China. Some of the best far eastern machine manufacturers are actually in Taiwan, which used to be Formosa in pre WW2 days. The Chinese government have been pressing the Taiwanese for years to come back into the fold but they don't want to! Taiwan was formed after WW2 when the Japanese were booted out and made to cede the territory back to the chinese who elected to go there to escape the oppressive conditions on the mainland. So a thriving industrial empire arose on the island of Formosa and they chose to rename it Taiwan. The mainland chinese were stuck back in the 1800s mindset with a largely agricultural form of existence. The more go ahead members of the chinese politicians did a runner to Formosa and took all the countries gold and other currency and gave the others the middle finger! Look at the stuff coming out of Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s, companies such as Rong Fu who make some excellent small machine tools, sold by Warco and others are still thriving and mainland China is only now catching up.

I was curious to find out more about Rong Fu so I looked at their website and there was my RF-25 mill and a whole lot of others.  Of course it had been refined a bit from my 1990s machine and had more safety guards and slightly difference twiddly bits but it was still the same basic machine. Then I went onto Google Earth and found their physical address and looked around the Taipei area were they were situated.  In a square kilometre or so I counted nearly 100 machine tool manufacturers making all sorts of lovely machine tools.  That little area just out of the main city is a hive of activity.  I looked at loads of websites and was amazed at the variety of machines on offer.  Interestingly there were several companies making as near as makes no practical difference, the same milling machines, each one had slight detail differences but you could clearly see they all had the same parentage!  Turns out it was a government policy to promote parallel development and assembly to offer maximum employment and nobody has a problem with "copying", it is a cultural thing over in this region!

Edited By John Fielding on 14/03/2016 10:23:11

I imagine ford fiestas outsell range rovers 1000 to 1 doesn't make them better just more affordable. I'm not knocking Chinese machines I own a few myself. But they haven't quite caught up just yet and there is some excellent second hand stuff out there if you are prepared to look.

Edited By Hollowpoint on 14/03/2016 23:00:26