Second Lathe ?

Had one of those days today where Iv'e put the 4 jaw/3jaw and collet chuck on the lathe about 3 or 4 times each. Getting very tempted to buy a second lathe as I have space to squeeze one in. How many of you have more than one lathe ? Is it used enough to justify purchase ?

I have.

No.

But I want to do a cnc conversion on number 2, and it'll be easier to have my original available to make parts on. They are also nearly identical (Warco WMT300 & Clarke 430) so I can share tooling between them.

Regards,

Richard.

Chris ,

One can NEVER have too many machines !

I have 4 lathes and usually stick with my go - to machine which was my first lathe , maybe it iis because i have been using it so long or something but it gets 99 % of the abuse i tend to dish out to my equipment .

Sometimes i will switch to a different lathe just for the hell of it but i know that when i have a need to perform a different operation like setting a piece up on a face plate etc and i don't want to break down the set up on one machine i can simply walk over to one of the others and set it up there .

Maybe you could look at your list of operations and try to clump things together that use the same set up and do them all in one go then change over for something else and do everything that requires that set up ?

Ian

I've got a 125mm 4 jaw mounted on a 50mm spigot for quick four jaw jobs, saves me back putting the 200mm one on!

I have three lathes, a Sieg SC3 for small stuff, a Chester 9 x 20 for bigger stuff and for even bigger stuff an SPG 2129 ( WM290 in blue )...

I've got a 5" lathe which gets most use, and a little Perris for making silly little fiddly bits. If I'd not been a bit flush when I bought it I probably wouldn't bother

Chris, when I bought a new slightly larger lathe I kept the old one. As others have said, I find that I have one work piece in one lathe and need to turn something else. I find having two lathes very handy.

Thor

+1 for a second lathe, I bought a smaller lathe with the intention of doing a CNC conversion however, it has had so much use that I haven't got round to doing the conversion.

Having to break down this setup for milling helical gears

so that I could turn up another blank ( or 2 ) after cocking up the first attempts persuaded me that a second lathe is essential, even if it's only this little Flexispeed

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 15/02/2017 18:14:40

I have a Harrison M300 and a Boxford AUD. I tend to use the Boxford most of the time only using the Harrison when I need the capacity.

I am convinced I need the second lathe, will start looking around. I like the size of my 14"x40" lathe but something a little smaller would be OK. I sold my South Bend that I had for 45 years when the bigger lathe arrived but I no longer mess around with Land Rovers and Trials cars so have won a bit of space. XD351 I do try to make all the ops in the best order, maybe just had a bad day.

Yes I have 4 but use only the Harrison l5 , Perfecto , and a Mitchell with a Boxford cud under repair. the Harrison has a 3 jaw chuck and the Mitchell a 4 jaw so best of both worlds

I frequently think about buying a small lathe to supplement the Myford. For years I have hankered after a Cowells 90ME but have not been able to justify the purchase. Mind you if a bad debt that I am owed is paid I could celebrate.

I do not want a lathe larger than the Myford. I don't do large turning jobs and have not got the room.

JA

My first lathe was a Clarke CL300M but after a short time bought a bigger Chester DB11. I have kept the CL300 as a back up, as the DB11 is the workhorse. I tend to keep the DB11 set up with a 5C collet chuck as I have a lot of 5C collets, std. round metric and imperial along with Hex and square. The CL300 has conventional 3 and 4 jaw chucks which I find convenient so I don't have to take the collet chuck off the DB11 when needing a std. chuck setup. My favourite set up and most frequently utilised are my 2 mills, both from Chester. A Champion 20VS and a Super Lux. I use the 20VS for small milling operations and the Lux for larger. Without doubt it is very convenient and less time consuming, so go for it.

Alan.

You can never have too many machine tools. I've got 3 lathes, and 3 mills. But they all serve different purposes. I have a main centre lathe, which is used most of the time. Second is a repetition lathe, obviously for producing repetitive parts, and third a Pultra 1750 for small turning and milling. The Pultra is in the kitchen so it doesn't take up workshop space. Generally a job does not move between lathes, with few exceptions. Preplanning and careful use of jigs goes a long way to avoiding the need to change back and forth between setups within a job.

Similarly the mills are all different; vertical, universal horizontal and CNC. Unlike the lathes jobs often move between the mills for different operations.

Andrew

Same idea to you Tony, although my small lathe is a Myford. These days, the Harrison doesn't get used very much as I am trying to downsize my machining activities.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

I now have two lathes, super 7 which I had new in 1974 and a Colchester master 2500, would not be without both of them,very useful having two sizes of machine and handy if anything needs repairing on either machine. until recently I also had a triumph 2000 but downsizing of property is looming and was finding it difficult to manhandle the chucks etc, so I looked around my collection of stationary engines which need restoring,found the jobs that required the triumph ,did them and sold the lathe,but last week I had job that would have been easier with the larger spindle bore of the triumph. the Myford also a taper attachment which is useful for making tapered pipe fittings etc,I do not have an taperattachment for the master so cannot get rid of the Myford,

I have two, a plain Super 7 pre Power Cross Feed, and a Warco Super7 copy, with the bells and whistles. (Gearbox, PCF and Newton-Tesla drive).

The trouble is, they're 30 miles apart.

The intention was/is to use the Warco as my sole lathe in the new workshop when I've finally moved everything else over from Sheffield to Buxton, and sell the genuine Myford directly from the old house.

Trouble is, that the Warco has some "interesting" design feature which will need a lathe to rectify, so it looks like I will have to move the Myford over here for a while, even though I promised SHMBO that I'd no need for them both.

p.s. actually I've got 3, the last one being my original lathe, a little Simat, currently not commissioned and sitting in a wooden box in my old cellar.

Sorry make that 4, I've also inherited my Dad's Record wood turning lathe, though it's not been re-commissioned yet. I'm still awaiting the construction of a second double garage, to house the bikes and the Marlin.

Edited By peak4 on 15/02/2017 21:35:34