mini lathe

Hi there,

Need some much needed advice, i am looking for my first lathe,

i do not have a workshop so it needs to be as small as (and quiet if that's possible), i plan on making up a load of handles in bulk made from delrin plastic so the lathe needs to be capable of running constantly without over heating (as i've researched, the emco SL 1000 can only handle about 8 minutes constant use and 2 minutes cooling at a time??)

budget as low as possible but was hoping to buy british not chinese.

ultimately i want something that is going to be a joy to use not a hassle, as one of the chaps here on the forum said "spend more and buy once or spend less and end up buying twice only to spend more anyways".

the handles are 25 mm in diameter and about 3" length, i plan to buy delrin at the diameter i need to reduce time. hope i didn't miss any info from that..

thanks all

A

Got any sketch of the handle? Length of tapered sections would mean you need a minimum compound slide travel.

There is a Myford Capstan lathe in the classified section for £250, another on ebay bidding so far at £102. A (relatively) small Edwards capstan is on ebay at £199.

Depends on how much a load is and if you would want a lathe for other uses afterwards

May also be worth looking at something that will pass 25mm stock through the spindle as that will save time in cutting and wasting chucking pieces which you would need to hold individual handles but that does start to come away from the smaller machines.

As Rainbows says what do you call "a load" of handles ?

Edited By JasonB on 28/07/2017 16:14:35

Looking to replicate something similar to this, central groove and a softened edge on the sides, doesn't have to be bored out but ultimately i would love to get a lathe i can play around with and learn on aswell, its difficult because i dont have the space and im in a terrace house so keeping the noise to a minimum is very important - we used to live directly next door to a lathe workshop and it would make our living room shake, i cant and won't put the neighbours through that

in terms of quantity i need hundreds of them until i can afford to get them cnc made in large quantities

thanks for the advice thus far, im noting all of this down!

A

No offence, but I think it would pay to rethink your requirement. I'm afraid 'budget as low as possible' isn't compatible with 'spend more and buy once'.

Your choice is really between new and second-hand. Buying new, a Chinese mini-lathe will do the job out of the box. You may have to slow down your production rate to keep the motor cool but Delrin isn't much a challenge to a metal cutting lathe. A Chinese mini-lathe is small, quiet and unlikely to annoy anyone. After you've learned from it, you will have a much better idea what suits you; the training alone is worth the investment.

Second-hand is more difficult because you have to find one. Is it in good condition or knackered? What tooling does it come with? Can you get spares? Is it a bargain or a rip off? Do you have the time to get it going or do you have to make handles immediately? Can you lift it and will it fit?

If you're in a hurry, keep it simple and start Far Eastern.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

What you say seems to be the way it's panning out from the research i have done already.. in terms of a chinese or 'far eastern' lathe, is there a particular one to go for or are they all pot luck / hit and miss in terms of longevity, accuracy, overall quality etc?

if i have to start there i will and in time will move on unless i find myself pleasantly surprised?

cheers
A

When it comes to buying, go for one of the advertisers on this site rather than take pot-luck on ebay, or - even worse - order direct from china. The reason is that the likes of ArcEuroTrade and Warco etc will support you in the unlikely event that you get a dud. If the worst happens you can get your money back.

Beware of cheap offers on the web. It seems that the importers mentioned go to some lengths to pick the better examples, but their rejects still go on sale somewhere.

What you get from the different suppliers varies slightly, obviously the paint job, more subtly perhaps in the size and type of motor, and the tooling provided. That said, the breed all have similar capabilities, and - in my opinion - minor differences aren't worth worrying about.

For what it's worth I got all my stuff from Warco. Other posters speak highly of ArcEuroTrade, Axminster and others. It all worked out of the box. Nothing horrible found though it all benefited from minor tweaking. (Hobby lathes are made down to a price so don't expect perfection.)

The lathes come well equipped but you will almost certainly need a set of HSS or Indexable cutters. I started with a 6mm HSS Set about £25.

Enjoy!

Dave

Do check with the supplier that they will support you as they sell machines for hobby use and have been bitten before by people using their products for commercial work and then complaining when the burn them out, overload, etc.

.

You will get nothing like that from a hobby sized lathes that most of us here use.

I have a Boxford and in normal use it makes less noise than a dishwasher and certainly does not vibrate to that degree even on interrupted cuts.

I recently have also been using a Colchester Triumph which is a reasonable sized lathe and far bigger than any hobbyist would normally use (it's not mine) and that is also very quiet and smooth running.

I would think that the noise and vibration was coming from some other machinery than one of the lathes that was next door to you.

Oh and if machining a lot of Delrin inside your house make sure you have a good hoover handy or your other half will wait until you are sleeping and drive a long bladed knife between your shoulder blades.

Nick

Edited By Nick_G on 28/07/2017 20:33:18

For what my advice is worth, buy larger than a mini. (SEiG SC4 or SC6, for instance, rather than SC3, if budget and space will allow)

1)Working for a relatively long time on a hobby lathe, will stress the larger and more powerful machine less.

2) Your horizons will expand, and you may find that you are outgrowing a mini (although a lot of good , probably small quantity, work is done on them)

Folk are bored with my saying that you can do small work on a big machine, but not the other way round.

HTH

Howard

If you want to run for a long time and not risk the motor don't get any of the newer style of lathe with a speed control knob on the headstock. These have a tendency to overheat as they are the ones not designed to run at a slow speed for long and either the motor or the controller dies.

If you get an old fashioned lathe with an oldish single speed motor it will run all day.

Your part does not seem to require high precision and delrin is not going to put a strain on anything so it does not need to be built like a truck. Even a 9 in swing (4.5in centre height) lathe will not be noisy cutting this small stuff if you don't set it on wobbly floorboards that resonate. It should be no worse than a washing machine,

I suggest you look at a Myford ML4 (or 3) or a Drummond M type both of which will be cheaper than an ML7 but of good pedigree. You want one as a package including the motor and stand rather than the many that are 'barn find' condition, and has the gears for self act, However also avoid the ones that have been tarted up with a wire brush and lick of paint by the garage traders. There is the risk of 'it's worn out', wobbly and sloppy but if it is a 'runner' you should be able to take a bit of your material along and test that it can turn a smooth ripple free surface on self act. That will show up the slop etc that you won't be able to tolerate. Should be <£500, maybe <£400 but lower is either nicked or hiding a problem.

Finally you might need a new 3 jaw chuck and a thing you make yourself called a split collet to hold your handle without marking it.

If you want to make hundreds of the handles as shown then a manual lathe, far east or British, is the wrong machine. Even with a capstan unit (and the availability of that points to a UK/US ex-industrial machine) on a manual lathe it is tedious making multiple parts.

I have a repetition lathe, which would eat handles like those for breakfast, but it is not something you could run in a terraced house. It is small enough, about the same footprint as a Myford, excluding the pneumatic bar feeder. But it's quite noisy due the compressor pump, and it absolutely needs a 3-phase electrical supply.

Ideally you need a repetition or capstan lathe. Having said that, I'm surprised you can't find a commercial machine shop that will churn out a few hundred handles for less than you'd spend acquiring a lathe, let alone accounting for your time learning and using the lathe. I'd have thought that the material cost would be the limiting factor, not the machining cost, for a commercial machine shop.

In theory the Myford capstan lathe mentioned above might work, but I don't think it'll take 1" down the spindle.

Andrew

Do you need 100s a day, week, month or year?

As Andrew says a repetition lathe will do several hundread a day without batting an eye, winding handles and taking shallow cuts on a small hobby lathe will be far slower.

As plastics can be machined at quite a fast speed I doubt you will have problems of what some people feel is a problem running the vari speed lathes at slow speed for long periods, never found it a problem myself.

A capstan an bed stops are essential if you are to achieve repeatability, as even using a QCTP to swap tools (looks like you could get away with two form tools) will slow you down and cause frustration.

The next MEW's reader classifieds will include a 1937 Myford Capstan lathe with lever parting, which would potentially do the job better than any modern plain lathe, but an 80-year old machine will be a bit of a gamble for commercial use! Also it is without any collet or collet chuck.

Most bench lathes won't have the tailstock stroke to drill through those handles in one go, you WILL need a lever tailstock with plenty of travel as moving the tailstock continually will drive you insane.

> doesn't have to be bored out

Hang on, is that something like a kite handle that you will tie a cord around?

Might be better to use a bit of lateral thinking.

• Cut big pile of blanks to length with a chop saw (one with a TCT blade for wood will be best).
• Form too in lever tailstock to shape end.
• Collet chuck on lathe.
• Pop blank in chuck, round end.
• Reverse, round other end.
• Plunge in form tool from locked cross-slide to make groove.

Almost any lathe with lever tailstock and a lever release collet chuck should do the task. The chuck might cost as much as the lathe.

Chop saw in the house cutting plastic that will go down well with other half and next door

Front and rear tool posts would mean you don't need a tailstock of any sort. Rear one like a parting tool with a radius at root to face the end and form the round over. front tool to do the middle groove

thanks for all the advice everyone,

sadly im still not in the position to acquire what i need, can anyone recommend a cnc company in the uk that can make these handles for as little ££ as possible?

maybe someone on here could give me a quote?

i don't not have a cad file or dimensions written up but the diameter is about 20mm and about 2 1/2 inches in length off top of my head, the only design aspects is a central groove, a bored out hole in each end with a taper..

thanks in advance

Andy