Help needed please

Hi all.......I've joined the forum so that I can get some help from experts.

I make model boats and my latest venture will require a certain amount of lathe work and maybe some milling.

.I've seen the Emco HM compact 5 plus mill/drill and the Hobbymat MD 200, and am wondering if these are any good. I rather favour the Emco as it has the mill.

I don't need anything too elaberate as the majority of the work will be reducing shafts to take bearings and scew gears for bow thrusters and the mill for Becker rudders.

If only my Dad was still alive...he was a master modeller and could have helped me out.

Many thanks for any help or advice you might be able to offer.

Kind regards

Mike.

Hi Mike,

The choice of which lathe / mill to buy also depends on the size of work. The C5 lathe with mill/drill will give a small footprint machine that occupies ittle space, but I think you would be better off with a separate mill/drill. Combination machines have to make compromises. As far as I know the Emco C5 is not manufatured any more, but you can still get accessories/spares. I started with an Emco Compact 8, but found that for some of the work I do it is a bit on ther small side. A slightly larger machine can machine both small and larger work. Larger than you can in the C5 or Hobbymat, so if you can afford a larger lathe and milling machine that would be my advice. In the future you may wish to make larger models etc.

Regards

Thor

Welcome Mike.

Hi Mike,

You need to decide where your ambitions lie. If you follow your father into more ambitious models you will need to buy a bigger machine or accept the need to upgrade later.

If you are sure you only want to tackle modest work, or a re limited in space and budget, then consider my dad who has an ancient unimat that meets all his shipbuilding needs. No longer made (altrhough the mill version is). Plenty of second hand examples are out there.

If you want a low cost option consider a C0 lathe - available from various suppliers - mostly compaitible with unimat as I understand it, but a bit heavier built. Other options are the TAIG/Peatol which is smaller.

Milling can be carried out by fitting a 'vertical slide' to the cross slide of these lathes. I think the Peatol can be converted into amilling machine in a similar way to some of the Unimats.

Neil