Seeking Advice re Suitable lathe and Milling Machine for my Workshop

Hi Everyone, This is my first post which I hope I have posted it in the correct location. If not, please let me know and I'll try to move it to wherever it should be posted.
I am establishing my hobby workshop and would appreciate some advice. The purposes that I intend to put my new workshop to, apart from general home repairs, is medium to small mechanisms (mechanical and electro-mechanical), so I don't envisage building large items. I live near Brisbane, Australia, so any suggested machine tools must be obtainable in Brisbane. I am firstly interested in buying a lathe and small milling machine. The lathe I am considering is a the Seig C8, This lathe doesn't completely satisfy my criteria - for instance, its minimum spindle rpm is 125 which is in my view too fast for screw-cutting and other operations I might want to perform slowly - such as for example winding springs and coils (unlikely, I know, but given my interests, possible). I am also concerned whether there is a sufficiently large range of accessories for this machine. Have any members any experience with this machine? The only small milling machine I have considered so far is the Seig X3, but this machine, especially the table, seems a little too small. It would be nice to have drives on the table and spindle but that is probably too much to ask for. Any suggestions or comments? I have deliberately not specified a price I am willing to pay for the lathe and milling machine to avoid limiting what might be suggested. Thanks, Xiansheng.

Hello Xiansheng

Let me join the fun as I have a 9 inch southbend copy that is becomming to heavy and cumbersome for me.
The obviuos table space (See Photo ) is 170 times 60 cm and I want a lathe and a miller.
Grinding wheels and dirty vise work is taken outside.
The to high low speed of lathe would not bother me as I will not own a lathe without VFD and I have done operations at 4 Hz.

Xiansheng, welcome to HM!

Have you considered Sherline machines? Take a look; they may satisfy your needs rather well an no single machine tool company makes more accessories to fit their machines than Sherline. Sherline machines are small precision machines but they are capable of a lot more than most people realize. Anyway, put in in the pot.

You really need a budget in mind. Just import bench mills can go from 400 to 4000 and the lathes are the same. For the right money you can have power every thing, dro's on everything, tilting this and that..... Do you have size constraints, power constraints, or super high/low rpm constraints?

I would not buy the smallest of any of these machines my self. Even if you dont think you need more, some of these are really small. I would keep that in mind mostly on the mills. You add a vise, chuck, and bit your 8in short and aint added work or work around room.

If I was you I would set a dollar amount and then buy the machine with as many bells and whistles as I could.

chuckorlando said:

You really need a budget in mind. Just import bench mills can go from 400 to 4000 and the lathes are the same. For the right money you can have power every thing, dro's on everything, tilting this and that..... Do you have size constraints, power constraints, or super high/low rpm constraints?

I would not buy the smallest of any of these machines my self. Even if you dont think you need more, some of these are really small. I would keep that in mind mostly on the mills. You add a vise, chuck, and bit your 8in short and aint added work or work around room.

If I was you I would set a dollar amount and then buy the machine with as many bells and whistles as I could.

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This is excellent advice.

As many have said many times: "You can do small things on a big machine, but you can't do big things a small machine"

This has been excellent advice as well.

Wishing you well in your search and keep us posted.

Oh, and welcome to H-M.

Hi Everyone, and thanks for your responses to my question about suitable lathes and milling machines. So far the Seig C8 is looking like a sound contender for the lathe, particularly in that it has a reasonable capacity and range of features, and research suggests there is an adequate range of accessories available from Seig and other manufacturers to fit this machine. I had a look at the Sherline lath and accessories, and although it is obviously a useful tool in a specific niche, I don't believe it will meet my needs. The advice that I should start with a budget was sound advice, but any budget I set will still be conditioned by whether I am sufficiently happy with machines that I can buy for that budget. In other words I need to find my comfort zone with regard to price and features

As regards a milling machine, the Seig X3 is too small and lacks features, so more research needed there. I will consider the larger Seig Bench mills and other manufacturer's machines. Three stand-out issues with the milling machine apart from power and physical capacity are power feed in at least the table axis, capacity to take a larger dividing head and rotary table than offered by Seig, and a suds supply. The suds supply is fixable as an after-market item of course, but capacity to accept a suds pump, tap and drain in an effective manner is important.

If anyone believes I have missed an important issue that I need to consider in relation to these or alternative machines I will be grateful for their advice.

I'll update this as I learn more.

Regards Xiansheng

Hi Everyone,

I have selected a lathe and milling machine as 'suitable', but would appreciate any advice or comments by those familiar with these machines, re any problems they have had with them and what they think of these machines overall.

The lathe is the AL336 and the milling machine is the HM52. I think both of these are Hafco sold by Hare Forbes in Australia, among others.

Regards

Xiansheng

Xiansheng said:

Hi Everyone,

I have selected a lathe and milling machine as 'suitable', but would appreciate any advice or comments by those familiar with these machines, re any problems they have had with them and what they think of these machines overall.

The lathe is the AL336 and the milling machine is the HM52. I think both of these are Hafco sold by Hare Forbes in Australia, among others.

Regards

Xiansheng

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Looking at the specs on them I think they are excellent choices.
Dave

Hi Everyone,

As you can see from the date of my previous post, I didn't hurry to buy the lathe and milling machine mentioned above. A number of personal issues prevented me focussing on it.

A couple of weeks ago I was finally able to progress deciding what to buy, and have settled on the AL960B lathe and HM52 milling machine, both from Hare Forbes in Brisbane. The AL960B is a Taiwanese machine. My research suggests it should be a good quality machine. I would have preferred to buy the AL1000 but baulked at the additional couple of thousand A$. I had been undecided between the HM 50 and 52, but finally chose the 52 due to the additional versatility offered by the rotatable table and that it can do both horizontal and vertical milling. With the inevitable extras that must be bought to make a start, the pair of machines will cost in excess of A$12,000. Lets hope I haven't made a mistake . . .
Regards Xiansheng

Awesome man. I never heard of them but likely the same as models sold here under various names. I'm sure you will have a blast