How big a lathe/mill is enough?

[Reeltor]

Just my words in here but guess what for half of what you paid for your three in one I had a excello 602 ( bridgeport style machine) and it was cnc but too outdated for my use. And I also got a American pacemaker ( look that up one hell of a machine) my machine are not worn out and I've rebuilt the excello. By the way I live in the south in georgia and see machines all around all the time. Just not always on craigslist but I see them at auctions.

American Pacemaker, what a NICE machine

http://www.lathes.co.uk/pacemaker/index.html

Where are the Machinery Auctions?

Mike

 

[Ianagos]

Places like hilco industrial have auctions here sometimes and checking on craigslist there is some listed every now and then. Hilco just had an auction and there were two pacemakers both sold for under $500.

 

[Reeltor]

Places like hilco industrial have auctions here sometimes and checking on craigslist there is some listed every now and then. Hilco just had an auction and there were two pacemakers both sold for under $500.

Does Hilco have a Metro Atlanta/Georgia location? I just went on-line and didn't see anything in GA.

 

[Ianagos]

No only when the have auctions here last one I went to was in Birmingham. Also went to one in Rome ga

 

[sdmuleman]

First thing I'd say to do is look at what your hard limits - that is space, power and access. Power is something you can most likely work around a bit (I'd bet most house services could support a 30-50A 220 1P machine supply, possibly with limitations like not using the dryer at the same time) and it's not that hard to run a new circuit in most cases if needed. VFDs and SFC/RFCs are good options for 3 phase and reasonably cheap/easy. Likewise, access is an issue, but you can probably move a larger machine than you think if you're patient and careful. I've heard of folks getting a full size PB down a basement stair by taking it apart and moving one section at a time.

Once you know that then just start looking around and see what catches your eye.

Remember that you can generally do small work on a big machine, if maybe more clumsily.... doing big work on a small machine is much more difficult. If you're planning to do very small work, than a mirco lathe/mill might be wise, but generally a 16" lathe and a 9" lathe would do about the same work expect the 16" can obviously run larger stuff. For a lathe at least bigger might limit you in higher rpm work though. Again, depends on what you're doing.

CNC is not that hard to com by either if you look for some of the older machines. I wound up getting 3 of the BP boss machines and have been rebuilding them with Mach3 and modern controls - this isn't that difficult, and you could probably do the same with other older CNC mills. (Shameless plug, I've got a Boss BP mill for sale right now.... :whistle

So the long and short is get what looks like the best fit for you. Don't be afraid of larger machines if they'll fit into your shop, but smaller machines can also work well too. I would look more at what's a good deal and is in the shape you want/has what you want.

I had a 15" SB (also for sale now) for a bit since it seemed useful and then had a great deal on a 17x60 gap bed Voest machine come up that i couldn't pass up. This machine is bigger than anything I ever expected to use, but it had all the bells and whistles (including a tracer which is great fun...) and seemed useful so I couldn't pass it up She's a big girl and takes up a good bit of space, not to mention making me wonder about how much fun it'll be to move in 2 years, but I'm glad I got it. Also got the boss mill for much the same reason - ran across the set of 3 for sale and figured why the hey, looks useful.

I think to some extent machine tools are like anything else - your projects will expand to fill (and exceed) the available machinery.... :rofl:

 

[samthedog]

the size is a big factor in the second hand price, I paid less for my 13"leblond than my emco clone bench lathe, interestingly the leblond only takes up about 8 inches wider foot print than the bench lathe.

the little one was easier to move.

of all my machinery purchases so far the rf25 mill is probably the winner in work envelope. I have a 10 inch rotory table (again very cheep as it wasnt a 4 or 6 inch) its very heavey and a pain to move onto the mill but (just) works ok for what i do with it. And the mill hasnt colapsed yet(its on a very hevvy wooden bench).

infact sometimes stuff is too big, i'm often tempted by the smaller er12 collets as the holder for the mill would be much smaller and make using tiny tiny milling cutters a bit easier.

an example in my new drill press(new to me neads a new motor or rewind) tea cup for scale, it's to drill holes in pcb's the rf25 was becoming a little boring to use for it, hopefully this will help.

Stuart

edit
please excuse my half finished dinner in the photo (palm face)

This is exactly my point. If circumstances change, you don't want to be stuck with 50 tons of iron that nobody wants or can move. If the projects anticipated require large machines, then go for it. However, if you can find them, small industrial machines are the best choice.

Small industrial machines usually have the top shelf materials, fit and finish, horsepower, features and design. They will cost you but they are a joy to use and require a smaller footprint. What you end up paying for when purchasing small industrial is additional available floor space for other machines.

To give you an example, when I bought my lathe and mill, combined they cost me $4500 USD, plus transport costs that would have brought it up to about $5000 - $5200. It seems expensive given their capacity however both machines were in great condition and since them I have had offers on the machines far exceeding what I paid. Since space is so critical, I needed to think differently but I didn't want to give up on the industrial quality. Machines at home in my garage:



Paul.

 

[epanzella]

I find that my "intentions" are driven by the machine I have not the other way around. When I bought my Grizzly 12x36 it was way bigger than the projects I had in mind but the bang for the buck was too much too resist. In six months I found myself growing into the machine and in a year I was somewhat constrained by the limitations of a machine that I once thought had double the capacity of any project I would ever take on.

 

[GA Gyro]

I find that my "intentions" are driven by the machine I have not the other way around. When I bought my Grizzly 12x36 it was way bigger than the projects I had in mind but the bang for the buck was too much too resist. In six months I found myself growing into the machine and in a year I was somewhat constrained by the limitations of a machine that I once thought had double the capacity of any project I would ever take on.

In doing research on machine size.... I went through this scenario (mentally).

Decided to find a threshold of size to price, with quality being a significant part of the size...
One of my things is quality: IMO to assume each lathe (or mill) is the same quality... may not be correct.
I chose Taiwanese... and think it a good decision... however that does raise the price.

Finally settled on a 1340 size. Seemed the next step up (into a 14x(xx)--Taiwanese quality) would add a significant amount of both $$$ and ###'s.
Now on a mill... IMO it may be worth it to step up from an RF45 clone to a BP clone.