Newby lathe advice needed

3 most common mistakes I have seen so far on a lathe would be 1) standing towards the headstock and reaching towards the tail stock over the chuck. Alot of guys do this with Emory cloth or file to smooth an edge. 2) Leaving the key in the chuck. Just luck one of these guys aint hurt them selves yet with this. 3) leaning over the rotating draw bar or spindle "tube" for the threw hole.
 
Hello Visenfile,

Two years ago, I was in the same boat as you and was leaning towards new lathes from Grizzly and Busy Bee Tools. I ended up buying an old cone-head lathe with a 20" swing and a 10' bed. It was a beast and I had never run a lathe before, so I was a little intimidated at first. But in a matter of an hour, running it through it's functions, I felt very confident but was careful. A full open gear train and open belts and cone pulleys gets your attention.

I didn't realize when I bought it that it had some teeth missing from some of the gears and I ended up having to purchase 4 gears, machine, bush, bore and key them. Like I said, I didn't have any experience running a lathe, but I learned fast and the gears turned out very well.


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Here's the lathe after I had fixed it up...

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I guess that my point is..... don't be afraid of buying a larger lathe. You'll catch onto it real fast...... and, secondly, try not to buy an old one like I did and end up having to spend good money repairing a worn out lathe. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed fixing up the old lathe and learned lots by doing it and continue to do so with other lathes and machinery. I ended up selling it and broke even and then bought and sold two more lathes until I bought the one that I have now. It's a Colchester Master 13"x 36" with a 1 5/8" spindle bore.

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In spite of the chipped paint, this lathe has zero wear in the ways and came with taper attachment, follow rest, steady rest, coolant pump, three chucks and collets etc.

If you are patient, you will find a good lathe, although I am the epitome of impulsiveness... ;)



Good luck with your search.... :)

Brian
 
visenfile said:
Hi folks. just introduced myself. Need guidance on lathe purchase. Some constraints to help you help me.


1. I generally learn when a project arises from auto, tooling need or house maintenance. The hobby is not everyday.

2. I have considered the model size lathes (up to 9 x 20?), but a lot of the stuff I think I would do would be larger.

3. Budget can stretch to $4k delivered . I guess tooling is extra. Am not inclined to DRO. I have ample room.

4. I have just seen Enco/Grizz gun smith size (no guns here) and gap lathes 12 x 30 on special.

5. Can a newbie learn as well on a big lathe, and as safely?

6. It seems small parts can be readily made on the biggies? I have 220v.

7. I have the confidence, but not the knowledge to restore an older lathe. Thanks for your help
Click to expand...


You might want to look at this 11x20. At least it's close to home.

http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/tls/4375514727.html


You might also want to contact Lewis Machinery in Gresham, I know they have a couple of lathes you might be interested in, but no tooling comes with them.

Here is a link to one of their ads http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/tld/4392514743.html
 
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tozguy-thanks. I may have mentioned before my earlier remorse at my fear and inexperience. I had a new Chinese (that stuff again) car exh header whose mating surface had .027" warp, a perfect candidate for fly or facemill cut. I did try to make a set up on the mill drill, but chickened out , afraid of butchery. Eight hours later using a flat and a long file it was done. Now I believe I could do it on the mill drill after seeing tooling developed on you tube.

chuckorlando-thanks. I will make a note of the tips. Recently a guy on youtube ran a lathe with long sleeves, unbuttoned, and no safety glasses-yikes!

Brain Coral-thanks. Those lathes are pretty enough for my living room (checking with wife). I wonder if it is true that the industrial center in midwest US/Canada still contain most of the usable collectable machine tools?

Jim Dawson-thanks. Appreciate the leads. Recently craigslist Portland has acted goofy. One day a whole page listing, the next only a few. I'll look at Lewis Machinery Gresham.
 
You have received a lot of good input and are going to get one more item. I inherited an older Clausing MKIII (early 1940) which I think is a 12 X 36. Two negative things about this machine, 1. the dials are very small and at 80 are hard to read; 2. the bore will only take 3/4 "dia. material. I want to do some bigger work so I bought a used 14 X 40 Grizzly which is a good machine but in my mind wasn't the "precision machine" i was looking for. Grizzly is big on their `"Gunsmith lathes" and to me that indicates a more precise machine. I found a machine with identical specifications in the Enco catalog on sale with a few extras so I bought a 13 X 40 gearhead machine and sold the Grizzly. I now have a machine that will accept 1-1/4" stock, has 2"+ dials (I can read them without glasses) I am sure it is lighter than an older U S machine, it has a coating of "Bondo" to smooth out the castings. The Enco machine has the newer(?) mounting studs as opposed to 1-1/2" X 8 tpi threads on the head stock. After a year I like the Enco. I can recall two occasions in the past 30 years where the Clausing threaded machine backed off after runnining in reverse, it has never cut a metric thread however.

As everyone has said what you intend to use your lathe for and possibly space limitations are paramount.

Welcome to the site and good luck.

Ray
 
rock_breaker-thanks. Very motivating to know you are active producing chips. Interesting about your experience with Grizz vs Enco. It seems Grizz has the edge in ads as I have seen their gunsmith lathes on youtube, while Enco is rather silent. I try to be somewhat loyal to Enco because they send me a catalogue regularly, but I do not care for their site sw which is tedious for me. Their warehouse is "nearby" in Reno. They have a sale ending this month on their lathes, but I am not quite ready. You are correct about the dials. I prefer not to use a magnifying glass to read the numbers. My only experience with Enco customer service was with a bad metric die-the response was very good.
 
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