SMALL lathe and mill options?

[CarlosA]

Alright lets let the opinions fly here. I just sold my Sieg 7x10 lathe and mini mill. I got tired of the noise in the geared head, the poor quality construction, and fighting with the tailstock constantly. I live in an apartment so my options are limited, though I have had larger machines down here in the past. I have also used and loved a taig powerfeed lathe for a few months.

I am considering just splurging and going all taig .. for around $2k you can own all of their machines and accessories.

The largest "odd" work I do is using normal sized gear cutters - these require an arbor that is almost out of reach of a taig when working with a 3/8" collet.

I would also miss being able to cut threads when using the lathe, however I think that I can build a change gear setup for it.

Any ideas? I`d love to find some nice old American iron, but space, weight (downstairs), noise and vibration are issues that I watch closely here. I have considered sherline, and honestly am going back and forth, and I have the guys book .. which is like a 200 page glossy sherline advertisement. I just don`t know.

And by the way .. I also considered saving my pennies and going with a Wabeco lathe - but accessories and getting a decent matching mill would really add up .. talking like $10k in the end, not sure I can justify that.

 

[mikey]

I've used a Sherline lathe and mill for over 25 years now and like them. They are precise, capable machines and would fit well in an apartment shop provided their working envelope allows for the work you do. I have turned up to 1-1/4" over the cross slide in just about every material in my shop. I've turned a 5" plate using risers for the headstock and tool post. This lathe, with the right tool, will take a 0.050" or larger cut in mild steel; there are some 9" lathes that can't make that cut.

Sherline sells a screw cutting attachment that will cut more Imperial and Metric threads than my Emco lathe with all change gears. You have to thread manually but it will cut class 3 fits. For me, the lack of screw cutting ability on a Taig is a deal breaker.

The Sherline lathe is a very precise, capable lathe when used with the right tooling and it remains my go-to lathe for small precision parts. I have a variable speed power feed for my lathe and I can dial in a cut by infinitely controlling speed and feed on the fly; this is incredibly useful. With the right tool, I can take a 0.00025" taper-free cut by dialing it in with the handwheel; it is DRO-less but it doesn't need one.

I own a Sherline 5400 mill with a riser for the base, an extended 15" column and other accessories that make it quite a functional mill. It is a light duty mill but is capable of very good precision. It is so capable that I only stepped up to a larger mill when someone gifted me with one recently. Granted, I don't do huge projects on it but I can do anything within its working envelope that I can on my larger mill.

The quality of Sherline's accessories is also a factor. They sell almost anything you might need for their machines and their quality is the best I've seen in equipment of this scale.

I like that I can lift and store the lathe or mill and clear my work area for other things. Both machines fit on a desktop for storage. Bigger machines are better for bigger work but don't underestimate what Sherline machines can do - they are not toys; they're precision machines for smaller work.

Good luck with your search!

 

[CarlosA]

I've used a Sherline lathe and mill for over 25 years now and like them.

Thanks for laying all of that out ... I was looking again and tend to agree with you that it would be a great choice for my current work. I was thinking that I can just make some aluminum bases to adapt my chinese rotary table/dividing head kit to easily drop into the sherline or taig t-slots. As long as that works, everything else I want to do in the near term (or while being in an apartment) is totally possible. I did once have a micro-mark micro mill which seemed to be largely a sherline clone, it had all sherline sized t-slots and spindle, belts, variable speed, etc. It was a decent machine but never could get the dividing head setup to work right (stay straight and not move around).

Edit to add .. the sherline rotary table with the little CNC number pad thing would be a good way to still manually make gears!