What Is A "regular" 9 Sb Is Capable Off?

No.

If you are buying a new Chinese lathe they don't start getting good until you get up to the 12x size, which is a full-featured lathe.

In this case, good is defined as a QCGB, preferable a Norton style, power crossfeed with reverse-tumblers on the feed and other goodies. These lathes usually way around a thousand pounds. That's what's so nice about a SB 9A/10K, you can get a full-featured lathe that's still relatively light. Of course, because they are light you can't take the same size cut as a 12X lathe, but those lathes have their own peccadillos as well.

If you haven't already, you should check-out the Youtube videos from Doubleboost and Mrpete222. In his older videos, Doubleboost has a Boxford lathe which is pretty much a South Bend clone so you can get a good idea of the projects these lathes can handle.
 
That Grizzly won't cut left hand threads, but not a deal breaker. Depends if you want to spend $1600.00 that's up to you. I prob have that in my 10K but i added what i needed to get the jobs done that come in the door...Bob
 
There's more to the changing the direction of the lead screw than left-hand threads. The default crossfeed direction on my SB 10K is towards the operator, but many times I like to feed inward. Can't do that without the reverse tumblers. I also prefer disengaging the lead screw when it's not needed as there's no use spinning all those gears when you're just drilling a hole. I use this stuff all the time and would greatly miss it.

The way I look at it, my SB 10K was constructed in the 70's, with a design from the 50's and with technology from the 30's. You wouldn't think replicating all the lathe features would be a big deal nowadays.
 
What I do like about old stuff lathe:
1) It is well made and designed
2) liquidity - you may sell it for the same money roughly that it was bought
What I do not like about it:
1) tear and wear - I guess it is hit and miss
2) tooling availability - with all that different models hard to anticipate which tool will be difficult to get, if even possible. May be expensive as well.

So, dilemma.
I will go Monday look at this one http://www.kijiji.ca/v-tool-other/c...end-lathe-model-a-with-table-stand/1082998088
Isn't $800 US too much? Guy could not find serial for this one.
What should I look for?
 
That is a good deal for a model A (assuming the bed is in good shape). (You could part it out and get most of your money back probably at that price if you don't like it(the thread gage alone goes for around $100 on EBay normally). I have a model C and I really enjoy using it (the Qcgb and power cross feed would be a nice upgrade (and be more efficient, time wise), but I can do all I want to do on my machine and I'm usually in no rush anyway. I also have a modern (Asian) Grizzly mill (G0619), it is nice and I like it, but having taken both machines completely apart, it is no match to the quality of the older U.S. made SB.
 
The serial number is on the bed at the tailstock. It's an older model A because it only has one git oiler at the QCGB and has the small dials on the crossfeed/compound. That doesn't mean it's bad, that's just what it is.

2) tooling availability - with all that different models hard to anticipate which tool will be difficult to get, if even possible. May be expensive as well.
Click to expand...

What do you mean? Parts? People are parting out 9" SB's all the time on Ebay. The actual lathe tooling is very standard, MT2 tailstock, AXA QCTP & 1 1/2 x 8 TPI threaded spindle. This stuff is used by almost all of the small, domestic lathes (Atlas, Logan, etc).
 
DoogieB said:
What do you mean? Parts? People are parting out 9" SB's all the time on Ebay. The actual lathe tooling is very standard, MT2 tailstock, AXA QCTP & 1 1/2 x 8 TPI threaded spindle. This stuff is used by almost all of the small, domestic lathes (Atlas, Logan, etc).
Click to expand...

Good to know, thank you. I meant like follow rest, steady rest etc - standard addons..
So, do you know - does this model has X,Y auto feed? For threads I guess I have to change gears manually. Is SB capable of metric threading?
Capable of left threading?
Does it have MT3 in spindle? I like an idea to use MT3 collet sometimes.
I guess motor may be easily upgraded.

Seems potentially may be not so bad deal..
 
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