Buying a lathe - new vs old

[Tanshanomi]

I've been wanting to pull the trigger on a lathe purchase for years. The typical advice I have heard over and over from just about every supposed expert out there is that I can "buy a good ol', solid American-made lathe for less than the useless Chinese junk they're selling nowadays."

My experience so far is that this is bunk. Well, maybe it is true in Southern California or the Northeast. Here in the Midwest, the Craigslist ads for used lathes is pretty slim pickings. Either they are corroded, incomplete units that have been sitting unused in a dirt-floor shed for forty years, or they are a 20x72 production lathe that weighs tons and has a 5-figure price. I am ready to buy a new Grizzly and take my chances.

 

[Hawkeye]

I wouldn't be too concerned about buying an Asian lathe. Any machine you get will probably have some issues to sort out. There are plenty of sites and posts covering what people have found and how they fixed them. The same is true about nearly every piece of old iron you might find.

Check out some of the major projects on this forum. A lot of really impressive work has been done on import machines. Any solid machine, properly set up and operated within its limitations will give you many years of pleasure.

Decide what kinds of work you'd like to do and then get the biggest lathe you have room for in your shop and budget. Pay attention to features. Power crossfeed can be a wonderful thing. Imperial and metric threading can solve problems at times.

Mostly, have fun. Make lots of scrap.

 

[Franklyn]

I think you will be fine with Grizzly. I bought a 1947 Logan lathe and although it was fun restoring, I would probably purchase a similar lathe from Grizzly, if I had to do it all over again. My main reason is that the lathe shows it's 67 years of wear on the ways. After buying the lathe I looked for a used mill and couldn't find one in rural VT so I bought a Grizzly mill costing around $3400. The mill was ready to go from day one and is reasonably well made. Grizzly has great customer service and delivered my mill in about 1 weeks time after the order was placed.
The mill weighed about 800 lbs and required disassembly to move it to the basement.
These are some of the lathes I would consider from Grizzly:


http://www.grizzly.com/products/11-x-26-Bench-Lathe-w-Gearbox/G9972Z


http://www.grizzly.com/products/12-x-24-Gear-Head-Cam-Lock-Spindle-Gap-Bed-Lathe/G4002


http://www.grizzly.com/products/10-x-22-Variable-Speed-Lathe/G0752


Best of luck!

 

[HMF]

I've been wanting to pull the trigger on a lathe purchase for years. The typical advice I have heard over and over from just about every supposed expert out there is that I can "buy a good ol', solid American-made lathe for less than the useless Chinese junk they're selling nowadays."

My experience so far is that this is bunk. Well, maybe it is true in Southern California or the Northeast. Here in the Midwest, the Craigslist ads for used lathes is pretty slim pickings. Either they are corroded, incomplete units that have been sitting unused in a dirt-floor shed for forty years, or they are a 20x72 production lathe that weighs tons and has a 5-figure price. I am ready to buy a new Grizzly and take my chances.

Listen, it all comes down to this. Do you want to spend time to restore the lathe or make chips? With an Asian lathe, you will be making chips very soon. You will be learning how to machine. With an old American lathe, unless someone restored it and it is turn-key, you will have to spend time restoring it if you can.

My SB Heavy 10 is in pieces in my basement for 5 years now. Unrestored, unused, with a cabinet FULL of tooling.
Part of the problem is the way I was treated when I first started in the hobby on the SB forums online (and still am treated on the SB Yahoo forum). I am disgusted and it sits there in pieces.

If you want to make chips, buy a new Asian one, follow the instructions of the manufacturer, and make chips. You will be happier and less frustrated.

 

[Shadowdog500]

I'm no expert, but IMHO, Unless you plan to build parts for the space shuttle I bet the Grizzly lathe will meet your needs. My current lathe (bought it about a month ago from craiglist) is a older version of what Grizzly is selling today. The small 12x36 lathe at the machine shop at work is the MSC version of the lathe Grizzly sells. Both work great for what I need to do and I can hit anything to 0.001" which is all I need to do.

I had a 7x12 mini lathe for 7 years because it was all I had space for before I built my shop. After going through everything on the lathe it worked great. The biggest issue with the mini lathe was the size limitation on what you could make and the fact that it used change gears for threading. Change gears get old real quick. Whatever lathe you get I would recommend getting quick change gears.


The one thing I do wonder is how easy it will be to get parts for the Asian lathes in 10to 20 years. If you look hard enough you can find just about anything for a southbend. I'm not even sure what factory in Taiwan built my lathe, and I understand some parts are already un obtainable.

Chris

 

[chuckorlando]

The problem with buying used machines is time. There are good deals to be had every where you just have to be looking all the time and willing to wait till you find one. I do believe you can get more for your money buying used. Regardless of age or where it came from it's used. We have asian lathes at school as well as old iron. I enjoy the old ones the best. But others like the newer ones. Both get the job done. But if we are looking at purchase price for capacity, I could buy two of our old ones for the price of one new one, and have twice the capacity per machine.

This assumes your buying a non wore out used machine.

http://seks.craigslist.org/tls/4458033786.html

http://wichita.craigslist.org/tls/4504892432.html

http://wichita.craigslist.org/tls/4488011494.html

http://wichita.craigslist.org/hvo/4478694890.html

http://kansascity.craigslist.org/tls/4432404282.html

I did not read them just looked for a few lathes under 3k or so and not 70in

 

[pineyfolks]

Buy old iron you most likely have to repair worn or broken parts. Buy import you most likely have to repair new parts. I just hate having to work on something new. What ever you buy there will be the day you'll wish you had bought the other.

 

[David Kirtley]

I am also in the buy new camp. Rebuilding old machines is a labor of love. It is a hobby in itself with the side benefit of having a fine machine to use once it is complete. Yes, you might find some perfect condition old iron somewhere for a real bargain but you are much more likely to find some old "run hard and put up wet" old horse with worn ways, broken castings and gears, rust pits you can lose tools in. New machines are not perfect either. They may take a bit of work to get things set up properly to work really well but will be pretty good from the beginning.

Finding parts can be a mixed bag with new or old. Once you get everything tuned in and know how to maintain it properly, the odds of actually breaking something is pretty slim other than major accidents like getting it knocked down or something. For the most part, we are talking about maybe bushings or small parts that can be made in house. Nothing to really worry about new or old.

Personally, I have no real interest in restoring machinery and just want a machine that works.

 

[Splat]

I went thru this exact dilemma myself. Find a used SB or get a new Grizzly or Precision Matthews. I won't rehash what has been written already about the old vs new argument. I will admit that my Heavy 10 was a labor of love to refurbish it to where she is now. I'm proud of all the work I did on her, but I'm a romantic and love old machinery. To me the new machines are very sterile looking, but they get the job done. I saw go with a new Grizzly or PM. If I was looking for a new lathe these days I'd get either the G4002 or G4003. It comes down to what you plan on doing with it. The G4002 is 12x24 and the G4003 is 12x36 and is $200 more. The specs are the same otherwise but the G4003 comes with 2 dead centers as opposed to the G4002's one. If I had the $ I'd get the G4003.

 

[chuckorlando]

I would also add that buying used and restoring a machine do not at all go hand in hand. And most folks restore jobs (including my own) are heavy on the pretty and have little to do with function. It would take 30 days for a machine to rust around here. So IMO how pretty or ugly a machine is dont mean much of nothing to it's function. My rusty 59 bridgeport needed 20 dollars in shims to be at least as tight as a bench mill new. My like new asian lathe has been nothing but work trying to get it to not beat it's self to death.

I'm not sure why we think a used machine has to be restored. Just dont buy a machine thats a mess. Run it and go through the functions before you buy it. If it's junk and you buy it, well you asked for what ever head ache you get. And we got new machines on here every day with all kinda trouble. "Good" new ones at that.

If I had 3-4k cash I would buy a new import. But dont shy away from used machines cause they all need tore down and rebuilt.