change gears

[Tonym47]

If your budget would only allow the purchase of a few gears. Which gears do i really need or don't need?

 

[Hawkeye]

Unfortunately, trying to decide which gears you need will depend on what you want to do with your lathe. If you won't ever be cutting threads, get the gears that give you the slowest feed for best finish on turning, and maybe one or two sets for slightly rougher cuts. If you know which threads you will be cutting most, get the gears to give you those threads, plus a set for finish cuts.

Most of the time, sellers are only interested in selling the 'complete' set. (May be missing one or two on an older set.)

 

[pdentrem]

If you are referring to a Change Gear lathe, really you need the basic set. Without these gears you are limiting yourself to a poor selection of feeds and threads. You also have to think about Metric as well, there is so much today that is metric threaded. You will need a couple more gears and a spacer to work in that realm.

You can easily make a set slowly over time by buying one gear at a time. That was the way I filled in the missing or broken gears for my 10F24.

Which lathe are you referring to? If it has a QCGB then others will have to chime in. I posted a list for the gear set required for 9/10D, 10F and the 12" change gear lathes. There also was discussion just last week for the 6" Atlas/Craftsman lathes gears.
Pierre