Lathe sugestions.

T

TrxR

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What brand lathes would you suggest looking for or staying away from? I will be using it to do my own barrel threading and chambering along with anything else I come up with . I will need to be able to do 30" barrels and would prefer to be able to do them through the headstock. It would also be nice if it will go down quite low on the RPM. I would prefer good older iron over the newer Chinese stuff. Any suggestions.

Thanks
 
Finding a “good older iron” lathe for modern gunsmithing can be a task. About he only thing I do with a lathe is gunsmithing work and I am on my 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] and final lathe. Most heavy rifle barrels are 1” profile so a slightly greater than 1” bore is required at a minimum. I modify a lot of used barrels such as adding or changing threads on the muzzle end and a 1 ½” bore is nice because it allows me the room to thread some barrel muzzles without disassembling parts like sights off the barrel. I do a lot of threading and most barrel threading is done up to a hard shoulder. Any speed over 75 rpm can be scary and forget about anything over 100 rpm as 1” of thread finishes real quick. There are times when you need to go between centers so a min. of 36” between centers is required and in my opinion anything over 40” is overkill unless you profile muskets or work on anything .50 BMG. There are a lot of people that will say that a larger lathe will do anything a small lathe will do and wile that is true it may be more difficult in cases. Doing gunsmith work I also make allot of strange size small parts such as pins, bolts and screws that are not easy to find or may not be available anymore. A smaller tight lathe makes this easy and large amount of backlash or wear on the machine makes it more difficult. For me anyway.
 
I would think your looking for a light and medium duty lathe. Here are some suggestions if you were in the states, I have no clue what's up in Canada:
I have a good friend in Oklalhoma who is a gun smith and he likes Mori-Seiki (Japanes), Victor and Summit (Taiwanese and Chinese) lathes.
Some good old iron


Logan 14" Model 6565 it has a 40" cc
Various South Bend Belt and Gear head machines
Harrison
Leblond
Clausing
Clausing / Colchester (many have copied this machine)
 
You can add a Rockwell 11" to that list. Be careful of the headstock lenght if you want to work thru the headstock, many lathes are too long there.
Bobby
 
Depending on your level of patience one site which is worth keeping an eye on is the CDN govt. crown assets site. They have sold some nice machines including lathes in Dartmouth NS in the last few months. They have a "what has sold' section to show what things have gone for. I have a 13" Colchester and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
MIchael
 
Standard Modern is a good lathe and since they were originally made in Canada, there's a lot of them up there.
 
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