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- Jul 20, 2016
- Messages
- 89
What min-lathe is this.? SIEG 7x mini-lathes can thread 28 tpi. Their change gear set can even cut 27 tpi.
LMS threading calculator is quite valuable.
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Looking at a Vevor Lathe Have Questions
- Thread starter cnctruckeic
- Start date
What min-lathe is this.? SIEG 7x mini-lathes can thread 28 tpi. Their change gear set can even cut 27 tpi.
LMS threading calculator is quite valuable.
Going by my experience, the better question is what doesn't need to be done. I had to think hard on this, and I do believe that the electrical cord was ok.
Everything on mine was a reject part. It was like they went to the manufacturers reject bin and said, "we'll dump your scrap for free!", then proceeded to assemble what they could and sell it to suckers like me...Well, that trick worked once.
The lathe bed thickness varied over 35 thou. So the gibbs did not work. The compound was machined on an angle, the dovetail on one side had an offset after the mounting screw hole. So they drilled the hole and the mill slipped passing the hole and then continued milling at an offset. No way to make it work without regrinding the dovetail.
The holes for mounting the apron were so thin and offset that one was broken. The lead screw was on an angle. The gears were so far out that some meshed about 10% of the thread looking from the side it almost looked like it wasn't meshing at all. The large locknut at the spindle (near the gears) was tapped at an angle of about 15 degrees. It just won't sit flat. The threading charts were all wrong. They do not cut what the manufacturer claims they do.
The apron handwheel was so loose that it was binding. The compound leadscrew wasn't centered with the nut so it would go in at an angle and was offset causing it to bind all the time. The tailstock was about 50 thou out and sat on an angle having three points of contact. Same with the saddle. The head stock was not parallel to the bed in two planes, yes it was out vertically and horizontally. The spindle was advertised as MT4 in some places and MT3 in others (in the same ad!) It is neither. To make the chuck work with the large spindle hole they simply removed the back plate.
They drilled two mounting holes instead of four. Why, because they tried to drill four like it should be, but got the alignment so bad they went into the vertical webbing of the headstock. So it has holes there, but no way to secure it. They scrapped (not scraped) the bed at that point. I imagine before machining the rest of the bed. The mounts were not flat, they were curved.
The plastic guard was mounted on a shaft that was drilled wrong so it was out of round. Their answer to that was to secure it with one small bolt instead of the two it had there. This is part of their safety system. I just removed it as it was a joke anyway. The front face covers were not cut straight leaving a huge gap so metal fillings would fall into the electronics. The magnets on the headstock weren't glued in and three of the four were not in place. The hall effect sensor was so far out that if failed to pick up. The drive spins only 50% of the claimed figure. Other owners had full speed. I do not. All the gibbs were bent and non salvageable. I had to make brass ones to get any sort of slop out of them. The electronics is unsafe. I turn it off and it keeps spinning for several seconds using the "e-stop" Quick changes can cause it to false start without hitting start. The motor controller is terrible. When its when loaded, it senses it and then pauses before throwing it into 100% and spinning like crazy even though you set it for minimum RPM, throwing crap everywhere. The half huts were out of alignment. Engaging them dropped the leadscrew by a couple of mm. The fix was not easy. It was due to the apron being made incorrectly. The electrical ground lug was attached to a mounting screw instead of being just for the ground.
It really was made with reject parts, can't stress that enough. When I ordered it, I figured it was a Chinese lathe, so a project lathe where I clean up rough edges, get rid of shavings, clean it up and tighten things up nicely. This was not a that type of product. It is a collection of rejected parts sold as new and IMHO should be illegal.
I'm sure I forgot a few things. Took several months and a milling machine to get it semi reasonable. It now has wedge style gibs for the saddle and brass for the dovetails. I recut the compound nut, put in thrust bearings, recentered it, made a new handle as the original was bent form factory. Scraped in the bed to get the headstock V grove straight, milled the tailstock and made a new system under it to stop it binding when moving. Made brass spacers to make the saddle and the tailstock flat with the bed. Numerous other fixes.
I can now cut metal pretty accurately. I recently made two arbors; a dovetail cutter (to fix this lathe) and a slitting saw. Both were about 0.5 thou in runout, both were about 5 inches long. Its still a POS and I hate it, but I hopefully am having a SB 9A toolroom lathe coming in this week. While I may have to do work on it, at least I know I'm dealing with wear and not bad design combined with reject parts.
The main reason for buying it was the 35mm spindle hole size. It wasn't worth the effort.
If you need more reason to never consider this brand again, I'll see if I can remember what I had to do to actually fix it all.
Last edited:
Clarifying, it was half a thou runout, not taper. The total length was 5 inches. I cut them between centers. It was two separate statements. Sorry for the confusion. I rephrased my bad sentence in my post!
Wow, This kind of stuff just sets me sideways. It really should be illegal. Should be US laws in place to protect the American citizens from Chinese **** like thisGoing by my experience, the better question is what doesn't need to be done. I had to think hard on this, and I do believe that the electrical cord was ok.
Everything on mine was a reject part. It was like they went to the manufacturers reject bin and said, "we'll dump your scrap for free!", then proceeded to assemble what they could and sell it to suckers like me...Well, that trick worked once.
The lathe bed thickness varied over 35 thou. So the gibbs did not work. The compound was machined on an angle, the dovetail on one side had an offset after the mounting screw hole. So they drilled the hole and the mill slipped passing the hole and then continued milling at an offset. No way to make it work without regrinding the dovetail.
The holes for mounting the apron were so thin and offset that one was broken. The lead screw was on an angle. The gears were so far out that some meshed about 10% of the thread looking from the side it almost looked like it wasn't meshing at all. The large locknut at the spindle (near the gears) was tapped at an angle of about 15 degrees. It just won't sit flat. The threading charts were all wrong. They do not cut what the manufacturer claims they do.
The apron handwheel was so loose that it was binding. The compound leadscrew wasn't centered with the nut so it would go in at an angle and was offset causing it to bind all the time. The tailstock was about 50 thou out and sat on an angle having three points of contact. Same with the saddle. The head stock was not parallel to the bed in two planes, yes it was out vertically and horizontally. The spindle was advertised as MT4 in some places and MT3 in others (in the same ad!) It is neither. To make the chuck work with the large spindle hole they simply removed the back plate.
They drilled two mounting holes instead of four. Why, because they tried to drill four like it should be, but got the alignment so bad they went into the vertical webbing of the headstock. So it has holes there, but no way to secure it. They scrapped (not scraped) the bed at that point. I imagine before machining the rest of the bed. The mounts were not flat, they were curved.
The plastic guard was mounted on a shaft that was drilled wrong so it was out of round. Their answer to that was to secure it with one small bolt instead of the two it had there. This is part of their safety system. I just removed it as it was a joke anyway. The front face covers were not cut straight leaving a huge gap so metal fillings would fall into the electronics. The magnets on the headstock weren't glued in and three of the four were not in place. The hall effect sensor was so far out that if failed to pick up. The drive spins only 50% of the claimed figure. Other owners had full speed. I do not. All the gibbs were bent and non salvageable. I had to make brass ones to get any sort of slop out of them. The electronics is unsafe. I turn it off and it keeps spinning for several seconds using the "e-stop" Quick changes can cause it to false start without hitting start. The motor controller is terrible. When its when loaded, it senses it and then pauses before throwing it into 100% and spinning like crazy even though you set it for minimum RPM, throwing crap everywhere. The half huts were out of alignment. Engaging them dropped the leadscrew by a couple of mm. The fix was not easy. It was due to the apron being made incorrectly. The electrical ground lug was attached to a mounting screw instead of being just for the ground.
It really was made with reject parts, can't stress that enough. When I ordered it, I figured it was a Chinese lathe, so a project lathe where I clean up rough edges, get rid of shavings, clean it up and tighten things up nicely. This was not a that type of product. It is a collection of rejected parts sold as new and IMHO should be illegal.
I'm sure I forgot a few things. Took several months and a milling machine to get it semi reasonable. It now has wedge style gibs for the saddle and brass for the dovetails. I recut the compound nut, put in thrust bearings, recentered it, made a new handle as the original was bent form factory. Scraped in the bed to get the headstock V grove straight, milled the tailstock and made a new system under it to stop it binding when moving. Made brass spacers to make the saddle and the tailstock flat with the bed. Numerous other fixes.
I can now cut metal pretty accurately. I recently made two arbors; a dovetail cutter (to fix this lathe) and a slitting saw. Both were about 0.5 thou in runout, both were about 5 inches long. Its still a POS and I hate it, but I hopefully am having a SB 9A toolroom lathe coming in this week. While I may have to do work on it, at least I know I'm dealing with wear and not bad design combined with reject parts.
The main reason for buying it was the 35mm spindle hole size. It wasn't worth the effort.
If you need more reason to never consider this brand again, I'll see if I can remember what I had to do to actually fix it all.
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I would like to figure out how to build these here at a quality level that would be appreciated for a price that people would be willing to pay. I think a lot of automation would be required though.
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2023
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- 40
That depends on a lot of things. If you are a professional, and time is money, you will definitely end up with buyer's remorse. If you are a hobbyist, you will find the lathe itself quickly becomes a hobby in its own right. It's not so much that Vevor makes crappy stuff, which one can well argue to be true, but the after-sale customer service is really dodgy. You will end up following online forums like this one, and watching a lot of youtubes, diagnosing problems and performing upgrades. If you are new to machining, it could be an adventure if you keep an open mind and a positive attitude. There will be a LOT of times where you will be counting on that positive attitude to keep yourself going and keep from selling it as scrap iron.
One issue, if you hope to make barrels, is rigidity. A pistol barrel I can make. A revolver cylinder I can make. A bolt or a firing pin I can make. A rifle barrel? I would buy or salvage that. I am afraid that a rifle barrel project would be a life changing event, even with 29.5" to work with. My vevor is quite a bit smaller than the one you are looking at, though. Boring and rifling a full length rifle barrel is something that calls for a good machine and an experienced operator.
If you hope to use your lathe for milling, you will have a lot of workaround work to do, a lot of fixtures to make or buy, and you will all the time wish you had a vertical mill, even a Chinese one. I think you will find a mill to be more useful than a lathe, unless you do figure on making a barrel or two or maybe a revolver cylinder. In fact it was my desire to build myself a couple of guns that got me started in machining. I bought an 80% 1911 frame and an 80% AR receiver and thought my HF drill press would make it all happen. I must have chased that drill chuck a hundred times! Jacobs taper chucks just don't stick in the spindle very well when you put side loads on them. Ended up with a rebranded Sieg X2 mill from Home Depot after considering making a table router and the mini mill made quick work of both projects. The 1911 is now my favorite handgun. Anyway after all that, I started doing other non-gun projects and ended up wanting a lathe, and my choice was cheap and benchtop, or none at all, and the Vevor has been my little buddy and also my worst enemy. Mostly I try to stay upbeat and remind myself that it's a process, not a result. The online support from the user community is pretty good even though Vevor just wants you to go away until you mention you would like to upgrade. Of the two machines, I think the lathe has given me more grief and seen less use than the mill.
No matter what, the base machine is just a start. All the tooling you will end up buying even just initially will probably add up to more than what the machine costs. You can of course make practically all your own tooling, but at a cost in time. If the journey is more important to you than the destination, no sweat. A bench grinder and some tool stock or lathe tool blanks will get you off to a not so flying start. Maybe some carbide insert tools and cheap carbide inserts. The little triangle ones are nice because you just turn to the next point when you burn up or break the first one or the second one.
If you buy a Vevor, one small consolation is that you aren't alone. The bottom feeders will always find cash strapped or stingy customers and so there are a lot of owners in varius stages of learning to make their lathe do useful stuff or at least fun stuff.
Okay gotta go. I got a piece of 6061 out in the workshop that needs to be turned into little shiny curley cue chips this morning.
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- Sep 1, 2023
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Okay, I'll grant that the current incarnation of Myford is taking the **** with their prices just a bit but go take a look here:
The cheapest, most barebones ML7 is £4674 including VAT. That's just shy of $6000.
Now, we do have to take into account that Myford have to pay for their commercial insurance, pay at least the minimum wage, pay their share of taxes and provide 4 weeks annual leave (I think it's 4 weeks) to it's staff; there might be an annual factory shutdown period too (don't know if that's de rigeur in manufacturing any more) but at least some of that will apply to a US operation too.
AFAIK, Myford are the only quality hobbyist lathe manufacturer left in the West. I suspect their prices are a result of the burdens of operating in the West, plus, maybe the lack of competition a bit but mostly the aforementioned burdens.
Truth be told, Chinese manufacturing doesn't really have the burdens that Western companies have so they can produce machine tools for so much less.
As for automation. That's one hell of an expensive initial capital outlay. How big do you reckon the small shop/hobbyist market is? I'd suspect it's not big enough to get payback in a timely enough fashion.
Also, you'd still need staff, they'd just have to be fully CNC trained and thus more expensive (and easier for other companies to poach).
Whenever, I think to myself "Why has nobody done that; surely there's a market for that?", after a bit of reflection it almost always seems to be that either there isn't enough of a market or, even if there might be, it's just too damn expensive to do at any scale, here in the West.
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you hit the nail on the head, the cheap chinese lathe / mill makes no sense if you are making money with them (you can make money after you have worked the bugs out), but for getting into a hobby and learning about that hobby they make sense for several reasons,
1. low barrier for entry into the hobby, not much upfront cost not much dedicated space required.
2. low cost of accessories, if you have a powerful very rigid lathe / mill you need powerful rigid tools, vices, holders etc. and they can cost as much as a cheap lathe or mill (easily). you can get tons of ok stuff off of amazon/ebay/aliexpress, none of it is as capable as industrial tools but it will not be the limiting factor.
3. easy to upgrade from if and when you need to, it is hard to sell/move a full sized mill / lathe out after you are ready to move up (if you ever are).
4. safety, a small mill / lathe can mess up your day if you make a mistake but they are not as likely to end your life as a full sized knee mill or a 14X40 south bend lathe.
I'm planning on moving up to larger equipment sometime after i have worked out the bugs in my skill, and have had fun with the minis but in the mean time this is like an erector set where you learn about the equipment and have fun as well.
IMHO If you can workout how to make good parts on the minis you will be able to easily duplicate that with larger / better / more rigid equipment.
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