Looking For A Small Lathe And Vertical Mill

wrmiller19 said:
Just a caution Bill, but we have a bunch of people here doing some pretty good stuff on "Chinese junk" (see my avatar), and every other type of machine imaginable, but we don't put down anyone's choice in machines here. Everyone's welcome. :)
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Did not mean to offend anyone but I have looked at several lathes that were copies and they were not very good but yet the price was high.
 
Riaan said:
I find myself in the same boat in that I'm starting out and am tempted by the small imports. However, in my case I have clear ideas of the things I want to fabricate and having been down the road of buying twice because I bought cheap once, I am wary of committing cash to any deal. What scares me about the imports is the potential lack of spares and support when the brown hits the round. On the other hand, finding spares for old iron isn't necessarily easier. At least when you buy a new import you have some sort of warranty from the local distributor.

I'll be honest, I would buy a small chinese mill and/or lathe in a heartbeat *IF* I already knew what I was doing and already had the equipment to correct any manufacturing defects, ie surface plate, straight edge, primary mill and lathe. I think it might be a fun little project turning a small chinese import into a tight and precise little machine. I have no doubt it can be done but it takes skill, time and equipment which could otherwise be spent making stuff the machine is intended for in the first place.

On the other hand, some guys get lucky and their cheapies turn out pretty good straight from the crate.
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I agree I have the same feeling about the imports, My shop has alot of them, but if I'm going to pay 4500 or more for a machine I don't want to have to get on Youtube and find all the modifications you have to do to the machine to make it work.
 
rafe said:
You should be able to find that if you are patient! Probably within a 20 mile radius ....patience is the key though..... It's a strange market if you don't know what you are looking at though , you can overpay for junk and find great machines priced way below their value. Sometimes those oil encrusted users are a diamond in the rough and the pristine ones are good looking crap. Learn as much as you can about what it takes to be a good machine .....I bought an old SB and it will do everything I need it to , and I won't outgrow it's capabilities. Same with a BP you can find them fairly cheap if you don't mine some overdue maintenance and repairs ...(This is an analogy and not meant to offend).I don't care what you ride ,and I'm glad you do .... I don't care to ride a Chang lin pho , rather have a H-D .....same goes for the machining ...they will all get you from point a to point b .... preference is a good thing....Hey I have old Triumphs too, so I'm not anti-import!.....
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You are right I'm going to look at a lathe this weekend and I'm taking a friend of mine that is a machinist at one of casting plants here local. But he has never ran a small machine but like I said they all work about the same. I just don't want to buy on that has a DuPont overhaul on it. And your right as long as your riding it doesn't matter what you ride and it fits here also
 
Bill Rosselot said:
Did not mean to offend anyone but I have looked at several lathes that were copies and they were not very good but yet the price was high.
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No offense taken. Just a caution. :)

I've see some crazy prices for both import and US on Ebay. Sometimes I'm like 'are you kidding me?' :)
 
Bill Rosselot said:
You are right I'm going to look at a lathe this weekend and I'm taking a friend of mine that is a machinist at one of casting plants here local. But he has never ran a small machine but like I said they all work about the same. I just don't want to buy on that has a DuPont overhaul on it. And your right as long as your riding it doesn't matter what you ride and it fits here also
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A guy I worked in a CNC shop with came over to check out my Smithy Granite when I first got it. He was shocked at the quality, compared to the first 3-in-1 machines he had seen and said "It's actually more substantial than I thought it would be." Then when I showed him a couple of things I'd made to learn the particulars of the machine, he decided he wanted to start shopping imports for his home shop. He was particularly impressed with a drill-bit extension I'd made.

With that machine long gone, I've been on a "If I stumble on a good deal" shopping plan for a couple of years now and have formed a few ideas on what is available.

IMO most of the "American iron" is very much like the "classic truck". You may get that '65 Dodge Power Wagon 4x4 that currently drives but several things need replacing. Parts are out there but are harder and harder to find, and more and more expensive. The Toyota Tundra assembled in Texas may be the wiser choice, if you need something to use and not rebuild.

With imported machine tools, many are identical and parts swap. The most important feature (again IMO) is retailer support. Companies like Grizzly and Quality Machine Tools (Precision Matthews) have a reputation of great customer service. Others do not.

Hope this helps.
 
I spend my days running either a Tos Trencin 24 X 100 lathe made in Slovokia or a Romi lathe with a Bridgeport control made in Brazil, both excellent imported machines.
Imported does not automatically mean "bad". A majority of the worlds machine tools are made in Japan, can you say Fanuc?

That said, buying a machine at the lowest possible price will surely end in tears.
 
"Surely end in tears"--- Hmmm- not always true either. I only paid 50 bucks for my Asian 9 X 20 and that is the lathe I used to build the Cutter Grinder. Just my opinion in this case but you can't always judge the book by the cover.

This being said comes the challenge involved. I totally rebuilt mine to get it to run correctly. I see the cheaper lathe as a learning machine. As you learn you tighten it up and soon you will find a machine that can run with the best of the pack. Again, this is my opinion.

"Billy G"
 
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Bill Gruby said:
"Surely end in tears"--- Hmmm- not always true either. I only paid 50 bucks for my Asian 9 X 20 and that is the lathe I used to build the Cutter Grinder. Just my opinion in this case but you can't always judge the book by the cover.

"Billy G"
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New machines Billy
I bought a used Clausing lathe for $800.00 in 1990, don't know the model number because I have no interest in such minutiae. After several hundreds of dollars and many hours of my time, it served well for the next 20 years and made a great deal of money for me. I do not disparage nor discourage any hobbyist working within a budget yet not everyone has the skill or patience to work up from the bottom beginning with poorly made tools.
 
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