Need help deciding on a new lathe

[Aaron_W]

My impression is Florida is not a great place to look for used machinery. Not a great deal of manufacturing and the climate in most of the state is not metal friendly.

Given the choice I'd take a good 10" Logan or South Bend but if buying new the PM 1022/1030 looks like a solid option and is what I was seriously considering before finding my 11" Powermatic / Logan for 1/4 the price.

 

[wachuko]

I mean, that's already way more than I could do with this little lathe. What size rod is that and what material? Looks like steel probably about ~5/8 - 3/4ish?

I need to correct my answer... it was not 1/2", it was 5/8"

And as promised... tried again... Turns out, I had not adjusted my lathe since getting it home... stupid me... I tighten everything in the back and front... and no more diving of the cutter into the material like before!





Now, I owe you doing this with the same cutter... the one I initially used is in the other house, so I will bring it over and do this again with it... But looks like the previous owner had made several cutting bits and there was one similar, smaller, but similar profile...




Look at that...



Like I said... still need to do it with the other cutter... but the difference in rigidity after tightening everything good... night and day...

 

[Mach_Zero]

I need to correct my answer... it was not 1/2", it was 5/8"

And as promised... tried again... Turns out, I had not adjusted my lathe since getting it home... stupid me... I tighten everything in the back and front... and no more diving of the cutter into the material like before!

Now, I owe you doing this with the same cutter... the one I initially used is in the other house, so I will bring it over and do this again with it... But looks like the previous owner had made several cutting bits and there was one similar, smaller, but similar profile...

Look at that...
Like I said... still need to do it with the other cutter... but the difference in rigidity after tightening everything good... night and day...

That's awesome! That would absolutely kill my lathe. And the worst thing is that my 7x14 is one of the super cheap chinese lathes with the random brand name. So they saved costs by not putting in the high/low gear like the Grizzly 7x12 has. With the low gear I would have double the torque that I have now.

I'm going to save up a bit and probably go for the precision matthews lathe.