Recommendations for Lathe and Mill with Space Limitations

[verbotenwhisky]

My thoughts exactly...I'm definitely interested in the DRO feature, and it makes sense to have common functionality.
Just one more reason to buy both machines from the same company. I'm hoping that I could also negotiate a multi-machine discount.

And the anti-vibration pads are a good point, I'll keep that in mind.

Regarding Chinese vs. Taiwanese, how much of a difference in accuracy are we talking about? Is it more of a fit & finish issue? Are these 'quirks' correctable? I'm used to buying offshore tools (both of my bandsaws and my disc/belt sanders, to name a few) and then spending a day or two 'blueprinting' them to correct any minor deficiencies. Of course, with a lathe or mill I expect it may be a bit more time consuming. Is the price differential between the two that drastic? If we're talking savings in the thousands than it's worth it to me. And of course I want accuracy, and more precision is better, but realistically the parts I'll be making won't be aircraft grade, lol.

I have had 1 or 2 issues which were problematic that required a fix and PM backed them up without complaint, they provide a 3 year warranty and they support their customers. Fit and finish, the castings tend to be a bit rough and the filler a bit liberal but over all I have had very good results from my 2 machines and most of the things I doctored on were personal preference. The clean up and de-burr took some time. I have a Taiwanese wood lathe and it does have a better quality of casting and the body filler is minimal; but for the price difference I am happy with the Chinese machines I have and haven't had issues attaining the accuracy I expect. Like I said the one thing that would sway me over to the Taiwanese PM-1236T is the gear box which would eliminate the use of change gears for threading,

Your likely looking for the 833 size mill and the Chinese PM-30MV and the Taiwanese PM-833TV which is in the 2000 difference catagory, lots of info on both machines to look at on PM's site and many here have said good things about both. I will say I have the 940V but originally wanted the 940M difference being a gear head verses a variable speed belt drive and I have found the variable sped to be a great machine with plenty of power, it's another item you'll want to research.

 

[G-ManBart]

Regarding Chinese vs. Taiwanese, how much of a difference in accuracy are we talking about? Is it more of a fit & finish issue? Are these 'quirks' correctable? I'm used to buying offshore tools (both of my bandsaws and my disc/belt sanders, to name a few) and then spending a day or two 'blueprinting' them to correct any minor deficiencies. Of course, with a lathe or mill I expect it may be a bit more time consuming. Is the price differential between the two that drastic? If we're talking savings in the thousands than it's worth it to me. And of course I want accuracy, and more precision is better, but realistically the parts I'll be making won't be aircraft grade, lol.

This topic by itself could cover pages and pages of debate and discussion, so there's no easy answer. If you were to buy from a company like Precision Matthews it's probably not as big an issue because they have a solid reputation of helping fix problems with any of their machines. If you go another route, like Grizzly, you're going to face a much bigger challenge if you wind up with a machine that has issues and the machines made in China are much more likely to have issues.

The thing is, the average person isn't going to be able to do something like re scrape the ways, or scrape in the saddle if they buy a Chinese lathe from a company with iffy support and it's got serious issues. There have been quite a few threads where people buy one of the least expensive Chinese import machines and then spend a year working on it to finally get it performing acceptably, and they will comment how they wish they hadn't bought it in the first place. Other folks have run into the problems and approach it more like "hey, I knew this could happen, but I only could spend so much" and roll with it.

Rather than a difference in accuracy I think you're simply far less likely to wind up with a serious problem if you buy one of the Taiwanese machines because they're made better to start with and tend to see more QC along the way. I have a 1976 Victor 1640 that was made in Taiwan that is shockingly nice. Pull the headstock cover, look inside and the gears, shafts, casting etc are all just beautiful...every bit as nice inside as the 14" Logan it replace or the 14" Clausing that's ten feet away. It's a fairly typical, simple import pattern lathe, but there's nothing cheap or crude about it when you look at it, or operate the controls. I would stretch the budget to at least get into machines made in Taiwan, especially if you think you're going to have them for a long time.

 

[Ischgl99]

I went with the Taiwanese lathe party because of what verbotenwhisky said about change gears, but also the higher quality level. I did not want to deal with reworking what should have been right from the beginning like I had to with my 9x20 lathe I started with. My PM 1236T does have an issue with the detent holes for the speed selector levers being drilled too deeply and at some point I need to correct that, but that is really the only issue I have found, everything else has been great.

Another issue is the quality of the components. If PM says their lathes have P5 quality bearings in them, I believe they do. Grizzly sells bearings claiming to be P5, but a couple years ago a member here bought replacement bearings labled P5 on the website, but he received bearings without the normal markings of a P5 bearing that we determined most likely are not the higher precision they claim to be. These bearings came out of China. That makes me question if the lathes they are selling have lower tolerance bearings, or are they what they claim? Things like that make me wary of anything coming out of China.

If you go in with your eyes open that you will most likely need to do some work on the Chinese machine as G-ManBart mentioned, then the cost savings can be worth it for you. In reality, buying a new Chinese lathe is not that different than buying a used lathe in some ways, you are getting the benefit of the cheaper price with the expectation that you will need to fix something. Sometimes you get lucky and nothing needs to be done, but usually there is something, hopefully minor, but occasionally major.