Small lathes /mills upgrade

If I were you, I’d get the smithy up and running, try making a few things and then make an honest assessment of what it can do and what it can’t (in respect of what you need it to do).

then look at if you can live with its “shortcomings” and if you can’t, look at what you need in another machine.

Basically, get a little “time in” on the smithy (since you already have it) and go from there….
 
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C-Bag said:
I agree with what John said and have similar machines, space and power constraints. So I have a 9x20 and RF30 running on 20a breakers. I’ve got a two car garage w/cement floors. Got to remember you are one guy running one machine at a time. I’m in the process of putting my compressor on a separate breaker as that’s where I run into trouble is running a machine tool, lights etc and then the compressor kicking in automatically. Once I get that squared away I’ll never pop another breaker.

I know the Smithy isn’t ideal but if you have the room I’d be careful about getting rid of it after you get a bigger lathe. There is often times when only another lathe can fix a lathe. Been there, needed that.
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Not sure I would get rid of it. Although its showing its short comings and Im not even a machinist. Any investment in this will all be tooling that can be transferred. Come spring time I might do a DRO set up as these dials suck and even with my glasses I have trouble seeing the hash marks!
 
great white said:
If I were you, I’d get the smithy up and running, try making a few things and then make an honest assessment of what it can do and what it can’t (in respect of what you need it to do).

then look at if you can live with its “shortcomings” and if you can’t, look at what you need in another machine.

Basically, get a little “time in” on the smithy (since you already have it) and go from there….
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This is my goal , going to break my teeth learning a new skill
 
mac1911 said:
Not sure I would get rid of it. Although its showing its short comings and Im not even a machinist. Any investment in this will all be tooling that can be transferred. Come spring time I might do a DRO set up as these dials suck and even with my glasses I have trouble seeing the hash marks!
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I've not needed a DRO on my lathe, but I have greatly enjoyed and totally upped my game on the mill. It's just so much easier to keep track of what's going on with a DRO. The only machining experience I'd had before was working as a mechanic doing engine rebuilding, transmissions, rearends and brakes. So I was used to measuring and keeping tolerances but not with lathes and mills. It's a pretty steep curve but finding H-M and YouTube of course really helped.
 
Like c-bag said, I have never had or needed DRO on my lathe.
However, I would not be without it on my mill. YMMV.
And Harvey likes to tell people the rabbit hole can get very, very deep when buying tools for your new machining hobby.
 
C-Bag said:
I've not needed a DRO on my lathe, but I have greatly enjoyed and totally upped my game on the mill. It's just so much easier to keep track of what's going on with a DRO. The only machining experience I'd had before was working as a mechanic doing engine rebuilding, transmissions, rearends and brakes. So I was used to measuring and keeping tolerances but not with lathes and mills. It's a pretty steep curve but finding H-M and YouTube of course really helped.
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Auto Tech here also.
 
Manual Mac said:
Like c-bag said, I have never had or needed DRO on my lathe.
However, I would not be without it on my mill. YMMV.
And Harvey likes to tell people the rabbit hole can get very, very deep when buying tools for your new machining hobby.
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No stranger to tools being a auto tech and hobby gun smith , I have plenty of short lived “specialty” tools.
This is a 3-1 so the DRO would come in handy when using the mill.
On the lathe , maybe not so much but man it would be easier looking at 1” numbers on a DRO than those scratch marks , lol
I will get there just looking ahead
 
mac1911 said:
No stranger to tools being a auto tech and hobby gun smith , I have plenty of short lived “specialty” tools.
This is a 3-1 so the DRO would come in handy when using the mill.
On the lathe , maybe not so much but man it would be easier looking at 1” numbers on a DRO than those scratch marks , lol
I will get there just looking ahead
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You think you’ve got small dials you should see the dials on my old Atlas shaper! I’ve gotten used to it, but depending on the DRO you can sink a lot of $$ into them. I went lo $$ with my first DRO and it made a world of difference.
 
Well, You have to wear safety glasses anyways, so maybe do what I did: bought a couple pairs of safety glasses with the magnifiers in the bottom of the lenses (like a bifocal).

Now I can get a nice close up look at the work as its turning and seeing the numbers on the dials is easy.
 
great white said:
Well, You have to wear safety glasses anyways, so maybe do what I did: bought a couple pairs of safety glasses with the magnifiers in the bottom of the lenses (like a bifocal).

Now I can get a nice close up look at the work as its turning and seeing the numbers on the dials is easy.
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I get dizzy with bi focal , running + 1.50 now . Anyway DRO is a bit down the road.
 
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