Thoughts on Mini-Lathes

[455dan]

Therein lies the rub. It seems that some of the China mini lathe manufacturers ship all manner of atrocities.

Case in point...in addition to the crap casting example I posted before, my 8x16 machine had really poor machining on the bed. More specifically, the thickness of the bed, from the top of the V to the underside where the carriage clamps rode, varied more than .015" from end to end.

If the carriage clamp screws were set to take out the slop with the carriage by the headstock, the carriage wouldn't move as it was moved back towards the tailstock.

Sorry if I sound like a debbie downer, but honestly, I am. The quality of manufacturing of these cheap small lathes is very inconsistent, and disconcerting. It's one thing to fix a handwheel of low quality, but if the bed is machined wrong, or the castings are full of porosity, you have no real way of fixing that situation by yourself.

That is something that seems to track with most machines as they are stepped up in size in my experience.
Since they cost more to make in materials to begin with, more care seems to go into the machine in general because they are not working with very small margins in profit.

His lathe doesn't have much umph..... Mine made it across the garage at terminal velocity. I too now spin the chuck a turn before engaging it...

Mine did too.
I forgot once with the 1224 while I still had the 240 AC 3 HP 3450 RPM air compressor motor powering it.
Bounced it off the wall 10 feet away Real GooD.

Now In my hand or in its resting place only.

 

[dabear3428]

Therein lies the rub. It seems that some of the China mini lathe manufacturers ship all manner of atrocities.

Case in point...in addition to the crap casting example I posted before, my 8x16 machine had really poor machining on the bed. More specifically, the thickness of the bed, from the top of the V to the underside where the carriage clamps rode, varied more than .015" from end to end.

If the carriage clamp screws were set to take out the slop with the carriage by the headstock, the carriage wouldn't move as it was moved back towards the tailstock.

Sorry if I sound like a debbie downer, but honestly, I am. The quality of manufacturing of these cheap small lathes is very inconsistent, and disconcerting. It's one thing to fix a handwheel of low quality, but if the bed is machined wrong, or the castings are full of porosity, you have no real way of fixing that situation by yourself.

the way to fix that is to do the QC yourself when the lathe hits your door and insist they RMA it inside the 30 day free return window, also do not buy one that does not offer that.