Thoughts on Mini-Lathes

The market has spoken. Whether the white-bearded machinist clucks under his breath or shakes his head disapprovingly, people have already chosen the 7x machines as the entry point into machining. Everyone beginner who buys one is delighted and works to improve the machine. The same trajectory can be seen in budget 3D printers. Buy a cheap one and make improvements. The complainers are inevitably people who
  1. do larger work,
  2. have worked on lathes that cost 50x or 100x more and won't adjust their techniques, patience, and expectations
  3. who have a taste for better-quality equipment (that the shop owner paid for) and feel a little entitled
  4. are signaling virtue, competence, belonging, experience
  5. spend a lot of time and effort finding used equipment
I think we can safely ignore the opinions of all of these people.

Instead of calling import lathes "junk", we should think of it as "introduction to machining".

It could also be thought of as a financing plan, or an on-ramp to machining. When starting out, it is much harder to buy outright rather than to buy in stages. If I knew how much I would spend on machine tools and welders at the beginning, I wouldn't have been able to find the money all at once and I wouldn't be inspired to find the money.

IMO, the old-iron people should give it a rest. It's the most common opinion on the machine-tool part of the internet. The proponents of old-iron assume that everyone enjoys the chase, everyone has truck and trailer or experience booking LTL freight, that the market availability is the same everywhere, that used prices are enough better than new that it's worth the risk, and that used machines are good machines. None of those things are universally true so it's not universal advice. The used machine you bought 20 years ago for 100 $ when you lived in a suburb of Detroit isn't helping anyone---it's bragging and discouraging to the newcomers. I've bought old and new. The old had a bad spindle and shipping hassles. The new worked out of the crate but cost more. When buying machine tools, there are no right answers, only trade offs. Old iron isn't the answer to every question.

I don't mean to be mean. I get frustrated with my import items, too, and I like old iron. But for beginners with small budgets, the mini lathe is perfect.

verbotenwhisky said:
...if someone offered a small lathe in a kit form, think heath kit,
Click to expand...

There's a Fran Lab video in which she explained the problems with kits. Smart competent people think kits are a good idea but normies end up buying kits, too. She tells a story about visiting a Heathkit store, back in the day, in which unhappy old men were fixing people's idiotic assembly mistakes. One person had assembled a circuit properly but had used glue instead of solder... based on her experience, I wouldn't start a kits type business.
 
CraigH said:
This topic has been well received with excellent post.

It has been mentioned that expectation of the 7x Chinese lathe (and not just the 7x) has to be tempered with a good deal of current realities. The lathes will generally work within their limitations with a number of accuracy limiting faults. Some are tuning correctable and some are limitations of the design. Enter into the mini-lathe with eyes wide open and proceed with the lathe with adjustment/tuning/modding when needed or desired. And if a really terribly functioning example is received, hope you have return possibilities.

But very good work can be done by the mini-lathe hobbyist. (And if with my limitations if I can, anyone can)
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The day before yesterday, I was boring some brass out to about a 36.60mm dia.

After my roughing passes I ended up with 1.1mm to go. I finished up at 36.59 and called it good.

DRO would be nice. I got a bit fed up of having to keep track of my crossfeed dials!:grin:
 
SouthernChap said:
This three headstock bolt thing seems common to 7x mini-lathes. I know that extra bolt will eat into overall profits but just adding, oh say, £10, to the price would cover that and more, and would save some product reputational problems.

Interestingly, my Weiss WBL1835 came with four headstock bolts and the headstock was affixed with all four.
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it cost extra to ship that un-needed bolt! are you made of money? we are not, said the wholesaler.
 
durableoreo said:
The market has spoken. Whether the white-bearded machinist clucks under his breath or shakes his head disapprovingly, people have already chosen the 7x machines as the entry point into machining. Everyone beginner who buys one is delighted and works to improve the machine. The same trajectory can be seen in budget 3D printers. Buy a cheap one and make improvements. The complainers are inevitably people who
  1. do larger work,
  2. have worked on lathes that cost 50x or 100x more and won't adjust their techniques, patience, and expectations
  3. who have a taste for better-quality equipment (that the shop owner paid for) and feel a little entitled
  4. are signaling virtue, competence, belonging, experience
  5. spend a lot of time and effort finding used equipment
I think we can safely ignore the opinions of all of these people.

Instead of calling import lathes "junk", we should think of it as "introduction to machining".

It could also be thought of as a financing plan, or an on-ramp to machining. When starting out, it is much harder to buy outright rather than to buy in stages. If I knew how much I would spend on machine tools and welders at the beginning, I wouldn't have been able to find the money all at once and I wouldn't be inspired to find the money.

IMO, the old-iron people should give it a rest. It's the most common opinion on the machine-tool part of the internet. The proponents of old-iron assume that everyone enjoys the chase, everyone has truck and trailer or experience booking LTL freight, that the market availability is the same everywhere, that used prices are enough better than new that it's worth the risk, and that used machines are good machines. None of those things are universally true so it's not universal advice. The used machine you bought 20 years ago for 100 $ when you lived in a suburb of Detroit isn't helping anyone---it's bragging and discouraging to the newcomers. I've bought old and new. The old had a bad spindle and shipping hassles. The new worked out of the crate but cost more. When buying machine tools, there are no right answers, only trade offs. Old iron isn't the answer to every question.

I don't mean to be mean. I get frustrated with my import items, too, and I like old iron. But for beginners with small budgets, the mini lathe is perfect.



There's a Fran Lab video in which she explained the problems with kits. Smart competent people think kits are a good idea but normies end up buying kits, too. She tells a story about visiting a Heathkit store, back in the day, in which unhappy old men were fixing people's idiotic assembly mistakes. One person had assembled a circuit properly but had used glue instead of solder... based on her experience, I wouldn't start a kits type business.
Click to expand...

Well, you make lots of very valid points but it kinda feels like you're just doing the flipside of what the old iron proponents do.

I very much doubt if any given instance of the Chinese 7x mini-lathe could accurately be described as 'perfect' :grin:

To give a UK based example, if the beginner can find, for example, a Myford ML7 in good fettle at a sensible price (and they mostly do end up at a sensible price), they could, with the help of a reasonably sturdy friend, fit it in the boot ('trunk' for people outside the UK) of an average family hatchback (and, with the seats down probably in the rear of a small super-mini too). They'd arrive back at their workshop with a much more capable lathe than a Chinese 7x mini lathe.

Hopefully we won't get hung up on the details of the above example, it's just there to illustrate. ;)

Of course, as we've all said, there are other constraints that can make the secondhand purchase less attractive but as you say, there isn't just the one answer. :)
 
Not that I need wun, but iz there a hi quality mini lathe manufacturer?

I'v had sum junk. Got a chuck backing plate from India that seemed to be made uv a cottage cheeze scrap metal alloy. (a backing plate iz wut you uze to mount a chuck to any particular lathe) It wuz a waste uv time machining it kuz it deformed and crumbled wen I first tried to put it on the machine.

Sumwun gave me a drill press that wuz made uv the same stuff, so the table broke off. I tried to salvaje the motor, but the wiring came out from deep in the stator winding.
 
SouthernChap said:
Well, you make lots of very valid points but it kinda feels like you're just doing the flipside of what the old iron proponents do.

I very much doubt if any given instance of the Chinese 7x mini-lathe could accurately be described as 'perfect' :grin:

To give a UK based example, if the beginner can find, for example, a Myford ML7 in good fettle at a sensible price (and they mostly do end up at a sensible price), they could, with the help of a reasonably sturdy friend, fit it in the boot ('trunk' for people outside the UK) of an average family hatchback (and, with the seats down probably in the rear of a small super-mini too). They'd arrive back at their workshop with a much more capable lathe than a Chinese 7x mini lathe.

Hopefully we won't get hung up on the details of the above example, it's just there to illustrate. ;)

Of course, as we've all said, there are other constraints that can make the secondhand purchase less attractive but as you say, there isn't just the one answer. :)
Click to expand...
good point, but how many ML7s are available on any given month? so if we all follow your lead very soon there would be no available ML7s and you would have the people that never do anything with their 7X that is sitting under a pile of junk in the basement gathering dust and rust, storing a ML7 in its place. the 7X is a good starting point and allows someone to get their feet wet with low commitment to decide if they want a ML7 (or something larger) later. the other side of the coin is that 7Xs are selling for about new prices on CL and FBMP where a Taiwan built quality lathe is selling for 60% of new price.
yes deals can be made on old iron but you need to have some experience with lathes to know when to walk away (or run).
 
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