We've got a machine mart vat free day coming up. I've fancied a lathe for ages. I haven't got a lot of space at all in my single garage, nor do i have a lot of spare cash but ..... i want to treat myself.

So how rubbish are the little mini lathes?
(i'm thinking the CL300M at £329)

I was taught a little at 14 on a student colchester. I've also no idea what i'll use it for before someone asks.

I wouldnt.... would be fine for making teeny tiny parts... but for anything else.. pointless..


You'd be better off keeping the cash and paying a proper machinist to make the parts for you..


Or add another £200 and buy a proper lathe, like an old colchester Student...

Always fancied a Lathe myself. Like you, not sure what for but.....

Maybe we could bombard you with job requests to give you some practice?

Laithes are brilliant for brake discs, drums, flywheels, making new cranks (pre-grinding) making bolts or nuts with obsolete threads, spacers the list goes on. Buy a proper one, once you've used it you'll wonder how you ever managed without one.

Once you have a lathe you'll wonder how you ever did without one, but that Machine Mart lathe is much too small for car construction use, and is also Chinese origin with all that that entails.
Best by far to buy a used quality lathe which you can easily do with your budget, a used Colchester Student doesn't have a massive footprint and will be usable for so much more.

We have 2 of those which we train youngish school kids on - fine for small diameter brass alu and nylon, not really a serious machine for use by a car enthusiast, we also have 4 other man size machines - could well be selling a Denford Viceroy soon- single phase too!
Get in touch if interested!

atb
mike
edited to correct dodgey spellings willsend pics later inweekend as busy today and tomorow with work

[Edited on 2/10/09 by trextr7monkey]

I have 3 lathes a big one, an ML7 and an uprated chinese machine mart type.

They are capable of doing good work but it takes such a long time and is more difficult to keep accurate. There are a number of fairly simple mods you can do to improve their capabilities and accuracy

Considering I only paid 2 times the cost of a machine mart one for my Colchester Master you would be better spending the extra money.

Depends on how much space you have really and how you plan to move it and what power you have (3 phase or single as most decent lathes are 3 phase). A Colchester student is a good lathe to get hold of, they are about 800kg and you should get one for under a grand. You can get single phase ones too.

The cheap ones are fine if you only want to take small cuts, once you want to start ripping material off you need something with more oomph though. Considering I can take 2mm depth of cut in steel on mine (4mm on dia) without making it sweat you would be looking at a max of 0.5mm depth of cut on a cheap one.

Also if you want to make pulleys you'll need something stiff (oo err) as the cutting area starts to get very large as the grooves are finished.


Clutch skim


Ali alternator pulley 1


David

Don't be too scared of getting something with a 3 phase motor, you can buy inverters for quite reasonable money these days which give the the advantage of infinitely variable speed control.

Yes...what he said above...

When I looked 2 years ago at them you could get a 3ph converter 10kw for about £300... That was the high/medium range one for delicate electrical equipment.....

[Edited on 2/10/09 by tegwin]

[Edited on 2/10/09 by tegwin]

Or you could throw £10 worth of capacitors at it to make up the third phase, power reduces by 25% but still useable.

I have a big donkey saw with I think its a 5hp motor on it, needs extra capacitors to start which I switch out when running.

Do not be fearful of three phase motors on a single phase supply.

Regards Mark

ive got a small bench mounted one from the 40's its ok for ali and making things for re-spacing carbs and throttle bodies but thats about the limit really

See here

Better than Chinese Lathe going Cheep

^^^ Was £150 until interest was shown, now £200! Still a reasonable buy though.

Ive got a chinese lathe due to space its ok with alloy and brass but doesnt like steel over 20mm dia.

looking at a cut of less than 0.2mm, thats a lot of passes to take 10mm of,

I've got one but i wouldn't recomend buying one, they are too small and although described as a 'precision' lathe out of the box they are pretty dire.

Having just looked up the price ouch !! i paid £100 for mine brand new still in its box. (bay of e) and wished i put it towards a boxford or similar.

Have a look at chester

hth Roger

just looked at chester - the 'cheap' lathes look identical to the machine mart ones but with a different coloured case & with a slightly more powerful motor. Anywhere i can get hte proper specs to make sure they are different

Don't worry about machines from the far east.... they're the best in the world at making them now..... where do you think machine mart and chester lathes come from? what size are you looking for? what spec ie variable speed or belts etc/digital read outs? Most decent eastern stuff comes with flow/error certification to show if/how far they are off.