Is this any good? or can I do better for this sort of money?
linky
Cheers
Mark
I fancy a lathe
Is this any good? or can I do better for this sort of money?
linky
Cheers
Mark
Yes you can do a lot better. Look for a second hand Boxford or Harrison. It will be more substantial and last longer.
I worked in a school and we had to get rid of some lathes (as above) and we could hardly give them away!
Search for Machine Tools, Machine tool dealers.
John
wouldn't bother with that one to be honest, mate had one and it practically dropped to bits.
he managed to get his money back, and bought an old myford(7 i think) instead.
Ray
I would be wary of one of these. 150 watts is not much power.
I would look for a second hand Myford, or small Colchester lathe if I were you. There are some specialised web sites for hobby machining , in the same
way this one is for car enthusiasts. And of course E-bay.
I can't think of the name of the one I looked at before at present.
I bought a combination square/ protractor set for £30 from Machine Mart which is of reasonable quality and cheap compared with an industry quality one
for about £150. However, some other things have bought from Machine Mart I have returned as being of unsatisfactory quality.
I have a small Harrison Lathe of the sort that apprentices were taught on it the 60's and it works fine.
Mal.
quote:
Originally posted by rayward
wouldn't bother with that one to be honest, mate had one and it practically dropped to bits.
he managed to get his money back, and bought an old myford(7 i think) instead.
Ray
Hi dont bother with it. Try Keeping an eye out for a Colchester Junior if you can as they are very good quality and last forever whilst still being quite compact. Prices can vary massivly so make sure you look around properly. Iv bought and sold quite a few lathes and its possible to pick up a really good refurbished one from an auction for not a lot more than the price of the clarke lathe.
i got a colchester student 6 inch last year for £100 from a machine shop that was closing down, so they are about. Another place to look is your local
newspaper in the for sale adds under machinary
Phil M
I was looking at the clarke one to but you carnt really use it in less your making model parts take a look an the store and youll see how small it
actually is!
I ended up buying one of these
http://www.chesteruk.net/store/db8_lathe.htm
Ive found it very capable to turn all the bits ive needed for the car which has included turning my own hose reducers from ally, turning down my rear
hub flanges to fit the willwood disks and lots of other stuff.
The only thing i would say is now i want a bigger lathe!
I think the moral of the story is buy the biggest you can stretch to both in cost and room to fit one, also i would budget on spending a couple of
hundred on buying decent tooling and mybe the odd book or two depending on how proficent you may or may not already be with a lathe.
Here is a pic of one of my lovely
hose reducers 
[Edited on 6/9/06 by Gav]
I was going to suggest a look at the Chester lathes!
A friend of mine has their combined lathe and mill, and he's very pleased with it. It has limitations, but it works very well within its
range.
It won't be as good as a Myford, but it's a whole load better than the cheap-and-nasty Chinese/Taiwanese jobs. (I know this one is also
Chinese/Taiwanese, but Chester's do a fair bit more quality control!).
You could also look at this place
Arc Euro Trade
They also buy in Far East lathes, but make a big selling point of the way they sort them out before shipping them out to the customer.
David
Thanks guys, I will have a look about
Hi , We have 2 "big lathes" denford and a 3 phase one which also has a milling head, not used much as we bought a vertical miller, and also
2 of the Clarke machines- these were bought to allow smallish teenagers to have their first experience of machining using mostly brass and the odd bit
of nylon. (Some of these kids can't actually see the chuck on a proper lathe) For that job we rate them as OK.
However we blow an awful lot of the small fuses and even changed them for some slower blowing ones but it is an irritation. The tools are fairly small
and like everyone else on here if it was my own money and for my own use I would buy something bigger, older, stronger which would allow a far greater
range of materials and car sized jobs to be undertaken.
We (me and my dad) have 2 - a big anccent thing (early 50's ?) and a slightly newer smaller one (late 60's ?)
both work well but could do with a proper service and setup (worn bearings and so on)
But neather cost much (the small one was £500 a couple of years back and came with literaly hundreds of carbide tools and milling cutters)
we also got a turret mill (well you need something to use all those tools) pushed the boat out and got a 1964 bridgeport with a little work needing
done (it came from the coca-cola factory in Glasgow)
Older is definatly better (at least in this price range)
I got a Chester DB8 and I'm very pleased. Check my photos for a pic.
It's horses of courses...
Machines of the Myford/Chester size are really just for amateur model engineering, making small parts, & so on. They are fine for making small
parts for Locosts.
If you want real grunt then something like a 2nd-hand Colchester Student is far more suitable - but mine weighs more than my Locost, takes a big chunk
of garage space and requires a 3-phase converter!
David
All depends what you want to do, the Myford 7s are great for small to medium jobs, loads of spares on Ebay. A lot of money though if you only want a
couple of jobs doing. Nice to play on though!
Cheers John
Have a look at.
www.homeworkshop.org.uk
Cheers John
can recommend colchester stuff too.
I have a Master 6.5" with 40" gap bed that cost me £100 delivered and with a dodgy but working single phase motor conversion.
The colchesters are bulletproof, many have metric AND imperial screwcutting which is handy.
Student is the one to have if you don't have too much space
ps managed to turn a 14" wheel in mine (just, in the gap bed!) so its suited to some bigger jobs too!
3 hp motor is on its limit tho with the higher spindle speeds, can't take big cuts on high speeds so carbide tools never really get to work to
their optimum.
quote:
Originally posted by NS Dev
Student is the one to have if you don't have too much space
A retired engineer in the next road from me has a colchester bantam for sale,its not exactly bench top machinery but if you have the room at £500 with
a milling machine thrown in as well its a good deal.
Both machines have been converted to single phase motors and the lathe has a set of gears and some tooling.
Rescued attachment machinery0536.JPG
And the mill
Rescued attachment machinery0537.JPG
If only i had the room 
Ive just made a mess in my trousers
Absolute bargain that Mark. I think you should get them especially seeing as you arent too far away from me...........
If that mill is in good nick then it's worth £500 all on its own...
DJ
(Oh, if I had the room/I had the money/I lived closer!)
errr, does he have the facilities to load up into a van?
if so I am seriously interested, certainly £500 is no probs for that lot!
A friend of mine has a Student lathe from the place he worked at. He bought it for £600 and it cost him nearly that to install it at home but it is a beautiful tool. He is very good with it as well, he makes model trains and turns me a few bits up.
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
quote:
Originally posted by NS Dev
Student is the one to have if you don't have too much space
In industrial circles the Student is regarded as a school or training lathe and thus a 'small lathe'. In reality it's a half-tonne of iron & steel approx 2 metres long, 1 metre deep and 1.5 metres high (rough guess, as I'm not at home just now). My Student weighs almost as much as my Locost.
In other words, it's a small industrial machine, but a big lump to fit into a garage...
Damn fine for tough 'home-sized' machining though - I often take 6mm cuts in mild steel using power feed, with swarf coming off in continuous lengths like razor wire! The 3-phase motor hardly notices the load.
The biggest problem I have is with the noise from the headstock gearbox when using the top 2 speeds - straight cut gears working hard.
David
[Edited on 12/9/06 by David Jenkins]
I've used a student in a large workshop, and didn't think it was very noisy - now mine is in the back end of my garage and I just can't
run it on the 2 top speeds without ear defenders, and certainly not late in the evening! Extremely loud in a small space...
DJ
......which is probably a bit irritating because lots of "car sized" jobs need around the 600-1000 rpm mark!!! lol!
found the same trouble with mine!