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  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by PDW View Post
    You'll get more vibration with a single phase motor. Whether this feeds through to the work will depend on a whole raft of factors, but it is an issue.
    PDW
    Urban myth, I have read people prattling on about this but I have never noticed it. You "might" see it in the finish when grinding tho.

    Quote Originally Posted by PDW View Post
    I'd get the 336. Much better lathe IMO. I was at the Parramatta store today & took a look.
    PDW
    But now 240v is ok.........

  2. #32
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    I was going to say that the AL336 that you linked to in your opening post looked pretty good, but if these AL1440s go for anything like their current bid prices, and if they haven't been too knocked about, then they would be stonking good value. You do get a DRO and a Quick change toolpost on that 336, but the price being asked is $3100 negotiable. You could get a DRO and QCtoolpost, and have lots of change left over for the extra $2K or thereabouts. If you live close by, then you also have the opportunity to do an inspection, and a good chance of getting to meet the Tafe engineering teaching crew, who could probably advise of any history that individual machines might have had. Valuable info especially if they have already been disconnected from the power, making trial runs unavailable. You may also be able to determine if they can be wired for 240V, 3~, without digging out a star point connection.
    Even if you don't have the option of the delta connection as they are, you could still run the lathe on 240V, 3~, you would only have 1/2 power compared to running on 415V, but I doubt that it would bother you much, especially if you are learning to run a lathe, and don't have much experience or confidence.
    As PDW has already said, you need to keep in mind the Grays ripoff, not 30%, but still significant 18.25%, which makes $365, if the auction price reaches $2,000, and the cost of the professional machinery movers on top of that. If you miss out on one of the Grays Tafe lathes, and end up buying privately, ask about moving lathes if you aren't familiar with this kind of work. They are top heavy and will fall over without much provocation. They can easily be damaged if your tie downs pull against lead screws or power rods, and lifting from the chuck doesn't usually help with their accuracy either. There is lots of expertise on this forum, and plenty of friendly folk keen to help a fellow forum member get started in the hobby, just ask if you aren't sure how to do it.
    Hare & Forbes are not usually the least expensive option for accessories, something to keep in mind if you want additional tooling, again ask and you will get plenty of free advice, but having said that they have a whole slew of machines on special at the moment, the AL336 included, for about $3.5K, but that is without a DRO or QC Toolpost, but that should only help to put downward pressure on second hand Al336s.
    Just finally the AL1440s are made in Taiwan, and AFAIK the AL336s are Chinese made. Taiwanese machine tools are generally considered superior to their Chinese counterparts, that may or may not be the case here, I have no experience of either machine, but if I were you I would go along and inspect the Auction, there are enough machines to look over, and significant wear or damage may be pretty obvious to even a casual inspection. You can download the manual from H&F before you go, or even look for a better manual for a similar lathe sold in the USA, (Grizzly being a good place to start looking). Good luck.

  3. #33
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    I won't be doing a huge amount of work on the lathe in the near future, which makes me question the necessity of going to the 336 rather than the 320 if it comes to that.
    Factoring in stand its 3600 vs 2600 more or less.

    "I didn't like the 320 - no camlock spindle, a funky power feed control on the carriage, combined leadscrew/feed screw, general feel."

    Is a lack of leadscrew/feedscrew a big deal?

    I've read no camlock spindle is fine for home hobbyist. I can deal with a 'funky' power feed. "General feel" - I think I can adapt. It's basically 1k difference I can probably live with. If I start jumping up in 1k's the 960b looks good, but even though it's only 'one' its a thousand dollars which is a fair bit to me to justify. I guess what I'm asking is the 320b really much of a downgrade for a hobbyist?

    Still going to try for the other lathes at Grays, will have to see what they go for on the day. Factoring in transport and 3 phase conversion I'll be trying to keep total costs under or around the other lathes, despite the 1440s advantages, as my inspection may miss something.

  4. #34
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    Is a lack of leadscrew/feedscrew a big deal?
    Better lathes have a seperate feed shaft for normal carriage feed and the feedscrew is only used for threading. This reduces the wear on the feedscrew.

    I've read no camlock spindle is fine for home hobbyist.
    It is more about what you want to do with it. Screw on chucks are liable to unscrew (not good) when used in reverse with some force such as tool pressure on it. Do you need to use reverse? Hard to say. Probably something you will discover over time. Keith Fenner (YouTube) machines cast iron with tool upside down and in reverse as the swarf is then directed straight down on to a rag instead of spraying all around.

    Dean

  5. #35
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    For the sake of newcomers, it should be pointed out that having only one shaft doesn't necessarily mean the leadscrew is doing double duty - threading and carriage drive.
    Sure, simple lathes work this way, with the unavoidable disadvantage that the screw wears sooner.
    But some lathes eg Hercus A & B models have only one shaft yet they avoid this disadvantage. They have a thread like any ordinary leadscrew, and also a full length groove as in a driveshaft.
    As carriage driving puts no load on the screw, it's hard to see any drawback with this arrangement - really an elegant solution.

    Jordan

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oldneweng View Post
    Better lathes have a seperate feed shaft for normal carriage feed and the feedscrew is only used for threading. This reduces the wear on the feedscrew.



    It is more about what you want to do with it. Screw on chucks are liable to unscrew (not good) when used in reverse with some force such as tool pressure on it. Do you need to use reverse? Hard to say. Probably something you will discover over time. Keith Fenner (YouTube) machines cast iron with tool upside down and in reverse as the swarf is then directed straight down on to a rag instead of spraying all around.

    Dean
    Thanks, makes total sense. But as I won't be doing really high volume work I see the added wear being a moot point in a way. You can still do reverse threads though without a reverse tumlbr though right?
    AL-320 looking better and better as a budget buy....

    edit: The 320 requires gear changing for threading... this means changing gears for different longitudinal feed rates for normal turning, right? Is this a pain? Changing gears just for different pitches I could live with.

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by shedhappens View Post
    Urban myth, I have read people prattling on about this but I have never noticed it. You "might" see it in the finish when grinding tho.
    So - you know more than Colchester, Hardinge and Monarch (to name 3) about lathe design. Sorry, I didn't realise that. Pardon me.

    Quote Originally Posted by shedhappens View Post
    But now 240v is ok.........
    There's a difference between 'acceptable' and 'excellent' but your work standards may not enable you to tell the difference. I don't know.

    In context I was referring to the difference between a swap to a 240V single phase motor for a machine that *already is* 415V versus using a VFD and converting to 240V 3 phase. Nobody has suggested converting an AL336 240V machine to 3 phase, now have they?



    PDW
    Last edited by Bedford; 19th Jun 2017 at 07:34 PM. Reason: Related to deleted post.

  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by nadroj View Post
    For the sake of newcomers, it should be pointed out that having only one shaft doesn't necessarily mean the leadscrew is doing double duty - threading and carriage drive.
    Sure, simple lathes work this way, with the unavoidable disadvantage that the screw wears sooner.
    But some lathes eg Hercus A & B models have only one shaft yet they avoid this disadvantage. They have a thread like any ordinary leadscrew, and also a full length groove as in a driveshaft.
    As carriage driving puts no load on the screw, it's hard to see any drawback with this arrangement - really an elegant solution.

    Jordan
    It's nothing of the sort. It's a cheap way to provide power feed drive via a keyway without using the leadscrew threads. It's a kludge.

    Come on. If it was actually an elegant solution, do you think the other manufacturers would use it? Universally, they do not. The ones who did phased it out decades ago, generally before WW2.

    For small hobbyist level lathes it's OK but it certainly isn't a good idea or a desirable design feature. Next thing you'll be telling us all that screwed spindle noses are a good design feature because Hercus also uses them. Come on. The Hercus *is* a pre-WW2 machine in design and features.

    FWIW I have quite a library on machine tool history & development as a number of people who've visited my place can attest. If you really want to argue this stuff you'd better start quoting your sources because I can and if I get bored enough, I will. I suggest reading Oscar E Perrigo's book as a starting point.

    PDW

  9. #39
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    Following this thread with great interest.
    What is the problem with the HAFCO AL-250G. It appears to be a well featured lathe apart from the metric only threading.
    Are there quality issues?


    Quote Originally Posted by j3dprints View Post
    I've read a lot of threads now and the consensus seems to be:
    * Get an old Herless lathe or second hand piece of gear, if you know how to spot a dud (I don't). It also seems to help if you're in Melb/Syd (I'm in Bris)
    * Failing that spend 3.5- 4k on one of the Hare and Forbes models, NOT the AL-250G


    Quote Originally Posted by sacc51 View Post
    Geez I'd like a dollar for all the times this question has been asked, still that's what the forum is for. I see the anti Chinese brigade and bottomless pocket brigade have chipped in their usual. For what it's worth I've had 4 or 5 Chinese lathes, never come across sand in the castings and apart from the AL-250 never had a problem.
    John

  10. #40
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    I did some more research and it seems....
    The AL320G has no gearbox on the longitudinal or cross feed, if you want to change it you need to open it up. This looks like a pain for finishing / roughing (*). Then again, I suppose you could just manually drive the longitudinal feed for roughing (?).
    The Optimum comes with 3 selectors 'a, b and c' for the longitudinal feed and it looks like you have options for each gear ratio you pick. For example one choice is '0.07, 0.14, 0.28' doubling each time the longitudinal feed. This at least LOOKS like me to be better, though I'm not sure in practice those are close enough for typical jobs.
    The 336 has a nice gearbox for longitudinal and cross feeds.

    Price:
    Optimum is 1750, but if you add in a 4 jaw chuck, steady and travelling post which others come with it's $2100
    AL320g - $2300
    336 - $3600
    960B - $4600 (and niiiiiiiiiice but the price for a hobbyist on my income... then again if I went 336 I would be sorely tempted to jump to this)

    If you google search AL-250g or search for it on here you can turn up threads with people who hated them. Perhaps it was just 3 bad lathes though.

    (*) I am totally new to metal lathes, haven't used one since school. Am I wrong here?

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by j3dprints View Post
    Thanks, makes total sense. But as I won't be doing really high volume work I see the added wear being a moot point in a way. You can still do reverse threads though without a reverse tumlbr though right?
    AL-320 looking better and better as a budget buy....

    edit: The 320 requires gear changing for threading... this means changing gears for different longitudinal feed rates for normal turning, right? Is this a pain? Changing gears just for different pitches I could live with.
    Do you mean left hand threads? These are done just by reversing the carriage feed direction. Some people like to fit a part-off tool to the rear of the cross slide and part-off in reverse. This means the pressure is downwards so provides more stability in the cross slide. It is a definite no-no to do this unless you have a positive locking chuck system.

    Yes you need to use the gears for both and cross feed of course if you have it. I have never used a lathe without quick change gears except once when I didn't change the gears anyway. I am probably not the ideal person to comment on this. It is probably a bit like the QCTP. Once you use it you don't want to go back to the old method. That is what I think is likely to happen anyway. I don't have a QCTP and at the price they are for my size lathe I doubt I will ever be able to afford one.

    Dean

  12. #42
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    Default Al-250

    The AL-250, on paper, seems to be an excellent machine, aside from the fact that it can only cut metric threads. It has auto cross feed, a handy 25 mm bore and the AL250 is sold by another company in Sydney, name escapes me, who supply it with a change gear for cutting imperial threads; however, I think the range would be very limited. Having bought one I can atest to it's poor build quality (at least mine was) and design: Changing gears was difficult but I managed to fix that by stripping the gearbox and doing a little fettling. If the gearbox oil was just a smidgin to high it would sap the power appreciably. One of the capacitors blew after only a few uses, the inside of the change gear cabinet looked like it had been made by me, a nightmare. Most of the shafts in the apron were very poorly machined. None of these problems are insurmountable and are easily fixed, but I think a higher output motor is needed. At the time I thought the lack of imperial threads wasn't that important; however, in reality it proved to be a nuisance. That and the under powered motor convinced me to sell and buy something else so I bought an Optimum Maschinen 280 x 600 re-badged as an Impala. A couple of others on this forum had problems with the AL-250 also, one was so disgusted he demanded a refund, another owner similar problems as I did. I lost very little on my AL-250 when I sold it, as I said before secondhand machines fetch good money. Having said that. there is another forum member with the AL-250 and he seems quite happy with it, so perhaps I and a couple of others got Friday machines.

    I'm very happy with my Optimum, the build quality is a cut above the other Chinese lathes, although it does have a couple of design flaws, the leadscrew doubling as auto feed and thread cutting is as said before not that bad an idea, I think most of the smaller hobby machines have adopted this practice, just the same I would prefer separate drives, mostly because that is what I am used to. The Optimum also requires two drive belts, one for the three low gears another for the top three. Whilst the Optimum has a gear box for auto feed (three speeds) the change gears need changing to get the other six. This doesn't overly worry me as a QCGB is not something I use a lot, if ever. Of course 'real machinists' will tell you a QCGB is an absolute must, as is a QCTP!
    If you are like me and love fiddling around with machinery then the AL-250 is probably a dream come true. If you want something that can be used straight out of the box and not need any major fettling then any of the other Asian machines is probably a better bet.

    The Blue machine is the Optimum and is the second best machine I have owned. Obviously the stand is a homemade item. The gray one was an AL-300. By far the best machine I have owned, sorry I sold it.

    I don't get to use the lathe much these days, if I did I would probably buy a C8 or c10.

    Once again, for any AL-250 owners, this was my experience with the machine, yours may well be different from the one I got.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  13. #43
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    Thanks for your perspective on the Optimum sacc51. Does the 3 speed quick change gearbox on the Optimum at least allow you to do roughing cuts then a nicer finishing cut for steel and Aluminium (is this the point of adjusting longitudinal feed? - I am a noob).

    For a hobby machine, I am now looking at the Optimum 2506V ($2100 with accessories) or AL-51G ($1340). The AL-51G looks great, has a quick change gearbox, but only has a 21mm bore compared to the Optimum's 26mm. It's also a bit smaller and arguably not quite near the Optimum's quality (how far off I have no idea). I have no work in mind currently requiring a 26mm bore but I've heard a number of people say 'get 1 inch' - what common parts require it, other than guns?

    For a larger machine, I'd now go for the AL-336 or above after looking at the options. The 250 looks ok but yeah - some negative reviews out there. I'll try and pick up a nice used machine in the near future or go the smaller option I think - as I have access to bigger machines with a little hassle.

  14. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by j3dprints View Post
    ... The AL-51G looks great, has a quick change gearbox, but only has a 21mm bore compared to the Optimum's 26mm. It's also a bit smaller and arguably not quite near the Optimum's quality (how far off I have no idea). I have no work in mind currently requiring a 26mm bore but I've heard a number of people say 'get 1 inch' - what common parts require it, other than guns?
    It's not common parts so much as bar stock - for example you may be making something up that only is 10mm long, but the bar stock that you have is say 200mm long rather than cut off a small piece you stick the whole lot in the spindle bore, make the the part and then part off when you have finished. Saves time and material. Common sizes around that bore are going to be 19.05mm (3/4"), 20mm, perhaps 22 and/ or 24mm, 25mm, 25.4mm (1") and then probably 30mm. If you have the option of 26mm bore rather than 21mm I would give that serious weighting in your thoughts.

    Michael

  15. #45
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    Really, that's all? No one else have any +25mm common pieces they build? I could just put anything large in the bandsaw, and if I needed one edge flatter put it in the cut off piece in the mill with an angle block.

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