Thread: Small lathes (and mill combos)

I kept my "practice lathe" and "practice mill" for over 35 years!! Not only where these excellent tools to learn on, but they afforded me the ability to earn a substantial income as well. I later graduated to some larger and more substantial equipment. I think it all depends on the individual. Is this a hobby? Or do you want to get involved professionally? In either case, particularly for a beginner - you have to start somewhere.
David

And buy the way, here is the USA it is almost 4 AM. I'll bet that most of you guys would be in bed long before now. One of the beauties of working for yourself (self employed) is that you can keep your own hours. We get around 110 degrees (F) this time of the year in the middle of the day. So it is nice to be able to work at night when it is only 70 to 80 degrees outside.

I bought a lathe at the start of this year. I'd kept an eye out for a second hand machine, but was cognisant of that fact that I didn't have the skill or experience to appraise a used machine for wear. In my case I had a few parameters that kind of defined the machine that would last me a decent while, and I had the money available to get a reasonably decent machine. I went all carbide tooling, which got me going and productive immediately, and since then I've bought some HSS and ground up some different profiles, which have proved very handy when you can easily swap them in on the quick-change tool post, but I wouldn't have wanted to start that way.

I'm planning to get a mill, but in this case, my requirements aren't so well-defined, so I'm tempted to by a cheap Ebay machine to use, abuse and learn on, with a view to eventually selling it once I have more of a clue about what I really need.

Have a look at this lot, OK, it's at Acacia Ridge, not sure where you live tho.

Would be advisable to do something like this before you lay down any dollars, this way you would at least have an idea if your getting ripped of or not.

https://tafeqld.edu.au/courses/18275...nual-machining

I'm sure it's a good course, but the $540 it costs would buy a lot of tooling.

At 31 bucks for each night you go there, it's sure cheaper than spending money at the doctors/chemist for making stupid mistakes.
An 18 week course will cover a bloody lot of ground.
Choice is an easy one if you want to get the info from the horses mouth, instead of getting it from the horses butt .

I'd been trying to find the right TAFE option - excellent! I am pretty close to Acacia Ridge...

I also am able to reccomend TAFE, I'm doing sheet metal at night here in Victoria, I enrolled for 8 years for free!

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Originally Posted by PDW

New spare parts from the manufacturer or parts off of cannibalised machines?
If new - name the machines.
PDW

Both used and newly made parts are in good supply for small lathes that were made here in Australia in their tens of thousands at least.
My old Taiwanese lathe was bought new. When I broke a gear in the apron (learning days), I had to get the replacement specially made - not cheap.
I can buy the equivalent part for my 1940's Oz lathe any day for pocket money.
Truth or dare!

Originally Posted by mardtrp

Choice is an easy one if you want to get the info from the horses mouth, instead of getting it from the horses butt .

Who says the lecturers at Acacia Ridge TAFE know any more than those at MIT? Or MrPete222? Or Abom79? I taught myself to machine with the help of YouTube and this forum and I reckon I do a pretty good job with the gear I've got. Still got all my digits too.

If there's a TAFE nearby and you have the money I'd say go for it. Nothing better than hands-on instruction. But it's definitely not a requirement.

Originally Posted by nadroj

Both used and newly made parts are in good supply for small lathes that were made here in Australia in their tens of thousands at least.
My old Taiwanese lathe was bought new. When I broke a gear in the saddle (learning days), I had to get the replacement specially made - not cheap.
I can buy the equivalent part for my 1940's Oz lathe any day for pocket money.
Truth or dare!

Hate to point this out, but you didn't name a single manufacturer despite my being quite specific in my request.

You can buy pilot bore gears in a range of pitches and tooth count, 14.5 deg PA, 20 deg PA, DP and module, from anywhere, for cheap, so that really doesn't count. See DaveJ's example of bevel gears from China.

I know perfectly well what machine/manufacturer you're referring to and production of new machines stopped decades ago. Try getting a new current manufacture replacement saddle or bed, let me know the name of the supplier and the price. I get an Australian foundry to do castings for me so I've a pretty good idea what new castings actually cost.

This ignores the point I made, that being that anything more than trivially easy to replace, such as a gear or screw, is going to require hand-fitting, generally scraping, and *THAT* is a very deep and expensive rabbit hole to start down. Especially for a beginner.

I'm not going to continue this argument because I'm over it. You can think as you wish but as I told all my children, wishing doesn't make it so regardless. They didn't like hearing it either.

PDW

Originally Posted by PDW

If new - name the machines.

Hercus.

For example, this brand new tailstock quill: https://australianmetalworkinghobbyi...product_id=601

Or perhaps your apron worm gear is worn out. No problem: https://australianmetalworkinghobbyi...product_id=602

The OP may want a larger lathe than a Hercus, in which case it's moot. But you did ask.

Originally Posted by PDW

I'm not going to continue this argument because I'm over it.

Then why do you keep starting it?

I'd never even touched a lathe or mill before mine came off the back of the delivery truck from Hare & Forbes.

I watched youtube vids, read books and asked questions on forums and in my steam hobby the lathe, mill and all ancillary bits and pieces have paid for themselves many times over.

Yes, Hercus parts are available but rather than treating that as proof that spare parts are always available for lathes that are out of production, it would be more sensible to regard that as a special case. I've tried buying part for a lathe of mine (a Taiwanese Dai-Shin) and for various import lathes at work and strangely enough, once H&F stopped selling the machines, spare parts became rather hard to get. As Jordan found, anything remotely special has to be custom made. That is why I went back and underlined 'assume' when I first posted to this thread.

Happy for you if your brand of lathe has parts available, but I can tell you from all the parts I've made for other people's machines and mine that it is not normally so (and I suspect Peter has had a similar experience).

So to reiterate the point that I made in post 24 and that Peter supported, spare parts for machine tools that are no longer made are usually not available and when thinking about buying, you should assume this is the case. If you get lucky and can source them, that is a bonus. When I first joined I found one of the pluses to being on a forum like this was if you ask the right person nicely, you will find that parts that are not available can, a lot of the time, be made. There have also been cases where members were having trouble fixing something or making a part, other members visited them in their shed (or invited them to visit) to help them along. There are many ways to learn.

I'm grateful to those who were paying forward

Michael

Summary: You can't be sure of affordable spares availabillty for an old or new lathe, unless it's a Hercus.
And it's a great little lathe, too.