home shop lathe

[rScotty]

O have one of them, fully tooled with Timken tapered roller bearings in the headstock. Got it cheap at an estate sale. Nice machines. Not as nice as my LeBlond Servo Shift however.

No, it's not as nice as a LeBlond or Clausing. I don't really have a use for a real indusrial size lathe, but just like in tractors there is less downside to a large lathe than one would think. Other than pure size of course. In my little shop with 6" concrete floors I could fit and use something at least twice as capable as the Atlas 3000. It gets by. I paid a reasonable price and am not enthusiastic enough to go through all the effort to install a larger machine... so the Atlas will probably stay - even though that wasn't the original plan.
I once acquired a barn cat on a similar basis.

It's rare to see any good small to medium size lathes for sale. Everyonce in a while I do run across really great deals on large lathes that some business wants to get rid of for a pittance. Scrap prices mostly. If I was doing it again, that's where I'd be looking. Problem would be finding one that can be made to run on basic 220v.

 

[sd455dan]

Still happy with my 12 X 24 HF Taiwan gap bed lathe which seems to be the same as an Enco of the same size and vintage.

When people say you can easily spend more on tooling than the lathe itself they are not kidding.

 

[WranglerX]

Think I would haunt local places like "facebook marketplace"... Have seen several lathes show up over last several months....

 

[rScotty]

Something to think about when looking at machine tools: our milling machine probably gets 5x the use as the lathe. It is a Rockwell - smaller than a Bridgeport, but similar quality with an R8 spindle and a 3 phase 220 VFD motor. Mills double as drill presses, too.

 

[Death Row Dave]

Clausing 10 for me .

 

[otlski]

A used 9 inch South Bend Heavy is nice.

Funny. At work, manufacturing new components for machinery, the millers see 90% of the spindle time; lathes are at 10%. At home doing equipment repairs (mainly), the lathe sees 90% of my usage.

 

[WinterDeere]

Great replies, guys. Keep them coming. Re: Atlas, owned one many years ago. Worked well enough for simple shop repairs, etc. Not a bad option, for benchtop scale.

The machines I've used in the past are all larger, not really practical for consideration in my home shop. They were purchased and sized for jobs bigger than I really need to be doing on my own, not that my plans for this are fully known, yet. I also work with a few local machine shops for my business, so I'll continue to send even my larger personal stuff to them, I'd just like to have the ability to do the small jobs on my own. For example, if I need to bore a grease journal in a pin, and don't want to play the poor-man's "use your drill press as a lathe with a chuck bolted to the table" game.

Something to think about when looking at machine tools: our milling machine probably gets 5x the use as the lathe. It is a Rockwell - smaller than a Bridgeport, but similar quality with an R8 spindle and a 3 phase 220 VFD motor. Mills double as drill presses, too.

Definitely. But right now I'm good with sending that stuff out to one of the shops that already does regular work for me. If I get a mill, I'll be dedicating a garage bay to it, whereas the lathe can be benchtop for most of my needs.

Another resource I could lean on is the dozens of freelance guys on the practical machinist forum. I've had contact with some of them in the past, re: assembly tooling for assembling various parts I manufacture for my business.

 

[BravoXray]

I hauled a lot of machinery for a local customer, and told the salesman I dealt with that if he came across a decent small lathe to let me know. A few months later he called and said he had a floor model Jet BD-920N that he would make me a deal on, so I bought it. I don't use it a lot, but when I need to turn something for a project, it's sure nice to have. I did replace the toolpost with a QC post and made few other minor tweaks, so it does a pretty good job for what I need a lathe for.

 

[jigs_n_fixtures]

I think Grizzly is the way to go. Their stuff is made in East Asia but they are very good about ensuring quality control and parts availability. Many professional shops buy and run Grizzly machines. My primary lathe is an older Clausing but I've made a number of parts on my father's Grizzly "gunsmithing" model lathe (mostly because mine doesn't have metric threading capability) and it's a nice machine capable of keeping good tolerances. Were I in the market for a ready to run machine I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Grizzly.

Buying out of Asia, a manufacturer has to be very careful how they wright the contract. Because they will do tings as cheaply as the contract allows them to. You need to specify everything, specify what standards of inspection will be, and clarify that they can’t sell the seconds they may produce, and that you own the design. They give you exactly what they agree to, but you need to be sure you tell them everything which is expected..

Grizzly gets very fine to just so so, machines and tools made in Chiwan, becasue they know how to do business in the east, write very good contracts, and have established long term relationships with the manufacturers they deal with.

 

[LD1]

Id rather buy vintage stuff if its still tight. If it isnt.....look into rebuild kits if available. '''

I have a monarch model k. 16x54. Weighs about 4200#. I consider it about the perfect size for doing odd tractor pins and bushings and what not.