Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
The Regular Stuff: Chat, Buy, Sell, Off Topic, etc. => Wanted => Topic started by: Denalidave on March 08, 2024, 02:46:32 pm
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Basically, all those small Asian lathes are made at the same factory, sometimes to the specifications of a specific retailer be it good or bad.
Your best bet is to go on Youtube and watch the countless hours of machining videos and find someone who has a lathe whose size and features will do the things you wish to do and then purchase something similar. Often times it's a bigger machine than you would first think. I recommend getting the lathe first and learning how to run that correctly before purchasing a mill. Also, do not underestimate the amount of tooling and metrology equipment you will need to purchase as it adds up quickly. While a DRO on a mill is extremely handy, it's not such a big deal with such a small lathe where a mag-backed indicator will do much of what you need.
You can create entire model engines with just a lathe and drill press as people did that for decades before small mills became affordable. I just read "Making Model Victorian Stationary Engines" from Stewart Hart and he presents 3 model engine builds using mostly the lathe and a pillar drill, although he is stretching it a bit with the 3rd model.
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Thanks to you all for the advice. I am thinking maybe the warco wm180 lathe with DRO and warco wm14 mill with DRO. Not certain yet as the chester brand also looks good but they look very similar to warco.
All the best
Dave
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One caveat that I left out of my earlier post is the question you must ask yourself as to whether you will want to "cut" threads on whatever lathe you get, or if all you will be wanting to do is use taps and dies to thread parts. On most of the smaller hobbyist type lathes, the difference of having an adjustable ratio lead screw, or not, often just about doubles the price of the base unit.
It is most certainly a big question that you need to answer for yourself, before you make your final selection!
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Thanks Stoker, great advice as usual. I certainly have a lot to think about now! I will keep looking around and I will let you know when I finally decide on something.
Thanks for the link Raphael, interesting stuff.
Cheers
Dave
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Bonjour Dave,
I don't know of that address sill help you but it is where I am going to buy a little lathe :
https://www.multirex.net/tours-a-metaux-d-etabli-machines-outils-haute-precision-c102x3790550
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Well Dave, I'll have to say that offering you advice on a small lathe is a bit like trying to pick a suitable wife for you .... if you understand my allusion. I would presume that even though you are a couple of hours "off-shore" that it is still possible to receive packages shipped to you, so perhaps the internet is your best source, rather than heading over to the mainland for a shopping tour. My personal experience is somewhat limited, as is most everyone's, but I have had some time on a few different machines that I can provide some impressions of for you.
In my working life, I have spent time operating an Okuma engine lathe, a couple of South Bends and a Hardinge that were all far more capable than I was, but of no interest to you as these were full size machines, while I'm certain your interest is only in smaller benchtop hobbyist types. In my home and hobby life I have had opportunity to operate an Emco Unimat SL lathe, a Boley/Leinen watchmaker's lathe that was rather limited in length of material stock and swing, but was capable of quite a bit of fine turning of hobby sized work, while my current go to home lathe is an old Atlas 618 that sits at the transition between a small benchtop industrial machine and a large home hobby tool. Probably larger than anything you would really want, but it works swell for my model cannon barrels.
There are several "brands" of Chinese manufacture that are mostly the same basic tool, likely coming out of the same central factory, but marketed by different outlets under different names. These seem to have improved markedly over the last decade or so, and many make good use of them within our steam hobby. Some even come with a built-in milling capability, so you have a two-in-one situation. Grizzly is one such company that I have dealt with and am quite happy with my G0704 mill that I purchased from them a few years back.
Sherline makes a modular system that can be reconfigured into lathe, mill, drill and other handy tools, but generally require further purchases of the adaptors to provide the enhanced functions and tends to be a bit pricey for what you get in my opinion, though many do wonderful things with them.
Emco Unimat was and perhaps still is a rather hobby specific brand of lathes and tooling, and older SL models are often quite inexpensive on the used market, small, portable and capable beyond their rather Spartan appearance, they are also reconfigurable into mills, saws, buffer/grinders and other tooling that can be useful to the hobbyist. They do take a fair bit of time to set-up and reconfigure for different operations, but that is also true of most any lathe/combo tooling. Since the SL models, they have marketed some more modern units a well, but I'm unfamiliar with them myself. There is a fellow here on the Forum that collects Emco tooling and has a website dedicated to them, so I would suggest that as a go-to for information on Unimat lathes. If I can find his website again, I'll come back here and attach a link. Here is that link, but will need translation:
https://emco-unimat.tumblr.com/
The used watchmakers lathe market might be able to provide you with something that would be of use to you at a reasonable price and a very small footprint, but some actually sell for exorbitant amounts due to "collector" interest, and I have no actual knowledge nor advice regarding that field.
One other point I should make is that buying the basic lathe is only the start, as the tooling needed to make effective use of the lathe will require further expenditures at least as great as the lathe itself, or significantly more depending on what you end up wanting to do with your lathe. You might get lucky and find a used unit that is fully equipped and has all the necessary tooling already with it.
Best of luck to you in your quest, and hopefully others with more experience or more germane knowledge along these lines will chime in here soon to either help you out or add to your confusion!?!?
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Hi all,
I have read various discussions across the web on this issue and I have got to the stage where I cant see the wood for the trees! I am thinking of buying a small lathe, just big enough to make small steam engine parts etc. I dont want to spend thousands on this, the cheaper the better providing it can do the job. Keep in mind I live on a small Scottish island, its a 2 hour ferry to the mainland. So my choices regarding used lathes is almost non existent. I could go to the mainland I guess but its £150 before I even start as thats the ferry cost for a car. Are any of the lower end hobby lathes worth the money if buying new? Any advice is as always appreciated.
Thanks
Dave