lathe recommendations

B

Bobby Lentz

Well-known member
All,

Looking for a new, light duty metal lathe for the race shop. We don't need to do threads or anything fancy, mostly just turning down the odd part here and there. Would like one with an open throat to allow parts to slide through. Any recomendations, things to consider, or avoid???

thanks,
Bobby
 
Hard to beat an old South Bend, 9", Model A bench lathe. 120vac, reversible. 36", 48" and 60" beds; all kinds of tooling still available; new replacement parts still available.

Used stuff all over; $250-$600 range. Only rap might be if an old production lathe, may be concentrated wear in some areas of the bed/lead screw.

Nice steel cabinet available.

Check used machinery dealers or auction notices. Almost every shop had one of these.

RJS
 
Get at least a 12" swing.....under that and you end up limiting yourself more than you might imagine.

I've had a 12 x36 , no gap bed, belt drive for 20 years and it has never let me down. A "real" tool post holder really speeds up tool changes so look for that as well.

Best tool you will ever own.
 
Check out your local technical college. I got a South Bend 16 x 80 from mine for nothing when they started converting to cnc stuff. Got 3 and 4 jaw chuck, steady rest, follower rest, quick change collet system and tons of tooling and misc stuff. The South Bend is old, belt driven and 3 phase, but it will turn anything, probably a part from a diesel train engine. I have less than $1k in it including the motor 3 phase converter.

John
 
I snagged a 13x50 Clausing variable speed lathe for $1500, I'd take the older stuff, over the new stuff anyday. Like John said, it's nice to have swing, you never know when it would be nice to mount something up like a flywheel for example.
 
Sheldon 13x48 here. It was an old school lathe... so it's not so worn as it is beat up.

It's a trade- off- an old, worn- out or broken US or European (or Japanese or... blah de blah)
will probably be more frustrating and produce worse parts than a new, tight, intact Taiwanese or even quality Chinese lathe. (just not Harbor Fright)
For a lot of us, we don't make gears, we make the spacers between the gears, and anything
that's not too loose or flimsy will do the job just fine. We're not in a hurry to produce 50,
we just need one or two odd diameters.

t
 
I've owned the cheaper grizzy (also sold by lots of people like Cummins) for about 4 years now. While I'm glad I cut my teeth on it, and certainly got a lot of use out of it - I'd recommend one of the better ones, or go old school like is suggested here. The Grizzy/Cummins has plastic gears and about the time you get good with the thing you're replacing belts and gears a lot. The other problem is, if you really need precision, it's extremely difficult to replicate... so if you need say 6 parts all within .001, good luck. The chuck is extremely important - get one with adjustable jaws or you'll be wasting a lot of time centering and re-centering your work. I agree with the quick-change toolpost suggestion -very helpful time wise.

I'm looking for a hardinge over the winter.

One more thing - plan on spending a bit on tooling - that's just the way it turns out. Very easy to spend another $500 for tooling on a $600 lathe. You'll want collets, live and dead centers, etc etc.

...and... I love mine. I can't imagine not having it in the shop. I use it all the time.
 
I've got a Monarch 10ee. It's what I learned on, spent 7 years using at work and what I'm comfortable using.

I looked at a lot of varieties before I bought mine. I would suggest getting an older american or english lathe before one of the newer ones. South Bend, Clausing, Sheldon and Harrison all made stout nice pieces of equipment.

I know you say no threads, but after you have it you will want or need to make something with threads. I know the first 3 projects I made all ended up having threads on them.

shars.com is a great place for tools/tool holders and various other equipment. Nothing I've bought has been such crappy quality (except the micrometers, go for ebay older mitutoyo/federal/brown&sharp).

The bigger the lathe the better price you seem to get. I have always avoided gap bed lathes as the ways don't wear consistantly.

I'd agree 12" swing is good...allows you to do some bigger stuff.
 
I agree with the old US made lathe idea. If you are lucky enough to be near a used machinery dealer (there is one a mile from my office) you can eventually find a lightly used old lathe at a good price. Lots of smaller lathes are used in engineering labs, model shops, etc and never see heavy use.

Two years ago I picked up a 60's vintage 10" Logan lathe for just over $700 which is a good price but not a steal, it was a school lathe so probably did not have many actual operating hours. Chuck was beat up but ways look almost new.

The Logans are nice in a couple of respects - a little more modern design than the South Bends, and the original manufacturer is still in business and supplying parts and some tech support / advice (amazingly enough). Smaller Logan and South Bend machines are sort of "prosumer" (long before that word existed) brands I think, not really production machines but heavier than most home/hobby units.
 
My OLD Craftsman lathe is great. By old I mean circa late '30's- '40's. Parts are still available on ebay. I think it used to make B-24 parts.
 
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