Mini lathe

[Crazymanneil]

Anyone got any experience with mini metal lathes? Are they any good? Lack power or accuracy? I see you can buy them anywhere in the range of around £300ish to 600ish on ebay et al. Would be very handy for turning spacers that you realise you need at 8pm on a Saturday or perhaps even stub shafts if they are up to it. Or are you better off saving up for the proper thing? (bearing in mind the three phase power converter for a big one would cost the same as a mini lathe!)

N

[Stuart]

I talked with Sonke about this and he got one from this website:
http://www.cut-tools.de/machines-lathes ... 12ed3aa71d
I think he mentioned they put better switches on or something. All I know is that he rated them.
I think he got a Profi 300 v 03-1035.
It's on this list.
http://www.nava.ee/static/body/files/12 ... 202009.pdf

Shame the exchange rate is so bad at the moment

[Sphere]

I've read of people using 3 phase appliances with a single phase connection, they use a capacitor and watch the watts drawn by the device. Well, I'm entirely not sure that amount of tinkering is healthy.

[Crazymanneil]

Cheers Stu. Ifound this site too for anyone who is interested -

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/silkstone/mi ... athe01.htm

The other .com site it refers to is excellent also. seems like these would not be upt o big stuff but would be very handy for turning unexpected spacers and so on.

n

[oldbmw]

If you can find an ex toolroom commercial lathe it would be more versatile. but any good centre lathe will do. often they can be had very cheaply if you go direct to teh works where they are being made redundant. Dont worry about the motor. I run mine ( single phase 2hp) from a volts drop cuttoff switch I wired in. It starts easily and will run from a 13 amp socket. Although I recommend you wire in 20 amp cable to a 15 amp socket. You will have to hunt the bootsales for the 15 amp socket. Here I run 16 amp sockets and they are only just enough for the welder. so switching ( scuse the pun) to a 25 amp socket fed from a 32 amp cicuit which is split for lighting and 16 amp sockets in the barn/workshop.. motors are available as are single phase suds pumps. I used to use cheap lubricating oil for coolant as it was easy to coat the lathe with oil when not in use to prevent rust. sadly modern oil seems too slippery to cut with and is expensive

[Crazymanneil]

I think you might be right Larry, a big lathe would be better in the long run and more useful. Must try a bit harder to find one.

N

[cumorglas]

the mini lathe my cousin bought is not awful. it did require a lot of fussing to get it to a point where we are happy with it's accuracy and is power/speed is never going to be spectacular. on the other hand the 85 year old south bend i bought for my little brother cost 100$ less than the mini lathe new. it has an eight foot bed and 16 inch swing, i was able to turn an entire toyota axle housing for my jeep as easily as i made a little seedling pot press. if you have the space you won't regret getting a real one. the three phase converter only cost 135$ on ebay and it has no problem running both the lathe and the bridgeport knee mill simultaneously.

I don't know if the economic downturn there is as bad as here, but this week i noticed that i can pick up a whole cnc knee mill for less than the parts to convert mine. lot of small manufacturing outfits went belly up and the liquidation of their gear has really flooded the market here.

[Crazymanneil]

Cheers Cumorglas. I'll keep looking for a big one. Looks like some of you got great deals on these by knowing where to look.

N

[mark_in_manchester]

Small, old 'proper' lathes can be good value if you avoid Myfords, which seem to attract a premium. I got a 4" 1930s thing called a 'Wandess' including all changewheels, motor, stand, 3 and 4 jaw chucks and MT2 1/2" tailstock chuck for 150 quid a few years ago - it's worn but not too bad. Names to watch out for on ebay are South Bend, Atlas, Drummond, Boxford...if you don't see yourself thread cutting you don't even need to worry about changewheels and state of leadscrew/half-nuts. My dad has a small Atlas which is especially compact as motor is tucked in above headstock, and leadscrew is so knackered that it was pretty much free!

Mark, Manchester

[oldbmw]

MY own lathe is a war finish (WW1) Holbrook. It was reconditioned in 1939 in time for another war. I bought is from a small company. they had had a cheap 'rebuild' done on it and it was no use to them as it would not face off without chattering.
After paying my £25 I took it home and decide to delve into it as I used to rebuild and design special purpose machine tools. It turns out they had not properly tightened the white metal head bearings
Of course all the feeds and threads are in inch pitch
It will skim a brake drum still installed in a bike wheel
Although I have used it quite a lot to skim car cylinder heads.

[cumorglas]

Cheers Cumorglas. I'll keep looking for a big one. Looks like some of you got great deals on these by knowing where to look.

N

I have a job which causes me to drive all over western new york. lots of manufacturing capacity used to be here and frequently machines sit in the buildings until they get turned into something else. Buffalo has been going through a sort of renaissance where industrial buildings that sat empty since the 1970's are being turned into highend housing . developer's just want the damn things out of the way. whenever i see one starting to be worked on, the van comes to a halt and i grab a hardhat and start banging on doors. you would be absolutely amazed where people will let you go if you show up with a hardhat and clipboard. there are now a couple local companies who specialize in snatching and refurbishing these machines before people like me get to them. but even refurbished they are still very reasonable.



i just googled where Bangor is. it doesn't look like you should have too much trouble looking around. you are right near the nicest harbour in northern ireland. should be lots of seedy industrial buildings. in fact it looks like the harbour that the clanna uisnach departed in the middle of night with king concobar's intended in my childhood copy of deirdre .

any way good hunting.

[Sphere]

It will skim a brake drum still installed in a bike wheel

I'll tell my gf we're going to France for holidays this year if the front hub of my Enfield won't part of its ABS "feature."

[Diesel Dave]

Any lathe is better than no lathe.

Bigger lathes are better, but costs rise a lot for tooling.

I have even used a 19th century treadle lathe and it was brilliant and very useful. You could actually feel the extra drag if the tool was blunt or too deep a cut was taken. In direct drive mode it was almost silent apart from the sizzle of the cut being taken. Using this lathe tought me how fine a finish you can get from a well honed tool.

As it was a massive cast iron construction it was immensly stable and would take minute cuts by using the topslide offset by a few degrees and using it as an inwards feed. The swarf looked like fine silk. I've never managed to take a cut as fine on any other lathe and I'd say the finish was batter than ground and would have been good enough to run roller bearings directly on it.

Dave

[Stuart]

As far as lathes go I give top marks to Nick who turned my clutch on an old lathe he got. He managed to smuggle it into his garage and cover it with stuff when the wife was out one day. He let the dust settle and then announced he was gonna have a big tidy up which made 'er in doors very happy. Of course, he miraculously 'discovered' this old 'thing' and put it to good use. She was none the wiser, ho ho

[Big_Willy_USA]

At the risk of resurrecting an old thread, I have owned both, imported Chinese and Italian lathes and vintage stuff. An old tool room lathe will give you MUCH better mileage but the cheaper modern units can be made to work. Something special about turning handles on an old bit of classic iron. You can switch the motor out for a single phase unit but you will giving up a lot in efficiency. With all the crafty guys on this forum I'm surprised no one has mentioned making a dynamic three phase converter, they are dirt simple, and with the efficiency gains, they make those tools practically free from a power usage perspective. All you need is a surplus, used 3 phase motor, and a small single phase 1/2 or 1/3 HP motor. I've seen these made from washing machine motors and they have lasted for years. You simply couple the two shafts together, belt drive makes it easy, start the little motor to get the big 3 ph. spinning. With two phases energised my your mains on the large motor, the third phase is generated by the large motors windings. Just connect the three phases from your converter to the drive of your choice and you are done, let the chips fly!