anybody got a lathe?

[StarryNight]

kind of an odd ball question, but my dad is a retired tool and die guy and i think he's missing the old days and wants to buy "me" a metal lathe. I totally love the idea but I got to make room in my tiny shop and not being too savvy with turning steel I've got a lot of learning to do. My question is do any of you guys have a lathe in your shop and do find it usefull for things related to pickup making or lutherie in general? I'm looking at possibly a 19" that cuts threads etc. There's a used one in the paper for about $800. 4 jaw chuck and some extra tooling.

[Bruce Johnson]

Well, of course! I have several metal working lathes, and I use them all of the time for making parts and tooling for my musical instrument business. Get one, learn to use it, and you'll never regret it. You can also use it to do side jobs and make, you know, real money.

When you're saying a 19" lathe, do you really mean a 19" swing lathe??? That's a pretty serious machine to start out on....about 4000 lbs and 5 HP....and literally capable of killing you if you aren't careful. Listen to your dad when he lectures you about safety.

For real practical use for instrument work, a better first lathe would be a smaller 9"-11" size machine, which will be more like 800 lbs and 1/2 HP. Get one with a couple of chucks and a 5C collet nose adapter.

A great resource for machining information is the Practical Machinist Forum at http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/index.php
You can spend weeks on there reading about lathes. I'm a regular on the Antique Machinery & History sub-forum.

[chevalij]

I have a small milling machine and have been looking at a lathe. I've used the mill to make all kinds of cool jigs and stuff for winding. I've had a friend with a lathe make me two spindles for my winding machines and have about 3 more things I want made and a lathe would be VERY handy. Next up for the winder is full DAQ / PLC integration

[StarryNight]

When you're saying a 19" lathe, do you really mean a 19" swing lathe??? That's a pretty serious machine to start out on....about 4000 lbs and 5 HP....and literally capable of killing you if you aren't careful. Listen to your dad when he lectures you about safety.

hehe, I would have to get the camera ready to take a picture of the look on my wife's face if I brought home a lathe with a 19" swing! I would probably brown out the neighborhood whenever I turned it on! No, 19" is the length. It has a 9" swing which is plenty big for me.

I figure making gigs would be a no brainer and perhaps getting a small milling attachment would mean I could carve out small pieces. Doing odd jobs for people would be nice. I could even make my own custom machine heads, screws, handles, gears, other tools... I guess it's one of those tools where the more you use it the more uses it has.

when I was a kid, my dad would take me to the factory on saturdays where he worked when no one was around (in the 70s you could do that) and he would get me on the lathe knurling scrap piece etc. I remember every day he would come home smelling of steel and grease -ah, something else my wife can look forward to.

[David Schwab]

I figure making gigs would be a no brainer...

"I'd like to introduce the band... on drums we have Mike, on metal lathe we have..."

Oh, you meant JIGS!

Just teasing you.

[the great waldo]

Hi Starry night


Forget about making machine heads with just a lathe it´s a whole different ball game, however it´s mega usefull for a million and one other usefull things such as making a truss rod walnut plug for a maple neck strat.

cheers

Andrew

[StarryNight]

All good points except for smarty pants David who failed to assume I was planning on joining a nu-metal hurdi gurdi ensemble and would ergo need the lathe for gigs as well as jigs aha!

[David King]

As far as price goes, everything is tied up in the tooling so post a list of what it comes with.

I have a chinese 9x20 and it's running 3-4 hours a day. I have $3-4k in tooling to get what I need from it. I also have a Hardinge DSM which is 9" x with a 5C collet closer and a 6 way turret. It's unbelievably great at making repetitive parts but the tooling for it is even more $$.

[StarryNight]

As far as price goes, everything is tied up in the tooling so post a list of what it comes with.

I have a chinese 9x20 and it's running 3-4 hours a day. I have $3-4k in tooling to get what I need from it. I also have a Hardinge DSM which is 9" x with a 5C collet closer and a 6 way turret. It's unbelievably great at making repetitive parts but the tooling for it is even more $$.

Yeah I hear tooling can add up. That Hardinge DSM looks pretty cool I didn't even know you could retro-fit one of those things. I would love to get some second opinions if this lathe is appropriate. here's the link:http://www.usedvictoria.com/classified-ad/8665393
cheers,
Tony

[chevalij]

There's what looks to be a very similar lathe at Busy Bee (local tooling shop). It's going for $1288 CDN new. Add taxes and you're around 1500. link: http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=CT039

I'd say $875 is a pretty decent price. Most SMALL lathes, like 5 X 8 start at about $600.

[David King]

Naw, that's a straight up 9x20, buy the exact same one at Harbor Freight for $580-$650USD any day of the week. There's a 20% off one item coupon right now through May I think.

For the money the 7x12 lathes are probably better for pickup winders if you don't want to devote too much real-estate. For one thing they have a DC drive with variable speed so they'd make an excellent winder right out of the box.

[Possum]

...

For this stuff we do you dont need some big ass machine, I got a Harbor Freight 7x12 I think it is, does everything I need it to do, also got their smallest mill the micro mill/drill and only complaint is the fine tuning for the vertical axis sucks but for $300 it works fine. I would advise renting some videos on how to run these machines and visiting the Little Machine Shop website and reading their outfitting guides. The machines don't come with stuff that you can jump right in and start doing stuff, they come with crap accessories and cutters, LMS has good stuff for good pricing that will make everything easier to do like quick release tool posts for one. The videos will save you alot of grief and avoid all the relevant dangers in using these machines. I finally figured out how to cut slugs in one fell swoop with no nibs left over to clean up, you have to buy some adjustable stops from LMS to cut slugs quickly and repeatably. The bigger machines are horribly heavy so you would also need to buy special supporting tables, you could drop alot of money on something that is way overkill unless you plan on really doing alot of super precision work.

[Joe Gwinn]

For this stuff we do you dont need some big ass machine, I got a Harbor Freight 7x12 I think it is, does everything I need it to do, also got their smallest mill the micro mill/drill and only complaint is the fine tuning for the vertical axis sucks but for $300 it works fine.

It would also be useful to the poster if you explained why the Taig and Sherline machines were not suitable.

[StarryNight]

My only concern with really small lathes is the limitation on attachments and features but it doesn't sound like you guys are compromised by the small footprint. Those dual purpose machines are interesting but I'm a little skeptical. What say you all on the combo units i.e. http://www.grizzlyindustrial.com/pro...tachment/G0516
or
http://www.grizzlyindustrial.com/pro...he-Mill/G4015Z

I don't know if Harbor Freight ships to Canada and I can't seem to find the special on your first purchase thingy. The prices are really good though! Grizzly has a outlet in Bellingham WA so I could whip down if needed.

sorry to bore you guys with this but the advice is much appreciated. Appologies to the moderator, I just reallized this thread should have gone under the Tools section. doh!

[Possum]

...

For the regular Harbor Freight size machines, not the smaller ones, there are a ton of attachments and accessories. These are also sold as other brand names like the Micromark machines and Grizzly etc. etc. Go to
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/
Their whole inventory is dedicated to these machines and some of the others Joe mentioned. My lathe is outfitted with their quick release tool post, adjustable carriage stops, their cutting tools etc. The advantage of these chinese machines is they are so common that parts and accessories are a cinch and easy to find. They are also easily converted to CNC with readily available kits for that as well. When I shopped around I went for the best price, and I think I got the Enco version and saved a couple hundred dollars, basically they are all the same machine, the Enco had more accessories than HB and Grizzly. Micromarks is the most expensive I think but theirs is upscale version so you pay more.
I haven't used these guys before but here is a place to rent instructional videos:
http://smartflix.com/store/category/12/Lathe