Hobbyist or Entry Level Lathe recommendations

I will opine that there's an option slightly better than Busy Bee, for very similar money, but requires some extra work on your part for importation.

Precision Matthews has an excellent line of machines, built in Taiwan rather than China (from what I can gather) that comes with a number of slight upgrades from the Busy Bee stuff.

I did a price-shop/comparison of the 10x22 lathe from BB, against the 10x22 from PM, and then discovered that PM has a 10x30 lathe - with the QCTP already installed, and a bunch of other nice features, not to mention being 8 inches more bed length which means you can actually easily turn a 20 inch barrel between centers, or held in the 4 jaw. Additionally, it has the ability to take 1" diameter stock through the spindle-bore.

I think in the end, taxes, shipping, and so on all added in, I was about $200 more for the PM lathe than the BB, and I was OK with that. Now it would be a bit more with the exchange rate, but still a good option.

Fancy stuff like having a Quick Change Gear Box vs manually changed threading gears means you're adding about $3-4K.

The likelihood of finding an 'old tired iron' that's in good shape and affordable is slim. I had an old Southbend 10K from a high-school. It was just plan clapped out. I sold it for $1200 and helped finance my new lathe with those proceeds.

Good luck in your search.

NS
 
sean69 said:
to be honest I never noticed much of a difference in grade either, quality - yes, grade - no .... probably just not enough working with them. Though I rarely chip em anymore ;)

parting tool could be me, break the insert everytime, I have trouble with the HSS tool as well. :(
Click to expand...

A lot of the guys I taught, were flat out surprised and somewhat afraid, when I demo'd parting with power feed.

It's a LOT easier to get good results parting off slices of a hollow work piece, too. Parting in to center has a couple other things complicating the act, mainly the much slower surface speed, and the flex of the tool allowing the insert to be rolled under the material, an easy scabbed off tip!

Rigidity of the slides and the work, as well as the toolholder being in alignment, all goes a long ways. It doesn't take much from any of the things that could be wrong in the set-up, to make a easy job miserable.
 
I'll chime in , I have a 1946 Southbend 9c I inherited from my father who took good care of it. I've threaded and chambered several barrels with it and though not ideal it's very accurate it you don't feed it hard. Here I'm truing an action
nRjFzdC.jpg
 
Wow... I got a lot of useful input from posting this thread (more than I thought I would).

One thing that I had not considered and came up a few times was the power source issue.
As this lathe would go in my basement, I would be limited by power.

A because it would be housed in the basement (of my 4 level split) I would also be limited by weight.
It would be difficult for me to commission young guys with strong backs to move a lathe greater than say 600 lbs down 2 flights of steps to the basement....sounds like broken vertebrae and crushed femurs waiting to happen.

If I pursue this interest, then clearly I'll have to up the budget to $2,500 ish USD for the lathe alone.
An as someone mentioned probably spend as much for various tooling.

I'll probably be limited by size & power to something like the footprint of this Grizzly 11" X 26"


https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-11-x-26-Bench-Lathe-w-Gearbox/G9972Z
 
Howdy! I did this.

I went and bought a taiwanese lathe (I believe) from House of Tools back in the day [FORCE] (same exact tool marks as the Grizzly stuff down south) and parts are interchangable. I have barreled numerous guns, made all kinds of modifications and fixtures and have built guns with fricken crazy low runouts and tolerances which ends up being more of a patience thing I learned then a super lathe thing.

Actual unit is pretty decent, my neighbour is a machinist with 30 years in the trade and other than the 14/48 being small in his experience (he works on giant C&C and manual stuff for aerospace and pipling) it does everything that I want. It has an electro hardened lathe bed which means it won't get slop nearly as quick as those old southbends and turn of the century stuff. I can chamber through the headstock which is a nice option and the motor has more than enough jam to turn carbide agressively. My unit never came with a quick change post and to be totally honest I'm not doing production work, I really don't care. I've used lathes with it, and for the few times I would have used it and been happy it really isn't worth the expense.

The things that kinda suck are that the manual is brutal (I actually downloaded the grizzly one and it is written in english). The coolant pump is junk. Plan on replacing that sooner rather than later.
Aftermarket support is gone, but that being said there are forums like practialmachinist that are f'n awesome for new guys and I was actually talking with a guy that had a hand in designing my lathe at one time.

When it comes to gunsmithing there are some really great tutorials on there and support right here on CGN.

Now the shocker (or was for me): The Actual lathe is the cheap part (research manson accurizing kits and you'll see what I mean). By the time I bought the tooling and all the stuff to gunsmith it was equal to the cost of the lather easily. I also bought a 12x40 mill/drill machine that weighs a "f-tonne" and that thing is probably as useful as the lathe. I have built countless fixtures for holding things.

SETUP is everything, Get your machine level and flat and spend some time doing the online youtube thing. I learned to cut threads, chase threads, bore.... you name it. Just had to practice (find scrap and get crazy). Start with HSS tooling as it is cheap and when you break something you just need to regrind. Carbide gets expensive but eventually I found it was the way to go for me as I could cut faster and get the most out of my machine for larger projects, for just strraight gunsmithing HSS is pretty damn good.... but man those threading tools with carbide replaceable teeth are CRISP!

I'm an electrician w/25 years in the trade and I can easily say STAY AWAY FROM 3 PHASE, it is not worth the headache if you are starting out in your garage, matching inverters / poly phase units is a pain and expensive - unless you got a guy that understands that stuff and does it on a regular basis just be careful. Spend a few bucks more on a unit that does what you want and you don't have a headache with. There are lots of nice lathes on auction sites but you'll find they are mostly 3 ph units. Try the facebook market place or kijiji (ugh) I've seen lots of units on them.

I for one didn't want someones hand-me-down unit that was worn out, I checked out so many units that looked good but things were just so worn. I'm not a expert machinist (though I can turn some pretty straight iron now) but to be able to compensate for a worn out machine definately wasn't in my skill set.




Hope that helps!


aninchlow
 
mooncoon said:
if the second hand lathe is in good condition, I don't see what you need to buy in parts. I have had my Myford for approaching 35 years and have only had to replace the belt a couple of times. At a wild guess I put about 300 hours a year on it. In terms of accessories, it came with a 3 and a 4 jaw chuck, a face plate and dog, a couple of dead centers and a live center plus a drill chuck and a steady rest. While I use it for rebarreling, chambering and making loading dies for obsolete calibers, one of the more common jobs is making screws for antique guns

cheers mooncoon
Click to expand...

Same with my ML7-B, things from the 60s only thing I did was remove a bearing shim, clean the grease out of the carriage and general clean up. The ancient Zyto needed new bearings, grub screws and a back gear detent.......400$ for the machine and 15$ in bushings, rest of the parts came out of the junk drawer, including a drive belt spliced from an old pants belt.

That being said I understand the hesitation on a used machine, I’d never buy a used chainsaw for the fact I don’t want to screw around with it.

Modern Tools import brand I’m no fan of however, their current house brand is made in China and I’ve seen 15k lathe of theirs turn to junk in 5 years. A Taiwanese Hwacheon that replaced it was miles ahead.
 
Munkey1973 said:
Wow... I got a lot of useful input from posting this thread (more than I thought I would).

One thing that I had not considered and came up a few times was the power source issue.
As this lathe would go in my basement, I would be limited by power.

A because it would be housed in the basement (of my 4 level split) I would also be limited by weight.
It would be difficult for me to commission young guys with strong backs to move a lathe greater than say 600 lbs down 2 flights of steps to the basement....sounds like broken vertebrae and crushed femurs waiting to happen.

If I pursue this interest, then clearly I'll have to up the budget to $2,500 ish USD for the lathe alone.
An as someone mentioned probably spend as much for various tooling.

I'll probably be limited by size & power to something like the footprint of this Grizzly 11" X 26"


https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-11-x-26-Bench-Lathe-w-Gearbox/G9972Z
Click to expand...


220 volt power is easily achieved from your home service.

You or an electrician would take power from each side of the panel. If you look at your panel, you will see that every breaker takes power from the opposite side of the panel, than the breaker above or below it.

Your big issue will be to have wiring heavy enough to handle the required current safely and within spec. The wiring should be NMD 10/3. You will need two x 20amp breakers and a proper three prong receptacle.

The lathe may or may not come with wiring.

IMHO, the lathe you show is at best "minimal" for what you intend to progress to.

One of the main reasons most folks quickly lose interest in pursuing this hobby, is because the equipment they purchase is so limited.

One major limitation of that machine is its lowest RPM of 150. That may sound slow but it's very difficult to learn to disengage threading lever in time to stop where you need to at that speed, not only that, it really limits your depth of cut.

The threading range is limited and the spindle bore is to small

By the time you get that lathe delivered to Canada, your overall cost will be approaching $4,000.00 Cad.

One other thing to take into account lathes are awkward to handle. You don't just find some willing backs to pick them up and move them. You need to do this with your thinking cap on.

I've helped set up a few lathes in basements. You need to find a way to get it down there that doesn't require humans to "carry" it down.

There are two real issues to this.

One - most stairwells are to narrow to accommodate individuals on each side of the lathe and the lathe at the same time. If you drop that lathe, chances are pretty good it will never be accurate.

Two - IT'S HEAVY and people get hurt proving they're strong enough to manhandle the unit.

These units come in boxes with wood pallets on the bottom to which they are bolted securely. So it needs to be taken of the truck and put down as close to where you want to set up as possible

That pallet won't fit through the door.

The list goes on from there.

I suspect you are cash strapped.

IMHO, the lathe you show is not what you're looking for and would be a waste of your hard come by funds.
 
Google & join up to Canadian Hobby Metal Workers forum...lots of very informed machinist-hobbyist types on there with loads of info on buying used machines and getting some very big lathes-milling machines (your gonna want one of these as well) into a basement...lathes easily break down into much more manageable component pieces.
 
mooncoon said:
if the second hand lathe is in good condition, I don't see what you need to buy in parts. I have had my Myford for approaching 35 years and have only had to replace the belt a couple of times. At a wild guess I put about 300 hours a year on it. In terms of accessories, it came with a 3 and a 4 jaw chuck, a face plate and dog, a couple of dead centers and a live center plus a drill chuck and a steady rest. While I use it for rebarreling, chambering and making loading dies for obsolete calibers, one of the more common jobs is making screws for antique guns
cheers mooncoon
Click to expand...

I bought a Myford lathe from a machinist, it was his hobby machine at home. Does everything I need it to do and would do a lot more in excess of my skill level. I won’t be wearing this machine out.
 
Munkey1973 said:
Wow... I got a lot of useful input from posting this thread (more than I thought I would).

One thing that I had not considered and came up a few times was the power source issue.
As this lathe would go in my basement, I would be limited by power.

A because it would be housed in the basement (of my 4 level split) I would also be limited by weight.
It would be difficult for me to commission young guys with strong backs to move a lathe greater than say 600 lbs down 2 flights of steps to the basement....sounds like broken vertebrae and crushed femurs waiting to happen.

If I pursue this interest, then clearly I'll have to up the budget to $2,500 ish USD for the lathe alone.
An as someone mentioned probably spend as much for various tooling.

I'll probably be limited by size & power to something like the footprint of this Grizzly 11" X 26"


https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-11-x-26-Bench-Lathe-w-Gearbox/G9972Z
Click to expand...


Here is the same lathe marketed by King Canada ... https://canucktools.ca/king-10-x-22-metal-lathe-kc-1022ml/ You will probably find the same lathe branded for Busy Bee as well.
Here is Kings line ... https://www.kingcanada.com/en/products/metalworking/metal-lathes/kc-1022ml-10-x-22-metal-lathe a little easier for you to figure out your end cost in CAD :)

I am with bearhunter on the speed issue. you MIGHT be able to jerry-rig it for slower speeds - I have not done it, but I've seen a lot of references for people doing the same to get their atlas speeds down.. I would do some internet searching and possibly even give grizzly a call to see what the options are.

Good Luck! :)
 
If you're looking at Grizzly, have a look here instead:

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1022v-pm-1030v/

I have the 10x30. Very pleased.

The 1030 has a low spindle speed (down to 50 rpm).

Comes with QCTP already installed

Inch leadscrews (as opposed to metric ones found on most lathes of this size) - ie the King Canada and Busy Bee ones.

Weight complete is ~400 pounds.

Runs on 115v power - 12A.

So, when it arrives you can strip it down in your garage to clean it, and as you get the parts cleaned, you move them down to your basement piece-by-piece. The heaviest piece to move would be the bed - and with all the parts off, it's close to 200 pounds. That is moveable for 2 people. With care.

NS

 
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Yeah, I have a Myford Super 7, that is somewhat disreputble looking, but is really well tooled up, and meets the needs I have for it.

I recently sold a 11 inch Emco that I also had in the basement, 110v power, same as my Myford, and essentially new.

I also have a Colchester Master 2500, 13x40" that is awaiting my sorry ass getting the 3HP 220v 3Ph motor installed, to replace the 460v 3Ph 5 HP motor it came with.
I doubt I will ever notice the loss of HP!

3Phase power via a VFD is not that complicated. 220v single phase in, 3 phase out VFDs are pretty common, and not that hard to wire. Whether you think it's worth the effort...your call.

If you are limited in space and by weight that you can safely move, just accept that and work withing the capabilities of the machine you have room for. You will be able to do an awful lot, and then farm out those few jobs that you cannot do. In the meantime, you are still learning how to run your lathe, gaining experience and skills. If you then move up to larger machinery, so be it, but you might never, and that's OK too.

My experience has shown that you end up making a lot more small parts than big ones. Use that to your advantage.

A small lathe can do an awful lot, and I have been assaulted by dumb people telling me that the things I have done on a small lathe were impossible, one guy was quite insistent that any lathe that weighed less than his car was "Junk!". He did not buy any of the lathes he ran as an operator (notice, not machinist....). End result. I know what I DID do, and he thinks I could not.

Whether you have a Chinese Mini lathe, a Sherline, a South Bend, or a truly top end smaller lathe like a Schaublin 135 or similar, you pretty much have to learn to make the best out of the equipment you have, as the most clapped out worn piece of junk, is still a better lathe than the very "Best" lathe in a brochure picture...

There have not been any lathes made yet that you will walk up to and they miraculously produce perfect parts. There is a lot of skill and effort that goes in to getting there.

I can say with some certainty, having been doing this stuff both for work and as a hobby, you will find that the skills learned working on light weight, low powered equipment, WILL transfer directly over to operating a larger lathe, but it is a lot harder to go down to a smaller one if you are used to powering through the work with dull tools and horsepower. You will find that set up is a lot more of the work than cutting is, and that sharp tools are really the answer to a lot of the usual problems.

Carbide tools have their place, but I really really like High Speed Steel (HSS) tools, as I can grind them to any thread shape or profile I need, and the blanks are cheap. It IS worth learning to make best use of both. You just do not NEED carbide tooling. Nice, but not needed.
Well, until you get to turning hardened materials, but hey, always exceptions... :)
 
My 2c (from a rank amateur whose only qualifications are that I recently bought 2 lathes):

I bought one I regretted as soon as I got it home. It took a lot of work to get it to where I am happy with it. It’s a postwar Atlas 10x54 with manual change gears, abused, neglected. BUT I learned enough from disassembly and cleaning, reassembly and repair, setting it up, taking the twist out, sharpening bits, taking the slop out of it and getting it to where it will reliably cut a good test bar that I understand the how a lathe actually functions fairly well now. I have $2k into a setup I can sell for maybe half that if I’m lucky and is Mickey Mouse for any accurate smith work. It’s possible but setup is slow and fussy.

I bought the second one, a gently used 14x40 1980s quality import manual lathe with a qc gearbox and a 1.75 bore, from a very competent machinist who helped sort out which carbide tooling to buy, milled the toolpost so tooling is on center, gave advise on setup etc and for $5k fully tooled I have a machine you can just walk up to and use. It has power to spare and has made enough special drivers, tools etc for us at the shop that the cost is half recovered in less than a year AND will have a resale approaching what I paid for it.

Short version: a good setup with a good resale value only costs the difference between what you paid for it and what you sell it for. A marginal setup that is slow to use and takes tinkering to get it right just sucks time and money.

I still love both of them and they’re both satisfying to use but for different reasons. The old cast iron Atlas looks good and is fun because it’s run by feel and sound and you get to pretend you’re an old timey machinist. The newer bigger machine is ugly and runs on calculation and measurement but gets it done on time and to size and I know it’s earning it’s keep.

The newer one it at our business because it’s a better tool to get things done and the Atlas is at home where it’s more therapy than anything else.
 
25 years ago I worked for a small tool shop that had a recently rebuilt 1964 Okuma LS lathe. I did 99% of all their lathe work. After I left the company that lathe was barely used, the company no longer looked for lathe work, so for the most part sat unused. Over the next 20 years the company owners (father and son) had a falling out and went their separate ways. Father keep all the machinery and ran it more or less as a hobby. 5 years ago the old man died and the house and shop were sold off, with that lathe still in place.
I heard that the lathe was still there and went to talk with the new owner. Found out that he was just starting to scrap that lathe out so I asked if I could have a look at it. He had a few parts off the machine but nothing major (old guy tinkering) I asked him if he was interested in selling it and he asked me how much I was willing to pay. I told him that I didn't want to insult him so I asked him how much he wanted for it. He thought $300 was a fair price because that's about what he would get for scrap. Needless to say I rushed to the bank to get him some cash.
It cost me another $1800 to hire some riggers to load it up and deliver it to my shop. I did have to buy a new 4 jaw chuck but it also came with a bunch of tooling and a 3 jaw chuck.
After a little clean up, and leveling job this machine still cuts perfect threads. I have since add an accurite read out.
Weighing in at 6000 lbs and 600V it isn't an entry level machine but I did get a much better machine for an entry level price.
 
gaff said:
there is Myford on the crown assets website now, in the hand tools section. the machine is in Ottawa.
Click to expand...

Be interesting to see what it goes for.
It's an ML-7R, on the factory industrial stand, looks to have a coolant tank, and a pretty good box of accessories with.

It's a change gear lathe, which will turn some off, but if the gears are there in the box, it only takes a couple minutes to swap to cut a different thread. Not near as convenient as a gearbox, but sure not the end of the world.

Wish they had a picture of the contents of the box of goodies!

I was looking at it and noticed that there was a Taper Attachment too. That's a bit of a rare bird!

Someone will be very pleased with that lathe when they get it home.
 
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Myford is an exceptionally well made piece of kit, I had one in my shop for smaller work for years. But and I mean a big but, it will have limited use for barrel fitting as its spindle is too small to pass anything bigger than 22 barrels through the headstock and there's not enough bed length to handle extended work held in a steady rest. Great for the hobbyist or student though. D.H.
 
David Henry said:
Myford is an exceptionally well made piece of kit, I had one in my shop for smaller work for years. But and I mean a big but, it will have limited use for barrel fitting as its spindle is too small to pass anything bigger than 22 barrels through the headstock and there's not enough bed length to handle extended work held in a steady rest. Great for the hobbyist or student though. D.H.
Click to expand...

Yep, the spindle through bore on all but the very newest models was right around 5/8 of an inch. You'll work fairly carefully to get 19 inches between the chuck and the tail stock, unless you get one of the rarer long bed models, which will net you an extra 8-10 inches between.

Not a great pick if you aspire to barrel fitting and chambering, but for all the little pieces, screws, spacers, even some very careful milling setups, they are a super lathe.
And one guy can manage the weight of one, up and down a set of basement stairs, on a wheeled dolly, safely. Been there, done it.

Honestly, if you need a does it all lathe, something with about a D1-4 CamLock spindle nose would be where I would look. A classic example would be the later South Bend Heavy 10 lathes, after they got away from threaded on chucks. Figure at a minimum, somewhere near twice the weight and space of a Myford though, as a starting point, and you can get right up into some pretty heavy gear in the same size spindles.

Being able to reverse the spindle, is one of the things I really miss on my little lathe. Not enough that I'd run out and spend a bunch to replace the motor with a reversible one, but it's a feature that, once you get used to having, sure makes some stuff easier.
 
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