I am interested in furthering my hobby of producing flash lights. I would like to begin making my own light bodies, AKA the tubes which hold the batteries. I have decided to step up to a quality lathe, as up until now I have just been working on a cruddy little mini lathe that cannot even produce threads. It's supposed to be able to, but has very poor alignment and is sloppy. I need the new lathe I purchase to be able to do consistent, quality threads. I am interested in purchasing something about 30-36", just so I can bore tubes up to about 20" length.
I stumbled across two brands, Bolton, and then Grizzly. The only problem is, they appear to be nearly exactly the same, just painted different colors, with the Grizzly costing quite a bit more. Well, the bigger problem really is that they are both made in China, and that somewhat scares me.
Are either of these machines capable of producing the quality parts I am looking for?
For instance, here is what I am looking at from Grizzly: G0492 12" x 36" Metal Lathe w/ Milling Head
And basically the same thing from Bolton: 12" x 36" Gear Head Combo Lathe Mill Drill - Combo Lathe/Mill/drill at Bolton Hardware
I guess my next question is, would it be a bad idea to purchase a combo lathe/mill?
I could purchase them separately, but my price range is still going to be roughly the same total. I have some room to fluctuate price-wise, but not a huge amount.
If anyone could help steer me in the right direction, maybe towards some better quality if you feel I am getting myself into trouble with either of these.
I just want to be able to produce quality light bodies from aluminum, and possibly be able to do some patterns on the tubes, like knurling, or some other repeatable pattern.
I will add that I am going back to school for machining, but have not got to take any shop classes yet to work with machines at the college. I will eventually end up learning how to program CNC G code. CNC would probably make things easier for what I want to do, that is, repeatable light bodies. Is there anyway I could land a CNC lathe, if say I sacrifice the mill, to do what I want to do more easily? For now, keep the costs of the software out of the question please, as a relative I know has allowed me to work with his software for hobby use.
To give an idea what I really want to be able to do, if my purchase could replicate the fins and knurling as in the following photo, I would say I could not ask for more:
Thank you kindly for your help, machinists.
I stumbled across two brands, Bolton, and then Grizzly. The only problem is, they appear to be nearly exactly the same, just painted different colors, with the Grizzly costing quite a bit more. Well, the bigger problem really is that they are both made in China, and that somewhat scares me.
Are either of these machines capable of producing the quality parts I am looking for?
For instance, here is what I am looking at from Grizzly: G0492 12" x 36" Metal Lathe w/ Milling Head
And basically the same thing from Bolton: 12" x 36" Gear Head Combo Lathe Mill Drill - Combo Lathe/Mill/drill at Bolton Hardware
I guess my next question is, would it be a bad idea to purchase a combo lathe/mill?
I could purchase them separately, but my price range is still going to be roughly the same total. I have some room to fluctuate price-wise, but not a huge amount.
If anyone could help steer me in the right direction, maybe towards some better quality if you feel I am getting myself into trouble with either of these.
I just want to be able to produce quality light bodies from aluminum, and possibly be able to do some patterns on the tubes, like knurling, or some other repeatable pattern.
I will add that I am going back to school for machining, but have not got to take any shop classes yet to work with machines at the college. I will eventually end up learning how to program CNC G code. CNC would probably make things easier for what I want to do, that is, repeatable light bodies. Is there anyway I could land a CNC lathe, if say I sacrifice the mill, to do what I want to do more easily? For now, keep the costs of the software out of the question please, as a relative I know has allowed me to work with his software for hobby use.
To give an idea what I really want to be able to do, if my purchase could replicate the fins and knurling as in the following photo, I would say I could not ask for more:
Thank you kindly for your help, machinists.