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Anyone here ever bought an Eisen lathe? HELP!

jonbearman

Plastic
Joined
Mar 12, 2015
Looking for feedback from owners dealing with precision and if it can be obtained with their machinery. We are looking at the 1440evs 5 hp 3phase machine. My concern is spindle deflection and can you turn a round without major taper problems? Any help is appreciated. We will be using it for gunsmithing such as chamber jobs for benchrest shooting.
 
I've had good experiences buying from Eisen, they want to please their customers. I just bought a mill power feed from Eisen today in fact.

Call Roger at Eisen and ask for local owners of that model to get reviews, I don't know how many there would be on the East coast since Eisen is based in LA I think.
 
Where I work, they have an Eisen lathe set up for a production part. A simple, non precision operation. The people running it are definitely not machinists. Indeed, would not qualify as 'operators' in a real machine shop. The previous employment that seemingly qualifies one to use the lathe is employment at Macdonald's!😱
That being said, the lathe had held up well considering the extreme abuse and absolutely no maintenance. It seems to be pretty hefty and of good quality. I'm kind of amused at the wording of your question though! You ask about dealing with 'precision' and worrying about spindle deflection and then talk about gunsmithing. People have been building match grade guns for years on run of the mill , entry level machines for many years. For the level of precision required for guns of any caliber (how that for a pun?!) a decent lathe and mill being used, it's all going to come down to the ability and knowledge of the guy cranking the handles.
 
OT comment, I would think "EVS" electronic variable speed, would be a much cheaper machine due to maybe two gears, high and low, the rest being done with the variable speed control.

I don't know why people like those, but I guess it's like art, in the eye of the beholder. I'd much rather have gears than belt shifts, belt variable speed devices or anything else.

But that' only my opinion. I think the EEL's (Electronic engine lathes) started the move to EVS for manual lathes.

But I'm often wrong. :o
 
Babin Machinery in MA (no relation to Al Babin) has been selling the Eisen HLVH toolroom lathe clones for years. You might call them and ask about their opinion on the exact model lathe you intend to purchase. I have seen the Eisen HLVH lathe clones in person at Eastec and they looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, like someone else said, these companies all just rebadge lathes that are imported. Just because the high end HLVH toolroom lathe is great doesn't say anything about the other lathes in their lineup that are unrelated and probably sourced from a different mfg.
 
Don't know about the 1440, but it looks like similar castings to my Taiwanese Eisen 1236. For the price I paid for the 1236, she's a fine machine. Certainly no Hardinge or Mori, but not a piece of junk from the factory like those-lathes-that-shall-not-be-named. A skilled operator can do good work within it's envelope with minimal fuss.

As for who actually makes them? The answer is Liang Dei: LIANG DEI ENTERPRISE CO., LTD.
 
I have looked at a few and set up a few. It is the same lathe that Precision Mathews, Acer and a few others sell. Made in the same plant. I was going to get one a few years ago. They are pretty decent lathes for the money. I ended up getting an Acer which is fixing to be gone. I never have been able to get as nice a finish as a 14x40 Rockwell Delta I had. I just bought a Mazak and am also getting a Hardinge which is larger than the normal Hardinge. The Chinese and Taiwan lathes are no where near as good as either Japanese, American or European lathes.

Gunsmith work doesn't need to be super accurate. A lathe like this will work. Plenty of very accurate rifles are built every day with them.


As far as that particular lathe goes I would look at other sellers that sell that particular model if you have your heart set on it. I personally like the variable speed spindle. You can get a better surface finish than a gear lathe I believe. Don't expect to unload it and start making chips. I have set up several new Asian lathes and all have had some sort of problem. Some were small problems 2 I remember had major problems.
 
You can get a better surface finish than a gear lathe I believe.
That would be true if the speeds for good finish were very narrow, but they are wide above the needed speed. For instance, a 1" diameter shaft being turned with carbide may have a poor finish at 200 RPM and a bright finish anywhere above 300. The next break is detrimental heat to the insert and that is normally quite a ways higher than the lowest speed for a good bright finish. I've never had a problem finding a speed that works with a gearhead lathe.
But if you are talking about gear shadow finish on the part an EVS will not solve that, because all or most EVS lathes have gearing for the final drive.
 








 
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