Precision Mathews lathe ?'s

Hello,
I am going to be buying an 11" lathe for my garage for small repairs, minor gunsmithing, hobby type stuff . I would like to spend no more than $4000, and able to run on household electricity...220 or 110 single phase.

Most everything I want to do with a lathe, the Hardinge super precision tool room lathe would fit the bill perfectly. I have used one for many years among other heavy iron and it is just a natural go to lathe for me. It is out of my budget and not single phase.

Now from my research, the Precision Mathews, keeps coming back to me as a machine that has very decent if not great qualities. I am really attracted to the fact that it is built with inch threads on all its lead screws and the collars are in English graduations. I am spoiled with the Hardinge threading abilities, but ohh well!

I have watched many you tube videos on PM lathes. I have talked over the phone with Matt at PM once and he did say he needs a little down time once he gets the lathe in to do a full tear down and re assembly to verify all the parts are of his requirements. He mentioned to me his machines are built by a overseas company that builds/manufactures a lot of the low cost imported lathes that are sold in the states, but per an agreement between PM and the manufacture the machines are manufactured to his personal specifications thus reflected in his higher prices.

Any lathes worth researching before pulling the trigger on a new PM?

The lathe I am looking at if anyone is not familiar with it is linked below.

http://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1127vf-lb/

Lots of real iron in 11" swing , and under $4k .
Standard Modern 11"
South Bend 13
Cincinnati Traytop 10 or 12.5
older Harrison/Colchester 10,11,or 12"
Sheldon/Sebastian 11 or 12"
Rockwell/Delta 11"

even a well used one will be better than new
chinese junk. a phase converter or VFD for a little machine like that
won't cost more than a few hundred dollars.

this thread is S.T.B.C. anyway......

tnmgcarbide said:

Lots of real iron in 11" swing , and under $4k .
Standard Modern 11"
South Bend 13
Cincinnati Traytop 10 or 12.5
older Harrison/Colchester 10,11,or 12"
Sheldon/Sebastian 11 or 12"
Rockwell/Delta 11"

even a well used one will be better than new
chinese junk. a phase converter or VFD for a little machine like that
won't cost more than a few hundred dollars.

this thread is S.T.B.C. anyway......

Click to expand...

And don’t forget Logan. If you have 220 single phase a vfd or RPC is no big deal.

Imgur: The magic of the Internet <- that is what one of those looks from the sides they don't allow to see when you're buying one, we bought ours new from an auction for less than 1k, then spent 4-5 days scraping it into shape, after that it became usable, next problem was the spindle, there are 2 angled roller bearings there, and the housing isn't all that rigid for them to stay in preload (ours also has basically shim stock that closes the bearing up, needless to say - the bearing grease doesn't stay in the bearing for long...), using 2mm parting tool on some types of steel is basically impossible, softer stuff - no problem, and the design of the top slide is quite retarded, probably contributes greatly to the parting problems, for less than a grand, a lot of a new machine, but 4k, no way, even slide ways look a little better then in the pictures above, it just isn't worth it.

I'm with mr. Tnmgcarbide, anything from his list will be basically universally better.

webphut said:

I have talked over the phone with Matt at PM once and he did say he needs a little down time once he gets the lathe in to do a full tear down and re assembly to verify all the parts are of his requirements.

Click to expand...

Are you suggesting PM takes delivery of the lathes and inspects them before they are sent to the customer? I thought they just drop ship from a customs broker.

From what I've recently read, it is the end customer who ends up tearing the machine down to fix it.

I wonder how he explains the 12x36 the guy over on the HSM forum recently received? It's been a real show watching him fix the leaks of so-called "oil" and other problems.

There are so many better machines out there at that price or less.

webphut said:

the Hardinge super precision tool room lathe would fit the bill perfectly. I have used one for many years among other heavy iron and it is just a natural go to lathe for me. It is out of my budget and not single phase.

Click to expand...

With THAT background?

Mate.. you go on "suicide watch", ever you get a Piss-is-on-Matthew's under hand, instead.

You can, too afford a Hardinge. Or a Sheldon, or .. a LATHE, anyway - at least. Not new. But are YOU?

No place in an adult's life for an electroless-Iron-plated turd -just because it is still fresh enough to be mushy inside!

Ok

Lol, old iron it is then

This is what I wanted to hear.
Thank you.