What does a person do with a tiny turret lathe they paid $5k for? Does it make a return on that money somehow? Or is it just like a shrine to technologies of yore?
Just genuinely curious. I honestly would have thought that lathe with tooling was a $500 specimen.
I bought 3 of them recently for $1500. They come around all the time in my world (in New England). Seems like everyone with a garage has one they dont use. They are kind of like treadmills.
Asa long as the spindle is good, the rest is just lipstick. Very easy to work on and fix up (if needed).
The money comes from the compound and cross slide. Collets are everywhere (cheap, and expensive, all readily available)
I use mine for about 4 hours every day doing 2nd op, and fixing out of tolerance parts.