Good morning everybody! I have virtually no experience in the metal lathe department, though I do have a cross slide on my wood lathe and I understand the basic premise. I have quite a bit of experience in the woodworking department, however, and I am tooling up to make open back banjos more efficiently. Currently, I turn wood banjo rims on a wood lathe with a cross slide set up. It works reasonably well, but nearly every one of the banjo makers I have researched eventually converts to a metal lathe for this purpose. The added rigidity, cut quality, and ease of mounting to those larger chucks is really worth the switch.
I will also eventually be aiming to use the metal lathe to turn or true up brass tone rings, and potentially other round hardware involved in banjo rims. I really like 12" banjo rims, which require starting with 12.25" rim blanks, so probably a 13" swing would be the minimum size metal lathe for me to consider. I also don't need much distance between centers, so if I luck out and find a shorter bed lathe with a large swing, that would be ideal. I probably don't need to be spending $5k+ on a new or extremely high quality used lathe since I'm guessing wood and brass aren't exactly going to tax the capabilities of such a large lathe, however, I do want it to be accurate and have good cut quality to avoid excessive handwork after turning the part.
I thought I'd see what those of you with far more experience than me would recommend. I've heard of folks going with large older model lathes for great deals, newer Chinese and Taiwanese lathes, and some going the combo mill/lathe route, despite the shortcomings, due to the large swing in a small package that's often available.
Some options I've found so far:
Logan Lathe 14" - LOGAN LATHE - tools - by owner - sale
Dashin Prince 13" - 13''x40 metal lathe - tools - by owner - sale
Grizzly combo lathe / mill (would probably try for used) - Shop Tools and Machinery at Grizzly.com
I will also eventually be aiming to use the metal lathe to turn or true up brass tone rings, and potentially other round hardware involved in banjo rims. I really like 12" banjo rims, which require starting with 12.25" rim blanks, so probably a 13" swing would be the minimum size metal lathe for me to consider. I also don't need much distance between centers, so if I luck out and find a shorter bed lathe with a large swing, that would be ideal. I probably don't need to be spending $5k+ on a new or extremely high quality used lathe since I'm guessing wood and brass aren't exactly going to tax the capabilities of such a large lathe, however, I do want it to be accurate and have good cut quality to avoid excessive handwork after turning the part.
I thought I'd see what those of you with far more experience than me would recommend. I've heard of folks going with large older model lathes for great deals, newer Chinese and Taiwanese lathes, and some going the combo mill/lathe route, despite the shortcomings, due to the large swing in a small package that's often available.
Some options I've found so far:
Logan Lathe 14" - LOGAN LATHE - tools - by owner - sale
Dashin Prince 13" - 13''x40 metal lathe - tools - by owner - sale
Grizzly combo lathe / mill (would probably try for used) - Shop Tools and Machinery at Grizzly.com