Background:
As a hobby, I have a small but capable home machine shop. I am looking to improve my lathe. I currently use a mx 8x14 Chinese lathe.. I got it off ebay so its one of those lathes clearly built from all the reject parts that didn't make the cut for Grizzly or whatever. It was a wreck when it came and I had to tear it down and fix a lot of things, but that's ok. It only cost me about $600. It actually works pretty well now, but it loses calibration pretty quickly, and the ways are garbage; the cross slide either rocks or I cant move the slide all the way to the tail due to bad casting tolerances, the tail stock is not capable of going on center.. This time around I know more about what I want and have some more cash to spend.
Usage:
I primarily make rings, and metal parts for my bike, but its been mostly brass for now. I'd like to have a little more soft steel part capability, but I'll still be working with mostly soft materials (plastic, brass, aluminum, wood).
Requirements:
What are some comps to the Super 7? Wabeco d4000? Schaublin? Boxford? 9" South Bend (are newish ones chinese?), Emco compact? I'd love some suggestions for specific models to watch out for and cross shop. Thanks for any help in my adventure!
As a hobby, I have a small but capable home machine shop. I am looking to improve my lathe. I currently use a mx 8x14 Chinese lathe.. I got it off ebay so its one of those lathes clearly built from all the reject parts that didn't make the cut for Grizzly or whatever. It was a wreck when it came and I had to tear it down and fix a lot of things, but that's ok. It only cost me about $600. It actually works pretty well now, but it loses calibration pretty quickly, and the ways are garbage; the cross slide either rocks or I cant move the slide all the way to the tail due to bad casting tolerances, the tail stock is not capable of going on center.. This time around I know more about what I want and have some more cash to spend.
Usage:
I primarily make rings, and metal parts for my bike, but its been mostly brass for now. I'd like to have a little more soft steel part capability, but I'll still be working with mostly soft materials (plastic, brass, aluminum, wood).
Requirements:
- ~$1-2K budget (used ok)
- ~8" diameter swing +/-1" is fine.
- Power feed, slower the better. I'd love to have one that was REALLY slow for smooth cuts
- Looking for precision. Will prioritize accuracy of smaller parts like rings over being able to take huge cuts.
- Don't need a huge bed, but I can fit about a 3'-6' length on my current bench. Smaller is much preferred as my counter space is precious.
- Ideally its a bench type. Cant support a really heavy cabinet lathe. I have to bring it down stairs with a corner and my shop is small.
- Solid feel and quality feel controls. Don't want chinese junk this go around. I'd rather go a bit older than buy a new grizzly.
- A slow speed chuck option, I work on slow speeds mostly, and often do a lot of hand sanding for my ring work. I dont need that sucker spinning like a turbine!
- I have a lot of smallish OXA tooling, so I'd like to be able to fit that on the new lathe.
- reversing is nice but not necessary
- quick TPI change knob vs gears
- I have a really nice 2MT tailstock Tegara chuck and centers I'd like to reuse too.
- quiet is nice; belt drive ok
- power cross feed would be great, but not needed.
- metric scales
What are some comps to the Super 7? Wabeco d4000? Schaublin? Boxford? 9" South Bend (are newish ones chinese?), Emco compact? I'd love some suggestions for specific models to watch out for and cross shop. Thanks for any help in my adventure!
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