Hi Guys,
I could dearly use some advice as I have a new addiction, after discovering This Old Tony's Youtube Channel, also a fan of Abom79 and those two British genius crazy folk at Bad Obsession Motorsport and Project Binky. All these have led me to dearly wanting to buy a lathe, but I'm a total novice, like ground zero novice other than my buddy letting me loose for a while on his Grizzly. I'm a physical therapist and I invent tools to make jobs more ergonomically friendly for workers in big industry. I don't intend to manufacture products, only prototypes for someone else to possibly make if they have merit.
I'm a typical guy, so the bigger and badder a lathe looks the more I want it, lol. but I have a limited budget and am trying to keep hold of my senses. From my early research on your wonderful forum, I've learned that the Chinese stuff should be avoided, some of the Taiwanese stuff is ok, older American stuff is good, and the German Swiss and Austrian stuff is basically Machinist pornography! I just today found Gavintoob's channel on Youtube and he had high praise for the Precision Matthews ultraprecision models, but seems to had almost a sponsorship from them, so I wonder if there is any bias. They look nice, but prices escalate quickly with accessories.
A local machine tool company has some enormous lathes for sale, and the only one that would fit in my garage is a Hardinge HVL.....it isn't the HVL-H you guys seem to praise so highly, and has minimal accessories. One question would be the difference between the HVL and HVL-H models, and are these special Hardinge lathes or are all their models considered very good.
My most resent two finds are a Hardinge SuperPrecision early 80's model in Phoenix, AZ, and a Logan 1940-2 in about 5 hours from me. You guys seem to like the Logans, but all your threads top out at values of around $1500 with accessories, and this guy wants $4k for this 1940-2, but it has a lot of accessories and a cabinet to store the accessories. Does this seem excessively high to you guys? I really have no idea whether to get a shiny new Taiwanese either PrecisionMatthews, Grizzly, or Baileigh, or an older American one. Any and all advice much appreciated. I guess I'd like some guidance on the value of that Logan 1940-2 most urgently.
Thank you in advance.
Kym
I could dearly use some advice as I have a new addiction, after discovering This Old Tony's Youtube Channel, also a fan of Abom79 and those two British genius crazy folk at Bad Obsession Motorsport and Project Binky. All these have led me to dearly wanting to buy a lathe, but I'm a total novice, like ground zero novice other than my buddy letting me loose for a while on his Grizzly. I'm a physical therapist and I invent tools to make jobs more ergonomically friendly for workers in big industry. I don't intend to manufacture products, only prototypes for someone else to possibly make if they have merit.
I'm a typical guy, so the bigger and badder a lathe looks the more I want it, lol. but I have a limited budget and am trying to keep hold of my senses. From my early research on your wonderful forum, I've learned that the Chinese stuff should be avoided, some of the Taiwanese stuff is ok, older American stuff is good, and the German Swiss and Austrian stuff is basically Machinist pornography! I just today found Gavintoob's channel on Youtube and he had high praise for the Precision Matthews ultraprecision models, but seems to had almost a sponsorship from them, so I wonder if there is any bias. They look nice, but prices escalate quickly with accessories.
A local machine tool company has some enormous lathes for sale, and the only one that would fit in my garage is a Hardinge HVL.....it isn't the HVL-H you guys seem to praise so highly, and has minimal accessories. One question would be the difference between the HVL and HVL-H models, and are these special Hardinge lathes or are all their models considered very good.
My most resent two finds are a Hardinge SuperPrecision early 80's model in Phoenix, AZ, and a Logan 1940-2 in about 5 hours from me. You guys seem to like the Logans, but all your threads top out at values of around $1500 with accessories, and this guy wants $4k for this 1940-2, but it has a lot of accessories and a cabinet to store the accessories. Does this seem excessively high to you guys? I really have no idea whether to get a shiny new Taiwanese either PrecisionMatthews, Grizzly, or Baileigh, or an older American one. Any and all advice much appreciated. I guess I'd like some guidance on the value of that Logan 1940-2 most urgently.
Thank you in advance.
Kym