Confused about new mini-lathes

Guys made lots of parts with lathes cobbled up out of old electric drills and pipe fittings, too. Just because the tool is not that good, does not mean that it cannot produce usefull results. I am sure your grandfather was quite aware of the limitations of the AA lathe, but likely had picked up the skillset he needed to be able to work around them, before he got it.

Cheers Trevor Jones

It's a Yahoo group, and a heavily moderated one, which is why I don't belong. The moderator somehow decided my posts needed serious monitoring. Screw 'im :) The Atlas_Craftsman Yahoo group is excellent, though most of the posts are on the bigger lathes

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O.K. I was too lazy to go down and measure, and tried to go by memory for a lathe which I haven't bought anything for in the past twenty years or so. (The larger and smaller ones get the new goodies. :-)

O.K. I jumped from the 6x18" lathe to a 12x24" with a 2-1/4"-8 threaded spindle (now fitted with a L-00), and never had a machine with the 1-1/2" thread.

Enjoy, DoN.

I'm so glad I stumbled onto a Logan for my first "owned" lathe . I got lucky , mine has minimal wear on the ways and came with tons of tooling . Best part is the support . Almost any part that wears is available - some are pricey due to low volume , but they got 'em ! And I see them on ebay fairly often for a reasonable price ...

Watch ebay , you'll see a few . I found mine in a pawn shop while looking for a cylinder hone . Went back a couple of months later and the lathe was still there , and the price had come down . Offered him a hundred less than he was asking for it , he said yes and the rest is history .

Snag sez: "> I'm so glad I stumbled onto a Logan for my first "owned" lathe . I got lucky

Logans are very notable exceptions. You did get lucky Snag, indeed, to find a Logan. Logan products are very well supported by Scott Logan, himself, of the Logan Actuator Co. Scott is the grandson, I think, of the founder of Logan Manufacturing Co. I have met Scott, his father, and family at NAMES. I haven't heard if Scott is attending NAMES this year. If so, it would be a great opportunity to investigate Logan's "old Am. Iron". You will come away impressed as well as informed of all things, "Logan".

Bob (absolutely no BS) Swinney

Yep, me too. We had a customer go out of business owing us money, so we picked up the entire contents of his building, right down to the coffee cups. Among this was a Logan 9x17 in good, greasy condition, mounted to a craftsman cabinet packed full of tooling. I talked the boss into selling it to me. I did not realize how well I had done until much later.

According to Robert Swinney :

I believe that I read a posting from him indicating that he is going as an attendee only. It takes too much time to set up the booth, and he has something else on his plate at the moment.

I've met him several times, and his daughter, at Cabin Fever and Iron Fever.

Enjoy, DoN.

IM still convinced that a Logan 11", in decent condition, is one of the top 3 home hobby/light industrial lathes out there.

And I work on lathes for a living.

Shrug

Fred Thompson and Condi Rice in '08!!!

A very good mini lathe, the TOS MN80, is made in the Czech Republic.

That's the one I have. I am very happy with it. It has paid for itself many times. I bought it with dozens of accessories, like 3 jaw scroll chuck, 4 jaw scroll chuck, independent 4 jaw chuck, collets, step collets (inside and outside gripping), lever collet closer, steady rest, travel steady rest, lever tail stock, and a bunch more.

I bought it directly from the factory and imported it from there. Funny thing was, that it cost more to ship to from the Port of Oakland to San Francisco, than it cost to ship it from the Czech Republic to the Port of Oakland.

Check it out at

And you can see several pictures of the lathe in use on my site under "Process"

About your site.

I just ran through the photo essay on one of the rings. Really well done!

More than mildly annoying to have to chase the "next" button around, though, as the pictures are of different sizes. Just a bit of a pain to have to switch focus from the picture, to find the button, back to the picture, etc.

Anyways, just a comment. I would suggest that you try to size the photos the same, or frame them, so that it would be a breeze to click through the sequence without having to keep looking for the button.

I suppose you are the proffesional jeweller referenced on the Lathes.co.uk site. :-)

Cheers Trevor Jones

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Now that is a *nice* looking machine. Congratulations!

Enjoy, DoN.

I don't know what you mean. Could you please tell me the page where he mentions a professional jeweler.

I just found it. Yes, I guess, that must be me. I'll ask him for a direct link.