This question is probably akin to: "How long is a piece of string?".
However, having done as much research as I reasonably can and with no local
resources to fall back upon I feel compelled to ask this here:
If you had to equip a small workshop dealing mainly with hobby manufacture
of small parts, space being at a premium as well as finances, would you:
a) Buy a lathe first
b) Buy a mill first
c) Buy a combination machine
Then, of course, the question is which ones. Here is a current crop of
lathes available on EBay:
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Forget for a moment issues like shipping from Australia etc. I guess I am
trying to get a better handle on what I should be focusing on in future. I
tried to find courses locally on either milling or lathe but without
success.
For instance if I understood some of the recent threads correctly, a big
lathe is not necessarily the way to go as it will not handle small work.
Then of course the question is how small is big enough etc, etc.
I shall be grateful for any advice.
It really depends on the parts you are going to make. Are there more
mill parts, or lathe parts?
You can mill on a lathe sorta..and you can turn on a mill..kinda sorta
Combination machines give you the worst of both millers and lathes.
This is actually a decent enough lathe...
#1 question...what is the biggest part you are likely to very turn on
a lathe, both diameter and length?
Id say that for most hobby work...a 12x24 or 13 x 36 would hande
99.99% of everything most folks will be doing.
Next big question..are you needing to work in metric, or English
units? Many lathes wont do metric and if they do...they dont do
English.
Since the value of the dollar is low now compared to the
Canadian...lots of lathes available in California, if you are in
BC..its entirely doable.
Gunner
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality",
John F. Kennedy.
Nice looking lathe, shame about the butchery around the collet closer.
It may be cosmetic and hopefully doesn't indicate the regard held for
the rest of the lathe if any other work has been done.
...
To oversimplify, a lathe makes moving parts that transmit power and a
mill makes the stationary structures that hold them. The small
companies I've worked for typically made their structures on a mill
and bought the round moving parts, or occasionally had a small local
shop make them. I've seen very little lathe work within those
companies, even the one developing ink-jet printers. OTOH the clock
and model engine makers seem able to do everything on a lathe.
I've used a Smithy lathe, an RF-31 mill-drill and the smallest Enco
knee mill, 100-5100, which Grizzly now sells. While they weren't
nearly as well made and nice to operate as my old Clausing mill and
South Bend lathe they did the job well enough after I figured out
their peculiarities and weaknesses. I also used a Prazi lathe clone
which was OK for small parts and the Sherline mill and lathe which
were ridiculously inadequate even for the electronics parts I was
making.
I originally learned machining on a 15" lathe and Bridgeport. I think
they are the right size for an inventor or commercial research and
development, the maximum for a hobbyist and difficult to stuff into a
basement. Smaller machines like mine are more fun to use.
I could have made the parts for my front end loader and sawmill with a
bandsaw and drill press by redesigning them and buying new valves and
cylinders instead of adapting used ones. Otherwise I mainly used the
mill to drill accurately sized and located parallel holes, the lathe
for grease passages in the pivot pins. Usually I visit a local supply
house first, buy whatever shafting, bearings or hydraulics they have
or can order, then design the machine to fit them. All I need to know
beforehand is what size shaft will handle the horsepower and speed. I
can figure out the details at the counter.
Tell us what you're doing. Are you building new stuff (mill) or
replacing worn parts (lathe)? Depending on your interests there may be
ways to do the work of a lathe on a mill or vice-versa. For instance
you can turn a snap-ring groove on a short shaft by chucking it in a
mill collet, or machine flat surfaces on small parts on a lathe face
plate. You can thread the end of a shaft to attach something, or drill
and pin it. These substitutions can let you live with only one machine
tool if you can adapt to them.
Jim Wilkins
Clicked 'Send', results inconclusive.
Hey David,
Yeah. Makes me think that they may have had, or tried, a power collet
closer at one time.
Webb is pretty good stuff, but I'd question the 1-1/8 spindle bore.
Doesn't seem quite as big as it needs to be for 5C collets does it?
And the chuck mounting is quite a bit rarer than the D1-4's common on
this size and so easily found available used.
No tooling either, although I would trust Reliable to give you
everything that came with it.
Take care.
Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.
Tell us roughly where you are. Who knows, one of us may live a mile
(km?) away or closer!
How small is "small"?. If you are going to make parts for a bicycle,
then any lathe you listed is small enough. If you are going to make
parts for a watch, then that's a different story. You have listed quite
a variety of lathe sizes here.
I have an old Atlas 10 inch lathe and I can turn a sharp point on a
piece of 1/18" diameter tool steel. I seldom use speeds of over 1000
rpm. But if you are constantly turning tiny things, sure, smaller is
better. If you see yourself every turning things a couple of inches in
diameter or bigger, I'd go with a 10 inch lathe. But if you get a used
one, then you immediately have the issue of chuck quality, collets,
etc.. You can easily pay as much for a new 3 jaw chuck and a set of
collets as you did for the lathe.
As you probably know, you can easily invest more in the tooling than
you have in the original piece of equipment. I know I did.
I don't have any personal experience with the combination machines.
They have always looked like a neat solution to your problem, but they
certainly are a "compromise" machine. If you consider getting one, I'd
try to get a feel for the rigidity of the one you want. The tool posts
are always so high in the air that I can't see how they can take very
large accurate cuts on steel parts.
I know I probably will get a lot of heat for this, but if you get a
small lathe, you can forget about carbide inserted tooling for the most
part. You will need sharper tool geometry than carbide will permit to
minimize springiness and the lack of predictable accuracy that follows.
You can mill on a lathe, but you can't do much turning on a mill.
Consider putting an adverstisement in your local papers to look for
others in your area who do what you want to do. I'll bet there are
people not far away who could help you in this area.
If there are any secondary schools in your area that do have machine
shop facilities, how about contacting the school and talking to the shop
teachers. Maybe you could make a connection there?
Finally: Nothing is forever. Get something and get started. Save the
mill for later.
Pete Stanaitis
---------------------------------------
Michael Koblic wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:56:24 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
Gunner Asch quickly quoth:
I wonder how many of those 32 bids are shills, given the bidders'
histories of zero and minus one auctions. =:-o>
--
It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness;
poverty and wealth have both failed.
-- Kin Hubbard
No, there is ONE correct answer to the string question, but the
lathe/mill answer is "it depends on what you make!"
Answer C is definitely out, unless your shop is limited to the
floor of a small closet. They are awful, I could write a long
article on why, but generally there are big limitations on
workpiece size and adjustment of height range of the head.
We have one of those combo machines just like your 3rd link at
work, it is abominable. No head height adjustment at all!
It is not a REALLY bad lathe, but nearly worthless as a mill.
I take work home to do because I'd rather do "work work" in my
free time than use that klunker. It is also just a poorly made
piece of Chinese crap that will give you a lot of maintenance
headaches if you use it a lot. Just dumping on this particular
item as I know how bad it is. (Also calling it a 16" lathe with
a 3" chuck is quite funny! Maybe you could turn wooden bowls on
it, but no way could it turn a 16" piece of steel.
If you make a lot of round parts, then a lathe is a good choice.
If you make a lot of rectangular parts, a lathe is the wrong
tool. Either machine can serve as the other in a pinch. I made
some serious lathe parts on my mill when I needed spherical
ends, basically I was making ball joints, and didn't have a
radius turning attachment. But, I had a CNC mill. Put work in
spindle, mount lathe tool in mill vise, and go to it.
So, I can't go further without knowing what you need to make. I
make a lot of machine panels and electronic cabinets out of
sheet metal, a mill is clearly the tool of choice for that. So,
years ago, when I started out, I bought the mill first, then the
lathe. The only advice for the mill is check the X-Y travels
and think carefully about the biggest work you will need to
make, and also avoid those round-ram "mill-drills" as the head
loses the X-Y alignment any time you raise or lower the head.
much research as I reasonably can and with no local
Actually one can do quite a bit of turning work on a horizontal mill,
even turning between centres. I have a small Japanese H mill with
vertical head and it is ideal for me. Son and I regularly re-machine
brake rotors for our RX7s.
As was pointed out above you have to decide what work is most
prevalent, precision turning ie. fitting round parts together for
sliding, press, or transition fits. Ability to turn accurate dia. and
holes is vital if you plan on using commercial items such as ball
bearings. If this is the case, get a lathe first. A decent sized
lathe, say a robust 10" lathe and larger equipped with a good milling
attachment will permit milling of smallish parts with reasonable
accuracy.
If your parts have many flat features and bores of various sizes then
a mill first is the way to go. Here I am swimming against the stream
in advising a horizontal mill which for my money is more VERSATILE
than a vertical mill. By placing a faceplate or chuck in the H
spindle it makes a pretty decent lathe for short parts. Add a boring
head and you have a small horizontal boring mill.
A horizontal mill will do everything that a vertical mill will do, but
NOT VICE VERSA! It is agreed that a vertical mill is more CONVENIENT
for many milling operations... That's why I have a vertical head on
mine. But if we are talking about versatility, my advice/opinion
stands.
Although there are many here advocating "bigger is better", on a lathe
that isn't necessarily so. Turning small dia. on a large lathe is a
royal pain because the top speed is too low for efficient chip flow.
Even though my 10" lathe has a top speed of 2500 rpm, I also have a
watchmaker's lathe with a top speed in excess of 10,000 rpm. For
turning and drilling small parts it is a real joy to use.
I build models, the largest of which is a 3/4' scale (1/16" to the
foot) Hudson steam locomotive. And we turn brake rotors. Repair
stuff, make custom components for whatever, build stirling/hot air
engines.
My equipment, backed by a full complement of attachments many home-
built, is a 10" EMCO-MAIER lathe of 1976 vintage. A Japanese H mill
6" x 20" table with V head, 1960's vintage. A post type vertical mill
built from a robust X-Y table and the milling head that came with the
lathe. 1950's bench type drill press, Atlas 7" shaper, 12 Rockwell
bandsaw converted to metal cutting, small gear hobbing machine,
homebuilt blade welder and EDM machine, brazing/silver soldering
equipment, and lately a home-built tig welder Son built from my
father's old Lincoln Tombstone.
With this equipment there is very little we can't do, and except for
the welder, it all fits into a 13' x 14' basement shop suitable for 2
people working, 3 if they are good friends :-)).
Decisions decisions. Perhaps if you could elaborate on your interests
we could give you more specific answers.
Wolfgang
Per the tenor of the group, a string is as long as it is.
If I were just making car parts I'd go with a mill. Every bit of
car-part stuff I've made has been turned, and it all would have come out
better on a mill.
Since I'm (very slowly) teaching myself how to build small engines, I
bought a combination machine, which was a big mistake. I wish that
instead I'd spent my money on a lathe and a milling attachment -- if you
choose your designs carefully, you can build working engines on just a
lathe.
One day I'll get a mill, then I'll get a real lathe, then I'll have a
party when I dispose of the damn Smithy.
Actually pretty common. Thats an aftermarket collet closer, probably a
Royal or JFK, and that sort of cutout is pretty common on most lathes
Ive seen that had an aftermarket CC installed. In fact..most look FAR
worse...shrug
Its only a fiberglass cover. Machine shops have drill motors
(sometimes) but they seldom have a sabre saw.
Gunner
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality",
John F. Kennedy.
Thats about the average size for 5C bores. Allows you to sometimes use
a 1 1/16th collet.
What they did was measure the ass end of the spindle bore, made a best
guess, and not the front. I know how Reliable does things.....
Still common enough.
KDK 100 series or Nix (KDK clone) set of tool holders have been
pretty common on Ebay recently. A KDK 150 series MAY..MAY
fit...probably not, maybe ...on this lathe.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality",
John F. Kennedy.
I started with a Wards (Logan) 10X31 lathe , and recently added a benchtop
mill (RF45 clone) . I also have quite a bit of other stuff , a fairly well
equipped metalworking hobby shop , all in a shed that's 8 X 12 .
Organization and wall cabinets/shelving are the key to maximizing small
spaces .
Its Reliable Tools...think they woul shill bid?
Its been alleged quite widely...that yes...they do indeed.
As has been my experience in dealing with them on some items, "sold"
and found sitting in their warehouse a year later...ebay sticker still
attatched....
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality",
John F. Kennedy.
I'll give you that as you have far more experience with these things
from what I read here. I would make it clean and neat or it would annoy
me but that's not really a problem if it is functional. I do work for
myself and others and try to maintain a high standard that I am happy
with or they can get someone else to do it. Regarding the cover, I had
assumed from the picture that it was cast aluminium, or aluminum for the
US market, due to the apparent finish and as the collet closer looks to
be mounted to it so a hefty piece of fibreglass if so like old corvettes.
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