MINI LATHE

Looking to buy a mini lathe, what are your opinions on manufacturer and size, what works best for you?

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Mark I have a 6" Atlas lathe with a small milling attachment that has served me well, but if I had it do over I would have got at least an 8" lathe. For our hobby anything smaller just is not enough. Small hobby lathes are just not accurate enough or powerful enough to do the job. Good luck.

Try Grizzly.com They have a lot of different sizes at good pricing. If I was look for my home shop it would be what I would choose.

I have brand new Sherline 4000 for sale . if you are interested

Its metric though

MARK: It comes down to how accurate you want to work with on your lathe. The greater the accuracy the higher the price of the lathe? I have had both chinese and german lathes and there is no comparison. German all the way. Having a lathe that works within thousands of a inch is not good enough for engine work. Ten-thousands of a inch is better and millionths of a inch is overkill. The best lathe for the money for accuracy was the wabeco 8 and 10 inch swings bench lathes. D2400 AND D6000 .They also make the D3000 ground bar which is what i have and is super accurate. You can buy them from MDA PERCISION IN CA. Tell the owner what your looking for and he get excellent used machines sometimes. He is the best I have found. The chinese may have gotten better in the last 15 years but in my experience you get what you pay for is true. Its better to wait and save your money for a quality lathe then buy cheaper machine and regret it for the rest of your life. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. I did my homework for 3-4 years and it pays big dividends . Hope this helps. Dan Mccormick----NAMBA 221 RC BOATER

Emco (not Enco) Compact 5 served me well for many years, just upgraded to a Super 11 but kept the C5 for small stuff.

I can dust tenths with it all day...

Terry Keeley said:

Emco (not Enco) Compact 5 served me well for many years, just upgraded to a Super 11 but kept the C5 for small stuff.

I can dust tenths with it all day...

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X2

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Wholly rant Batman!

Who said Sherline wasn't accurate?

NOVALTD said:

MARK: It comes down to how accurate you want to work with on your lathe. The greater the accuracy the higher the price of the lathe? I have had both chinese and german lathes and there is no comparison. German all the way. Having a lathe that works within thousands of a inch is not good enough for engine work. Ten-thousands of a inch is better and millionths of a inch is overkill. The best lathe for the money for accuracy was the wabeco 8 and 10 inch swings bench lathes. D2400 AND D6000 .They also make the D3000 ground bar which is what i have and is super accurate. You can buy them from MDA PERCISION IN CA. Tell the owner what your looking for and he get excellent used machines sometimes. He is the best I have found. The chinese may have gotten better in the last 15 years but in my experience you get what you pay for is true. Its better to wait and save your money for a quality lathe then buy cheaper machine and regret it for the rest of your life. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. I did my homework for 3-4 years and it pays big dividends . Hope this helps. Dan Mccormick----NAMBA 221 RC BOATER

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Well said Dan !

I had a "Emco" for years but i sold it when i moved to the US.

HYDRO JUNKIE: It would be nice if you investigated all the facts first before making false assumptions and accuse people of something they have not done. Nobody on this thread ever said Sherline

was not accurate. Three years is a lot of time investigating all the 8-10 lathes manufactured in the world . My thread was to inform my fellow rc boaters of my findings and could save them a lot of time

and effort in looking for a lathe. Regarding your remark on me not doing my homework .You have no idea what I have done and further you don,t even know me. Just because someone advocated a product and not your product you like is no invitation to discredit them for trying to help there fellow boat racers. Just to let you know I did investigate sherline lathes and personally talked to Mr. Joe Martin many times. After discussing with him my intentions with the lathe Joe suggested I would be better off with a bigger lathe . Shoreline lathes are small bench lathes that are made for hobbist and small work in comparison to other standard 8-10 swing bench laths. The 1/10 horsepower motor limits the cutting,and aftermarket universal tooling generally can not be used on the machine. The weight of the machine is light and will move when cutting begins to chatter. But for a beginner or skilled operator that works on small work its a great machine. I wish I could had the option to start on a shoreline but they came years later. Maybe you Hydro junkie could explain to your fellow rc boater on the benefits of owning a shoreline lathe and its capabilities. Would that not be better to advocate shoreline lathes then discredit somebody for advocating a different lathe? --------DAN------- If you choose to disrespect peoples good intentions you will have to do it yourself.i will not reply

No Dan, you feel free to tell everyone how things are, I'm done. I've been slammed, flamed and set up by several in this forum and I've had enough of it. Since it was you that mentioned the Chinese in response to my mentioning Sherline and then saying how great German stuff is, this one is on you. You could have mentioned any of the things in your last post previously and I would have not had a problem with it nor would I have responded the way I did, BUT YOU DIDN'T. I deleted my posts so you can spread your wisdom without having to deal with me again

I have had an EMCO Unimat 3 with a milling attachment for decades. It worked great for things up to the size of carbs and nitro head buttons in aluminum. I still keep it for really small things. My next lathe was a South Bend 9". It is good for up to 1" diameter steel or 2" aluminum or leaded steel. Trying to cut a billet steel pipe for a gasoline engine took forever. I now have an old Monarch 10ee. It takes 1/8" cuts in 2" steel like butter. I can still hold fits to less than .001" despite its 60 year age.

The interesting thing was that the cost of each of these used lathes was about the same including some tooling. It just costs more to move the big lathes.

Lohring Miller

Monarch 10ee...

+1 Terry, LOL

Terry Keeley said:

Monarch 10ee...

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I bet that old Monarch will hold better tolerance than 0.001". That's a fine looking old lathe and in good hands should be able to hold 0.0005 tolerance with no problem. Look like someone has put a variable speed drive on it. I guessing to not have to change the step belts it had on it and to convert the three phase to single phase. Also a DRO. You want to sell it?

Mine doesn't look that nice. It spent its working life at Boeing and is missing a few parts on the threading shut off and angle attachment. There has been some way wear, but it still turns shafts straight over 12". The chucks were a little battered and the electrical conversion from 440 volts to 220 volts wasn't complete. Sorting the electrical issues out took some time and great advice from practicalmachinist.com. It still had the old motor generator AC 3 phase to DC variable speed drive that's really loud. I got a rotary phase converter for it and my mill. I bought a new 3 jaw chuck and a bigger tool post. Otherwise lots of the South Bend tooling still works including the extra cheap carriage travel scale and readout. The seller hadn't figured all the issues out and even supplied the fork lift to put it on a car trailer. I rented a fork lift on my end. At 3600 pounds it stays in one place. $2500 is close to scrap price.

Lohring Miller

Still sweet even though it's not all "gussied up".

Man i just look at the wiring on that thing and the magic smoke comes out!

I looked at the Monarch, Hardinge and Schaublin toolroom lathes and settled on the Emco Super 11, mainly because I had to get it down to my basement. Haven't used it a whole lot yet but I think it's going to be a solid, accurate machine...