Who owns a hobby lathe?

**Bigbjorn** · 31st October 2010, 08:41 AM

Originally Posted by 87County

I think new lathes with any capacity are geared head now anyway

FWIW, it occurs to me that you can do a small job on a big lathe but you can't do a big job on a small lathe

As well, IMO, separate lead & feed screws are a good idea (but I expect all but the smallest will have these nowadays)

They may be advertised as "Geared Head" but most of the Oriental generic lathes still require a belt change to change from high to low speeds, and most require a gear change to screw cut metric threads from UN threads. They are not " All Geared Head". Not having full features is one of the reasons they are cheap.

**isuzutoo-eh** · 31st October 2010, 09:19 AM

As most have said, how big is your hobby? I get away with a tiny 70+ year old Lorch watchmakers lathe and using gravers for tools, but my hobby rarely has anything longer than an inch to turn and half an inch diameter.
I've had a 'big' lathe, 7" swing and ~2' centres half tonner or more for a few years but haven't bothered actually setting it up, despite having full tooling etc for it, as the Lorch does 99% of the the jobs admirably and I can use it on the kitchen table. The other 1% I get a friend to do

I paid a bottle of scotch for the big lathe, acquired by joining a couple of live steamer/model engineers email lists. An old bloke had to get rid of it as he was moving into a retirement home and couldn't take it with him so he offered it up to 'anyone under 30' that had an interest in trains and wasn't going to onsell it. I fit the bill

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 31st October 2010, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by isuzutoo-eh

I paid a bottle of scotch for the big lathe, acquired by joining a couple of live steamer/model engineers email lists. An old bloke had to get rid of it as he was moving into a retirement home and couldn't take it with him so he offered it up to 'anyone under 30' that had an interest in trains and wasn't going to onsell it. I fit the bill

sounds like an honorary Aulroian

**spudboy** · 31st October 2010, 11:43 AM

I went the cheaper route, and got one (new) from an eBay seller called OzMeStore for $2K. I have dealt with them for 3 or 4 years and they have quite reasonable stuff, and they have been good when I needed something chased up.

This is the one I got: 36"X12" GEARED HEAD METAL LATHE W/COOLANT+LIGHT+STAND (eBay item 270655236102 end time 06-Nov-10 18:53:43 AEDST) : Industrial

They are Adelaide based, so I went to pick it up myself, so so sure what the postage to your place would be, but they are damn heavy. I had to use the forks on my tractor to lift it up onto the stands, so I am guessing it is about half a tonne.

They have bigger and smaller models too, so take a look at their store on eBay.

HTH
David

**CraigE** · 1st November 2010, 10:41 AM

Hey Pat if you are still moving to Newman you will need a shed as well.

**JDNSW** · 1st November 2010, 10:06 PM

As above - depends what you call small. I have a small Chinese one, primitive, but works.

Your best bet, if you can find one will be second hand from someone going into a retirement home or a deceased estate - it will probably come with all the tooling and accessories that are otherwise extra cost if you buy new.

John

**blackbuttdisco** · 2nd November 2010, 07:31 AM

Hare Forbes have a sale on weekend 13 November. On line available too

**Bigbjorn** · 2nd November 2010, 08:28 AM

I should also have mentioned buying horsepower. I have a Liang Dei (Taiwan) toolroom lathe that I kept when I closed the machine shop as it is 240 volts. It has 2.5 hp and will bog when trying to cut stainless and other "difficult" materials at a decent speed and feed. You need to go hard into these long chipping materials to get them producing short tightly curled chips. If you are producing long ribbons of swarf you are not cutting hard enough, and working dangerously.

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