Greetings,
If your heart is set on a combo this will be of no use, but in the same footprint there may be some other options for lighter duty work such as bookshelf scale model engineering.
I have never used a Smithy, know a few people who have. The Smithy is according to most a pretty good lathe with a lot of swing. I won't hate on it as a lathe. Where combination machines get iffy is the mill. The use of the carriage cross slide as a mill table makes this a big machine with a very small milling work area. The finish when milling seems to suffer from the headstock configuration and mounting. Having to tear down milling set ups for turning and vice versa can be a bother according to some folks.
The machine you have will always beat the machine you wish you had, no point in not getting on with things. I've done work on machines so beat to death they might be turned down at a scrap yard, the sort you stand to the side in case it all comes apart. So I won't hate a nice new combo but wouldn't make one my first choice for your intended application.
I'd suggest considering a Sherline or Taig / Peatol lathe and one of the Seig benchtop mills before going to a combination. Most of the turning other than flywheels is of small size in bookshelf scale model engines. The swing for dealing with flywheels can often be accommodated by adding riser blocks. A rotary table on the mill can allow you to mill the perimeter of flywheels too large to swing in your lathe. If you have a Sherline mill, the head stock can rotate 90 degrees, and tools can be mounted on tall blocks on the mill table to create a quite light duty but usable larger swing lathe for those large aluminum flywheels. When space is limited Wile Coyote eyebrow wiggling and conniving is sometimes needed.
The Sherline and Taig lathes are small and light enough to put on a shelf or under the bench when not in use.
Lee Valley Tools in Canada is a Taig / Peatol dealer, although they only show accessories on their web site. They may deal with machines.
There is a firm TLA in Canada that is a Sherline dealer, no idea who they are or how they are to do business with:
http://www.tlacanada.com/TLA/Sherline.htm
If you layout your work area and consider how you might configure things, you might even be able to fit a smaller Seig lathe into the mix such as one of these:
https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_category.php?category=1271799306
That's about it for lathes. No matter what you have, there are always days you wish for more swing, more power, a finer finish on a tiny part you can barely see, different spindle nose / taper, it's just the nature of the shop.
I do a lot more work on a mill than on the lathe making engines and other model engineering sorts of things. Maybe not in cubic inches of metal removed, but in time when you include setup. The larger table of an "actual" mill is really nice to have, as is the ability to just leave something set up on the machine. The Sherline mill is nice, but quite small. The Taig/ Peatol mill is good and has more work capacity than Sherline without being awkwardly heavy to move. In this price range though, getting an R8 spindle for a mill is really beneficial. The mill doesn't have to be a huge extravaganza, at the lowest price end something like:
https://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=3990
I'd suggest seeing if funds allow stepping up a grade or two from this, but it's a perfectly workable if not elegant machine. Just remember that tooling is going to add a lot of expense beyond the basic machines and typically minimal accessories included with machines.
This mill is still small enough to slide around on a benchtop or move (with some help probably) as needed, or perhaps mounted on top of a sturdy roll around tool cart. It will probably give a much better finish than I've seen with combo machines, reduces complexity of maintenance and repairs to the machine, and be able to take all sorts of standard R8 tooling. It will handle larger things like mill engine base castings readily, and because of increased mass will cut deeper or with larger cutters than a Taig or Sherline mill. If you have two mills in the running, all else being equal, think about going for the one with the greatest spindle clearance. Things get very crowded between the table and spindle quickly on small machines, to the point that some really useful tooling just won't fit in some cases. If you can land model aircraft on the table it still won't be large enough some days, but too tight a spindle clearance will be a bother EVERY day. Clearance can get crowded on larger machines some days too...
Regarding spindle clearance, do be aware of screw machine drill bits, they are standard diameters but shorter than the jobber length drill bits typically found in hardware stores. Very nice in smaller machines, both lathes and mills.
I have Sherline lathes and mills, Taig lathes, and also have a Taiwan made older Grizzly mill and a South Bend 10 so this is based on my experience and which machines I use and when. If a larger mill wasn't available, odds are the Sherline mill would not be as well liked. It's lovely for the work that fits, but a lot doesn't. I do not own one of the mini mills, but have used them and the ones from Little Machine Shop or MicroMark tend to a be a bit better than those from Harbor Freight in the US. I think in Canada Princess Auto is your equivalent to our Harbor Freight but with a larger variety of everything, still ranging from swill to occasional gems just like Harbor Freight
If you don't already know, the import machines can be built to many grades from the same base castings, so machines that look identical in the pictures may be quite different inside. Buyer beware.
I know this is long winded, I got a lot of iffy advice, and made some poor machine choices in the pre internet days so have tried to get some of the wish I'd known stuff into this.
Happy Shopping!
Stan
