right on.....Senor Priggs. i'd love to hear one or a few specific items you still like to make with the smaller one. I'll check that out right away. we used to buy things from USA and drive 100kms south of Ottawa Ogdensburg. i would need to look into recent rules. maybe with covid they don't allow cross border for non work related visits...and my passport is expired....*****
maybe they have shipping options. so complicated. and shipping fees......
any ideas?
About 15 years ago, I bought an Enco, the 9-20, having workt with larger machines, I did not notice the "lack of small print" which DID NOT say the machine would not cut left hand threads. Well, I bouth it in order to do left hand threads when I could not buy a left hand tap or die. So, I definitely blame my machine! a mere 2 months later, I discovered "GRIZZ", Grizzly and they had the same sized lathe for less and it CUT LH THREADS! Was I pisst. So whatever you decide on, try to learn what a lathe should have, what it should do, how you will use it and make a list of all the correct things. You might study what the larger lathes are capable of, then write down what is necessary for you and make sure that whatever lathe you buy has what you will be needing.
There has been a discussion on cut off tools and techniques on the back side of the cross slide. You cannot do this safely if you have a spindle nose that has threads. So be sure to check out what kind of spindle nose you get. My Enco was threaded which caused me a lot of trouble. I bout a Grizz in January which so far, I am very happ7y with. It cuts like a hot knife thru hot lard--it has a D1-5 spindle nose which will not unwind when doing reverse cuts. Don't forget to look into how large the spindle hole is, this will be the maximum size for a long rod to fit into your machine. I would have liked to have 2" but the price goes way up for larger spindle holes. Mine is 1-1/2" which is certainly OK for most projects. For the tail stock, try to get one that has a lever hold down and release, the Enco had a wrench lock down and un lock, what a pain in the oss. Some of the bigger lathes have a magnetic brake, one is feature on the large machine above in Hennie's post--it is the lever at the foot of the machine. Those are nice, especially in an emergency.
One of the most important items is lots of change gears and of course levers that change speeds and feed rates. The Enco had a grand total of 6 speeds, the slowest of which is 130RPM which is too fast to cut threads in a lot of cases. Also, I had to change the change gears too often. With the Grizz, I only have to make a change (so far) when changing from metric to imperial and vice versa. One of the bad things, as someone said above, is that the smaller the machine, the faster is the slowest speed. sometimes you want to go REALLY slow. *I read, years ago, that you can cut rock even on a lathe but yo0u need about 40 or even less RPMs. If you get a small machine, it is likely that they will give you a plastic drive gear which suprizingly is quite good. I wreckt my first one and they had a second one in the kit, so that workt out but now I am without a spare. I will eventually try to make an aluminum one or even steel if I can get the right sized disc.
There are lots of things you will want if you know what it is that you want. Problem is, that starting on a small "kiddie toy" as I call them, you will not find out the things you want to find out. A large lathe will have more features. My recommend is to get the largest lathe you can comfortably get into you shop that you can afford. This may abe going too far, as you might be ablt to afford a machine like a friend of mine just bought for his professional machine shop: it is about 18 feet long, has a 6" spindle, weighs in at a mere 22,000 lbs. The four jaw proably weighs in at about the same as my whole Grizz! I got to touch the lathe and of course I worshipped at it's 20 odd feet. MY friend thot that was pretty strange, bowing down to the Idol of Machines and kissing it's feets, but he gave me a whole lot of scrap from his scrap bin.
BTW, as for moving a machine without an overhead arm, you might just get the largest engine hoist you can find. I moved a lathe weighing 1400lbs with a simple engine hoist which I bought just for that reason by lifting the carton up off the pickup bed a couple inches, carefully moving the pickup, then lowering the hoist to the ground. then I put the carton on pipe rollers and moved it in the garage. My son helpt me, it's a two man job, not out of difficulty, but rather for safety reasons. I thimpfk you probably will not be getting a lathe that weighs in a t 22000 lbs, it might crush hyour pickup but something less than 2000lbs hyou could most likely do with an engine hoist.
which arrived regularly for the last 36 years. Model engineer and Model Engineers Workshop abounded with sensible modifications to drop the revs but finally Axminster became weary of perspiring Brits and even my change over to three phase became tiresome=== and I sold it and bought a better Myford.
