Choose between a Clausing 5400 , Taiwanese 12x36, or something else?

AndySomogyi

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Hi,

I'm shopping for a small/med sized lathe that's compact, and sturdy enough for real work. Both of these are 12" class weigh around 1100 lbs. I found these two within my budget, and they're both a good size for my shop.

From what I could tell, just from pics, both of these seem to be decent. The Clausing was reportedly only used by a model maker, and *seems* in very good condition. The features I like about the Taiwanese is the gap bed, and metric threading. Eventually, I'll fit an electric lead screw, so moot point, but nice that it does threading now. The Taiwanese made one is a Tida (not familiar with that brand).

I guess mostly what I'm concerned about is rigidity in a compact machine, condition, and ease of finding parts.

Is it a big deal that the Tida has separate lead and feed screws?

Both of these are remote, so I can't inspect them in person, so have to rely on buyer and pics.

Do you guys think either of these are worth buying, or should I look somewhere else. I can get brand new Grizzly 12x24 for $3800, but that's a lot more than these, and the new ones are Chinese, not Taiwanese, and not sure if that makes a difference.

Thanks
 

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Id take the tida. The clausing looks to have a threaded spindle. The tadi is a gear head lathe and looks to have an L series spindle nose. If condition is similar go with the tida
 
Clausing is still around so you can get service support, manuals and such from them for many of their older machines. They have some but not all parts available for out of production machines.

Clausing Industrial


There is a thread here about gap bed lathes. The general consensus I got from that thread from those that have them is that the gap is rarely used. Too much hassle getting everything realigned after removing the plug.

From the photos it would appear that the Clausing has more tooling?


There are many here that would warn you against buying a machine unseen which seems like good advice to me. Even at a bargain basement price that can be a substantial amount of money for a lathe that size, and if it is really cheap you have to ask why?
 
Tida made these under their name and they were also re-badged for Enco, Contimac, Harbor Freight, Wholesale Machine and others. You couldn't get parts for them 25 years ago, don't like the odds now.
 
Tida made these under their name and they were also re-badged for Enco, Contimac, Harbor Freight, Wholesale Machine and others. You couldn't get parts for them 25 years ago, don't like the odds now.

Aren't these 12x36 basically the same as the ones sold by Grizzly today? Wonder if Grizzly parts would work.

I'm guessing that Clausing used pretty standard sized bearings, and that these bearings are really easy to find. I'm guessing that bearings for the Tida are probably harder to find.

I like the simplicity of the Clausing, I'm thinking that's a big plus for it.
 
So, how remote are these machines and why can't you go look before you commit to buy? I guess if I were you I'd ask myself would I be willing to purchase a car of similar price and vintage sight unseen?

There's a reason so many folks are telling you to check the machines out in person, others have gone down this path and ended up with unpleasant surprises. If you physically can't get to where the machines are perhaps someone else on the forum can do it for you, no harm in asking unless you think the deal is so sweet that you'll get beaten out on it.

That being said, if you're going in blind choose the machine built in the US with a manufacturer that's still in business. When (not if) you find out there's a broken/worn part inside it'll be better to have an OEM option for replacement. You might not like the price but chances of it being available are better with the Clausing than a whole lot of other options.

Cheers,

John
 
I'm guessing that Clausing used pretty standard sized bearings, and that these bearings are really easy to find. I'm guessing that bearings for the Tida are probably harder to find.

Bearings aren't usually a problem. It's pretty rare when you can't find a replacement bearing for almost any machine. The problem are the other wearable or breakable parts that are machine specific, like gears, gibs, lead screws, feed screws and nuts, half nuts, etc.
 
There are pros and cons to both. At a quick glance the Clausing looks nice and looks to come well equipped with a 5c chuck and a taper cutting attachment.

The 12x36 also looks nice and like you said has separate leadscrew from feedscrew as well as metric thread cutting ability.

The gap bed is one of those things where they seem like a good idea but more often the cross slide range is limited in that it can't reach the outside diameter so you can't face or turn the big part anyway.
 
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