HarborFreight 8x12 Lathe

I bought the 5" independent 4 jaw chuck from Lathmaster. It bolts right to the spindle without any mods. Very nice chuck and of course a few other things came along also.
 
From what I have learned they are both the same lathe but Bob does a bang up job preparing his for you. I saved shipping on mine by calling around to different HF's until I found one that would special order it for me. I saved about $600 but I didn't get all the stuff Lathmaster includes. After I bought the chuck from Bob the savings dropped to about $400. That's a lot of beer money, eh? If you can swing it, order from Bob and have it all. I like the 8x14. I think it's beefier than the 9x20. The compound doesn't move at all. The belts definitely are. The 8x14 uses a regular auto v-belt. Which ever you get be prepared to buy a longer v-belt. They are all too short and changing speeds with a tight belt is a pain not to mention what it does to the bearings.
 
A couple of mods for mine. I made a crank handle that does double duty. I can use it as a regular handle or change to the second hole on the end to give me some leverage for tapping. I balanced it which is the reason for the cutout. I used an idea for the spindle from another member. Just like the old style handlebar neck on the old bicycles. I also made a handle for the tailstock nut by just welding on a handle. And last I made a pump center to aid in tapping. I used an extra #2 center I had.

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I used a piece of galvanized pipe believe it or not. It was the only piece of scrap in the bin close to diameter of the spindle. I turned it down enough so it would easily slip into the spindle. I welded washer on the handle end and so the bolt would run straight and a nut on the other end, clamped it in the band saw and voila!
 
Don't forget to balance the handle if you are planning to leave it attached during operation. I use a prop balancer I had from when I was flying model airplanes.

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Yep. Good advice. Forgot the fumes. I have such good ventilation I take it for granted. I also wear a mask whenever I weld.
 
I really can't understand the attitudes of the Chinese machinery manufacturers, or their relationships with seemingly large importers like Grizzly. My gosh, if someone made/imported a lathe of this exact size and overall quality, but with a 1.5" spindle bore and a 5" or 6" chuck plus a 5C collet closer and a lever tailstock available as options, would that not sell like hotcakes at $1500 for the basic machine? Even to serious professional machine shops, for use as a collet lathe on odd jobs? I look at almost every lathe and mill currently imported that has any interest to me at all, and think if only one or two features were different the thing would be 10 times better. Don't the importers have any pull at all with the Chinese manufacturers? Or are the importers so stupid about machinery that they don't ask for changes that seem so obvious to me?

I'd change the X2 mini-mill to have a solid column mounting... Change all the mills to .050" or .100" or .200" feed per revolution instead of .0625" or .125"... Change all the mil/drill tables to simulate a short section of Bridgeport table, with three 5/8" T-slots... Never sell a mill without a spindle lock of some type... Be sure all mills have a good selection of speeds in the 400 to 900 RPM range especially, like 4 minimum in that range alone... Never sell a horizontal mill with an R-8 spindle taper and no drive keys on the spindle face... Put a minimum of 4 gib screws on every lathe cross- or compound slide... Make sure even the smallest hobby lathes had at least a 26mm spindle bore... Ban the round-column mill/drill... Make sure all mills and mill/drills had either a knee or a head that could be positioned with .001" inch accuracy, plus a solid precision quill stop that would stop the quill with .001" repeatability...
 
I disagree that a 1 1/2" spindle bore is too big for a lathe of this size. 1 1/2" diameter round material is not at all too heavy for a 250 to 350 pound lathe to work on, and anyway much of the reason for the 1 1/2" bore would be to allow a collet closer for 5C collets and in that case the actual workpieces would be quite small.

And there may be limiting competition in some parts of the country from used American machinery, but not where I live. There is nothing at all available locally, and I would much prefer to order a new machine with some sort of warranty and standardized ordering procedures and known shipping costs over bidding on unknown used lathes on eBay from afar. Sellers on eBay almost seem to take some fiendish glee out of their horrible fuzzy photos taken without even wiping loose chunks of dirt off the ways and tables of their merchandise. And I'm a professional machinist... how many guys just starting out in machining have the confidence to judge good machines from worn-out ones, or to know what will prove repairable an what will not, even if it was sitting right in front of them? In addition, a lathe combining the compactness and large spindle bore I'm thinking of has never been produced by any American manufacturer to begin with. Its manageable weight and versatile capabilities would put it in a class by itself.

I corresponded with Bob at Lathemaster on this very subject a few years ago. I know Lathemaster is not doing the volume of Grizzly, but he told me he had asked the Chinese factory to make many of the changes I suggested and they would not. Just a month or two ago I spotted a small lathe with a large spindle bore advertised on Alibaba.com. I repeatedly contacted the Chinese exporter advertising it, by more than one means, expressing an interest in importing it to the US but got no reply. Apparently that exporter only exports to African and South American countries, and maybe has no knowledge of US import procedures. Though I would have thought figuring that out would have been mostly my responsibility. I never could determine who the actual manufacturer is.

Another basic criticism I have of all imported lathes is that they come with 3-jaw chucks that are too small. The chuck diameter should be within 60% to 75% of the swing of the lathe or you are just wasting the machine's capabilities. An 8 inch lathe should certainly come with at least a 5 inch chuck, for example.
 
dalee link=topic=629.msg9697#msg9697 date=1302484435 said:
It is when you start hanging 10ft of 1 1/2" bar out the back of the lathe. And that happens quite frequently in shops. You will tend to use your equipment to it's fullest and then just a bit more. Takes a pretty heavy machine for that.

I don't think any sane person would buy a $1500 250 pound Chinese lathe and attempt something like that. Your comment seems like circular logic... or something like that... as any machine has its limits. It takes a heavier machine to handle heavier work than a lighter machine can do in every case, no matter what your initial scale is.

When I said I thought professional shops would buy it I meant for the collet and lever tailstock features. Lots of small job shops that already have bigger machines for heavy work, or CNC machines for large quantities, might buy an outfit like that to do short runs of simple small pieces, or "second operation" stuff on small quantities. For example, if you needed 50 simple standoff bushings made, it might make more sense to start training the kid that sweeps the floor on a $1500 lathe than pull your best machinist/programmer and his $100,000 CNC off a bigger job.
 
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Can you post pics and details of the tails rock mod with the red handle?


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