Help me decide on my first lathe: South Bend light 10, or Sheldon 10, or Logan 2557VH

Hey Phil, I've been watching this thread and it looks like you're trying to choose a lathe based on what is available in your area. Nothing wrong with that but that might not be the best way to choose the size of the lathe you need. You also seem to be only looking at old used lathes, which is fine if your goal is to restore a lathe but you have to remember that you also get years of wear and tear along with the deal.

So, let me ask the obvious questions:
  • What are your needs? Do you own a farm and need to work on big stuff, do car repair or are you just looking to tinker?
  • How much experience do you have with lathes? Are you up to restoring an older lathe?
  • What is your budget? An old used lathe may cost you significantly more to restore than you think and, depending on how much the ways are worn, you may wind up with a nicely restored lathe that is not that accurate. Tooling may also be harder to find and will typically cost more as a result.
  • Is your goal to learn how to machine stuff or restore stuff? For most guys, learning on a machine that is not worn out is easier.
Not giving you a hard time here. Restoring old machines can be fun; I do it from time to time and have done lathes, too. However, I also know that the costs can be much higher than you think, parts can be hard to find and wear and tear will always be there to some extent. If you are not competent at evaluating a used machine then you may end up paying a lot of money for a piece of junk so be careful.

Have you considered buying a new machine? It will come with all the tooling you need to get up and running, it will have a warranty and it will have zero wear.
 
Hey Phil, I've been watching this thread and it looks like you're trying to choose a lathe based on what is available in your area. Nothing wrong with that but that might not be the best way to choose the size of the lathe you need. You also seem to be only looking at old used lathes, which is fine if your goal is to restore a lathe but you have to remember that you also get years of wear and tear along with the deal.

So, let me ask the obvious questions:
  • What are your needs? Do you own a farm and need to work on big stuff, do car repair or are you just looking to tinker?
  • How much experience do you have with lathes? Are you up to restoring an older lathe?
  • What is your budget? An old used lathe may cost you significantly more to restore than you think and, depending on how much the ways are worn, you may wind up with a nicely restored lathe that is not that accurate. Tooling may also be harder to find and will typically cost more as a result.
  • Is your goal to learn how to machine stuff or restore stuff? For most guys, learning on a machine that is not worn out is easier.
Not giving you a hard time here. Restoring old machines can be fun; I do it from time to time and have done lathes, too. However, I also know that the costs can be much higher than you think, parts can be hard to find and wear and tear will always be there to some extent. If you are not competent at evaluating a used machine then you may end up paying a lot of money for a piece of junk so be careful.

Have you considered buying a new machine? It will come with all the tooling you need to get up and running, it will have a warranty and it will have zero wear.
Fair points... I am looking in my area (which is actually pretty fertile for these things), and in a way all those factors relate to my central 'requirement,' which is budget... I pretty much need to find the diamond in the rough, smoking deal, situation, to fit within my constraints.
I can (and have) pretty much fix anything. I have no problem restoring the right older machine if I found one at the right price. That said, I also need to make a couple things right now to restore an old saw I have, so it would be nice if it worked and was accurate out the gate.
Generally, I work on antique cars... All the parts I've thought I needed a lathe for were small so far. Threading, boring, etc... That said, during this journey, I've seen some bigger car related items chucked up and it got me thinking of a lot more things I could use a lathe for.
I have a 20x40 shop... Not huge but big enough for a reasonable sized lathe.
I love the look of old American iron... The picture I have in my head has always been an old South Bend in my shop... That said, I'm out-growing my purist instincts... If I could find a good new Lathe in my price range, I'd certainly consider it.
For reference... I needed a good Table Saw... I had to sell mine before I moved, and had been looking to replace it. I was looking at the top brands and figuring to pay around $2k for the best compromise new machine... I ended up buying a 1940's Rockwell in shop worn but otherwise barely used condition for $800. Also a compromise for sure, but I'm much happier with that purchase than I am with the brand new high quality Drill Press I bought... Even though the Drill Press just works. No questions. Just flip the switch and the job gets done.

So back to my budget... Around $2500 if i could find a brand new complete machine with a warranty. If not probably $2000 for a perfect vintage machine... Walking down from there.
Ludicously restrictive... Believe me, I know... But it's where I'm at. Got a kid in College, and just moved to So Cal from Austin.
 
Yeah, I like the look of old iron, too, but I know from experience that some of these old machines can look really nice but have a lot of bed wear that makes it sheer misery to hold tight tolerances. A lathe is not like a table saw, not even close. Just 0.005" of wear in the ways up near the chuck will make it a pain to work with, and that applies to every part you make. I just wanted to make sure your eyes were wide open because a worn bed may require either scraping if it isn't too bad or having the bed, saddle and tailstock ground if it is really bad and that is big bucks!

If you're really lucky and find a low mileage lathe with very little wear and all the usual tooling then great, go for it. It would be good to take an experienced lathe hand with you. Perhaps one of our HM guys can hook up with you if someone is in your area.

Another option is to settle on which new lathe you want and save until you can afford it. This is the way I would go. I've been down the restoration route and now prefer a modern lathe with no wear and all the good stuff - camlock spindle, hardened and ground spindle and gears, precision spindle bearings and the like.

Good luck!
 
Prices on used lathes is pretty subjective and heavily dependent on location. I'm also in California and from what I've seen watching CL the past 2 or 3 years used vintage 9 and 10" lathes (Atlas, Logan, SB) run from around $600-2500 depending on condition, tooling and how quickly the seller wants it gone. I'd say average price is around $1500 for a decent condition machine with basic tooling. The Southbend Heavy 10s are usually quite a bit more as they are well liked and in demand, also really kind of a class of their own in reality being an 11" lathe.

If you have the room and the interest in bigger, when looking at used machines 12x36 and even some 13x40 often have quite a bit of price overlap with the smaller machines. This is particularly true if you include used imports, Enco, Jet, Grizzly etc. You might not get a large Southbend for $2000> but you shouldn't have trouble finding a used import at that price. The older imports can be tricky because there are some good Taiwan made machines from the 80s with names nobody has ever heard of. You can find some deals on good machines with poor name recognition.


I don't think $2000-2500 is an unreasonable budget for a 12" or smaller lathe in SoCal, you may need to shop a bit but you can probably do it.



When I bought my Sherline it was fairly easy. I wanted it for model building, and it is very popular for that purpose. When asking other modelers who had a lathe what they recommended I found two types, those with Sherlines and those who wished they had bought Sherlines. It was really that black and white. Used they hold their value, quite well so going new was also fairly easy since buying used wasn't saving me a lot of money.


When I started looking bigger I looked at new, and compared used prices to that. I was looking at the PM 1030 as my ideal, so used that cost ($2500) as my upper budget. It includes a good selection of tooling in that price so I also used that list as a baseline for consideration. I did the same when looking at a larger mill, I looked at the PM25 and similar Grizzly machines as well as the ubiquitous RF-31 clones to help me set a baseline.

Since I had my little machines to tinker with I had the benefit of not being rushed, and I've been lucky enough to have a few good deals find me, as well as finding a few on my own. Having set that baseline with new machines, it helped me a lot when looking at the older used machines to decide if what I was getting was worth the price asked compared to buying a new machine.

Obviously, for some of the higher dollar things like a full 10" chuck, etc, it would be really nice to find a machine that came with them.

Just some clarification, the 10" on a 10" lathe would be the largest diameter that you could theoretically turn using a faceplate, reality is much less. You wouldn't normally use a chuck larger than 50-60% of the swing a 5" chuck is common on a lathe that size.
 
And when you find a good one, be prepared to jump on it; don't diddle around waiting for someone else to buy it.

He is really not kidding about this part...... Save up for a machine before you start looking that way you can just jump on it when you see it...... I was able to buy 2 milling machines out from under my buddy paul just because I got paid on Wednesdays and he got paid on Fridays..... lol
 
You will need to be prepared to drive a little distance. I rented a lift-gate truck to haul my Heavy 10L 250 miles.

A quick search within 150 miles of you brings these results.









 
Last edited:
I rented a lift-gate truck to haul my Heavy 10L 250 miles.

I was lucky enough to buy machines from places with a forklift and had the machine strapped to a pallet when loaded..... Then I stuck a pallet jack under it in the bed of my f-150 and I called a flatbed tow truck to winch the pallet jack and machine on to his bed so he could set it in my driveway for me...... Cost me about $60-75 each time....
 
He is really not kidding about this part...... Save up for a machine before you start looking that way you can just jump on it when you see it...... I was able to buy 2 milling machines out from under my buddy paul just because I got paid on Wednesdays and he got paid on Fridays..... lol
Wow... Buy Paul a beer for me. Maybe a chaser too...

Well, around here, it doesn't seem like guys sell Lathes with tooling. They all offer it separately. Now I could pay a little more and buy a new Chinese Machine, but even the $10,000 Monarch 10EE came without tooling. It sold. The Logan came without tooling and sold. The Sheldon I looked at had tooling but it was as beat up as the rest of the machine. None of the decent to good machines seem to come with tooling.
And if I buy the Chinese machine, if I want to upgrade later, I'm basically out the money I payed to have the tooling, in resale value, anyway.

In the interest of not waiting around, I bought the South Bend 10k. I pick it up today.
It's all the Lathe I need right now and more. It's right-sized for my shop and easy to move around as I reconfigure my shop. And it's only going to go up in value. Whatever money I put into tooling it up, will be offset to some degree by resale value. I'm pretty sure this lathe, prettied up a little bit with all the tooling would sell for twice what I paid for it.
 
You will need to be prepared to drive a little distance. I rented a lift-gate truck to haul my Heavy 10L 250 miles.

A quick search within 150 miles of you brings these results.










Yep... If you notice not many of those come with tooling. I think the 9" south bend did, but the rest don't. That logan 10 is new.

I was prepared to drive but I was also figuring that into the cost.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top