Kingston HL-1500 ..... When is a lathe too big?

acruxksa

acruxksa

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Greetings All,

This is probably a stupid question and I already kind of know the answer but figured I'd ask anyway. There is a Kingston HL-1500 lathe for sale locally. We don't get a whole lot of used lathes for sale up here in Alaska, consequently, my questions. I currently own a clapped out Atlas 10" and am looking to upgrade. I can only dream of the prices and availability of used lathes down in the lower 48 and have realized that I will likely just have to cut my wine consumption and save for a PM-1340GT and the shipping that comes with it. Then a 21" x 60" 5,000lb + lathe comes up locally for sale at a very fair price............ I know it's too large and to add to the issue, it comes with a 10hp 3-phase motor. The only way I could make it work is with a VFD, However, I already have a 50A 240v service to our electric vehicle charger and 2 30a 240v services for my air compressor and mill. (Granted, neither come even close to 30a, Air compressor draws about 8A and whatever the PM-30 draws). All on a 100a panel dedicated to the garage and exterior lighting (all exterior lights are led).

My questions are as follows:

1) Can you run a 10hp 3 phase motor reliably on a 10hp vfd? I realize I will be losing some HP/Torque, but would the lathe still be usable?
2) Can you still do smaller work similar to what I can do on the atlas 10" with a 21" x 60" lathe? I ask because this thing is large enough that I would have to get rid of the atlas due to space constraints.
3) Is the Kingston HL-1500 considered a good lathe?
 
I will throw up one word of caution, a 21 " 10hp lathe can kill you very quickly. Just get caught by the chuck and it's game over. If you have never worked near a big chuck, it's a scary thing.

Can a big lathe do small work?
Yes, you can stick a small chuck in the big chuck and hold small pieces which on a 18" chuck, might have a 1" minimum piece size. I don't know what the min is I am guessing. So putting an 8" chuck in the larger one is done often enough. Changing the big chuck is a big job, so it's much easier to just do aforementioned process.

Can a 10hp be run on a 10hp vfd.. I don't know, I would suspect yes, it's tight. You have to realize you are not using 10hp until you load that lathe up with heavy cuts. Up until that point you might be using 5-7.5 hp.

If it were me, I would look for something smaller. But that's me. If you were going to be doing this as a business, it could be a good purchase for the future.

if you are only going to be a hobbiest looking for a smaller lathe, keep looking, this is not a hobby lathe, it's a suck up fluids, power, expensive tooling lathe. If you are working on big farm equip, trucks, industrial equip, this is the lathe you will need to do the big jobs.

I am sure others here will chime in and you will here many other opinions... I'm curious where they are at.
 
One thing to keep in mind with a lathe that large, is the weight( and expense ) of the chucks/tooling that are normally on them. Once you get into 12"+ chucks ( especially if they are a chuck with a separate backplate ) you pretty much need some sort of lifting apparatus to move them. I've got an 8" Bison Set Tru 3 jaw, and a 10" Bison direct mount 4 jaw on my 14x40 lathe, and I don't think that I'd care to handle much more without a jib or gantry crane in the shop, or a cherry picker. Tooling is another consideration. With a 21" swing, that's going to mean an industrial size tool post, and 1" plus shank cutters. Big $$$.

I think it would be pretty tough finding a VFD much larger than 5hp with a 1P input. A 10hp motor is putting you in either rotary converter and/or Phase Perfect territory. Don't know enough about static converters to comment on them.

I recently upgraded from a 12"x36" Atlas/Craftsman to a 5hp 14"x40", and you can definitely still do smaller work.
 
Ten hp VFD's are available for under $200, and I think you could successfully run that lathe off one. I would snap it up, but I love big, old machines, and have the equipment to move them. Mike
 
I know it's too large, but it's literally 2/3 the price of the Southbend heavy 10 that's also for sale locally. The difference being the Southbend has been for sale for 6 months and comes with postage size pics......................it's a phishing scam. Depsite the price, I'd probably buy the Southbend tomorrow if I wasn't so sure it was a scam. End result, I know the Kingston HL-1500 is a well maintained lathe for $3000K but way to large and the Southbend Heavy 10 is suspect, most likely a scam for $4500. None of them come with very much extra. My clapped out Atlas came with almost every attachment and lots of extras for far less. It's just never going to get me where I want to go, but a great learning tool along the way.

Realistically, I'm probably never going to work with material larger than 6" diameter and shafts requiring more than about a 1.5" spindle bore. I know the HL-1500 is far larger than this, but It's still a very intriguing option.

As for danger, I work in a very small and highly specialized field and apparently have a 1 in 20 chance of dying. That's what the stats say, but as with everything, there are always procedures in place that if followed, help mitigate risk. I'm aware of the risks in just about everything in life and rarely take them unnecessarily ;)
 
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acruxksa said:
I know it's too large, but it's literally 2/3 the price of the Southbend 10" heavty that's also for sale locally. The difference being the southbend has been for sale for 6 months and comes with postage size pics......................it's a phishing scam. ;) Depsite the price, I'd probably buy the southbend tomorrow if I wasn't so sure it was a scam. End result, I know the Kingston HL-1500 is a well maintained lathe for $3000K but way to large and the Southbend Heavy 10 is suspect, most likely a scam for $4500. None of them come with very much extra. My clapped out Atlas came with almost every attachment and lots of extras for far less. It's just never going to get me where I want to go, but a great learning tool along the way.

As for danger, I work in a very small and highly specialized field and apparently have a 1 in 20 chance of dying. That's what the stats say, but as with everything, there are always procedures in place that if followed, help mitigate risk. :D
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That S.B. Heavy 10 has been on Alaskaslist for years, and sold long ago. A lot of ads on that site are stale, and never removed for whatever reason. Pretty sure the Kingston ad is also old news, and that lathe is now with a new owner. Any more, I pretty much avoid Alaskaslist due to all of the old ads that never leave.
 
turnitupper said:
Sorry but the stats are wrong. You have exactly a 1 in 1 chance.
John.
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Yep, should have said 1 in 20 chance of dying in the job ;). Still, at 52yrs old, I've been shot at in Punta Arenas Chile, stood on top of a moving train in Cairns Australia and beaten up and thrown out of a bar in Guam ( 18 stitches). Nothing has ever scared me more than pre loading the springs on my garage door. :D
 
Kingston ad isn't old news, my wife works with the daughter of the owner. ;) They offered to sell it to me several months ago for 4k, but I saw the size and chickened out. Now at 3k, common sense still says no, but I've been known to do stupid things before. ;)
 
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