Looking for Lathe Advice

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reidry

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I’m looking to upgrade and would like to hear some advice from the group here.

By trade I am an Electrical Engineer, but my hobbies lean pretty hard to heavy duty DIY. I am an amatuer race car diver and an avid shooter. I hold a license with the SCCA and manage a endurance racing team in ChampCar (previously known as ChumpCar), I’ve shot IPSC and 3 gun for 20 years. I build the cars i race, maintain and modify them. I’m the suspension guy, the brake guy, tbd guy ... you name it. I also maintain and repair a small fleet of family cars and trucks. I’ve always had a deep enjoyment for mechanical and electrical machines.

I bought my first metal working machine, a round column mill, in college and built a bunch of things, parts for other machines, a very custom 10/22 designed for the Sportsman’s Team Callenge, the mechanical parts for my senior design project, etc. After college i added a South Bend 9A, replaced the mill with a Bridgeport that i rebuild from the ground up, added a DoAll 20” vertical saw, and transitioned through several horizontal bandsaws (currently running a nice Wells A7, probably not my final saw). I also have a Southbend 16” but it is disassembled at the moment.

In the past year i have found myself turning 2” - 4” parts, often requiring lots of material removal. Recently i made a set of custom suspension bushings out of 4” solid, required a 1.5” through hole and reduction of the outside diameter to 3.5” with a step to 2.5”. The little 9A did it, but it was painfully slow, taking over 4 hours. Most painful was boring the through hole as the belt drive just refused to push my larger silver and deming bits.

As you may have surmised I have been buying old domestic equipment which was certainly the proverbial wisdom In the past as the initial flood of Harbor Freight and other affordable Asian machines were not very rigid or of high quality.

I want to replace my 9A with a more capable machine of similar capacity. I am considering a Monarch 10ee, Hardinge HLV-H, smaller LeBlond or possibly an import from Taiwan (Precision Matthews) or South Korea (takisawa). I don’t chamber barrels, and if i did need to, the 16” SBL could handle that. Keep in mind that i am not going to buy a clapped out machine, either it turns a test bar under .0005 or I’m not interested.

I have quite a bit of various HSS, carbide insert and cemented tooling and tool holders already on hand.

My corner of the country is nearly devoid of good condition used machines so it’s likely going to be a drive to get one. Given a budget of ~8k including any fetching, palleting, and shipping would you just order up a 1340GT or 1440GT or hunt up a used domestic precision machine?
 
SCCA ? I was in the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) for those reading . And West Coast Atlantic Racers . Fromula Ford (Lola) and formula Atlantic (Ralt) respectfully . And so started the ownership of a race car machine shop that went into a shop where I could make some money LOL . But back to the machinery you will need . I would forget about the Monarch 10ee , to old and to high maintenance , just forget it . Although I had large conventional and CNC machines my go to lathe for making race car parts was a 1440 Taiwan lathe . I got it lightly used and almost new with a lot of tooling , 3j , 4j , collet system, Trav-A-Dial , taper attachment and a turret , plus a load of MT drills . All for 3K it was right place right time . The machine it's self was beautiful It was a clone of a Mori Seiki it looked just like this . https://www.ebay.com/i/222757655275?chn=ps . You claim you need a .0005 on a test bar , how long the bar ? You might want to save up for that Mori .
 
westsailpat said:
SCCA ? I was in the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) for those reading . And West Coast Atlantic Racers . Fromula Ford (Lola) and formula Atlantic (Ralt) respectfully . And so started the ownership of a race car machine shop that went into a shop where I could make some money LOL . But back to the machinery you will need . I would forget about the Monarch 10ee , to old and to high maintenance , just forget it . Although I had large conventional and CNC machines my go to lathe for making race car parts was a 1440 Taiwan lathe . I got it lightly used and almost new with a lot of tooling , 3j , 4j , collet system, Trav-A-Dial , taper attachment and a turret , plus a load of MT drills . All for 3K it was right place right time . The machine it's self was beautiful It was a clone of a Mori Seiki it looked just like this . https://www.ebay.com/i/222757655275?chn=ps . You claim you need a .0005 on a test bar , how long the bar ? You might want to save up for that Mori .
Click to expand...

In the SCCA I’ve run Spec Miata, ITA (Miata), and ITS, STU in an E36 BMW. Our endurance car is also a BMW.

I hear you on the Mori, is it Waecheon that makes a copy under license?

I am looking at this as more of a two step process, first to replace my 9” lathe with something under 30” between centers and then to complete the reassembly of my 16 SBL (54” between centers). Either I’ll use the large lathe infrequently and it will be enough or I’ll sell the 16” and replace it with a new 1440 or 1640. I don’t have any aspirations of this becoming a business.

As far as needing .0005, I’ve been working around a .002 taper per inch (over 3” near chuck) in my 9A for so long i want a machine that has less wear. The appeal of the monarch is the DC drive, several generations of the design and all are old now but the constant surface speed, dynamic breaking and constant torque across the variable RPM ... They are pretty trick machines.

The Monarch and Rivett had wide carriages minimizing affect of wear over time, the current breed of lathes all have rather narrow carriages, why? Seems less stable and more affected by wear over time.
 
All depends on your desire & time to possibly have to perform repairs on a used hunk of iron.
If you were to happen to stumble upon a gem as Mark did above, then of course it is a no brainer. However those are few and far between.
I saw a very decent 10EE at auction in 2011 and it went for over $18K
If I had $8K to play with then I would seriously consider PM's line of 1440's. (3) Year warranty, great customer service and a good machine.
 
+1 on the new 1440, unless you wanna shell out a lot of money for a cherry 10EE
i got lucky- a wartime 10EE fell in my lap , but i got work to do- to make it right again.
maybe your luck is better than mine :)
 
The reason I said forget about the 10ee is from personal experience . Around the mid 80's I was working for Rockwell ( Chatsworth , Ca. Santa Susana) they had a 10ee I even ran it a few times . As I remember it was not a machine that you would want to turn big diameters on even though they were within the machines envelope . But the main thing was they could not keep it running , it had complicated electronics not to mention vacuum tubes . They just couldn't get parts for it . Please don't take this the wrong way , but you don't sound like a collector , IMO you sound like you need a good machine that is going to be reliable and precision and some economy . But back to that 10ee , they are a cool machine , I was not aware of the consatant SS and braking and stuff . . I have read (here) of people restoring them and putting all new motor and electronics . Ulma Doctor ? reidry I think you could be right about the Waecheon . I'm with middel.road though the PM 1440 I think is your best bet .
 
Certainly by your description, you need a lathe in the 12"×36"-14"×40" range with at least 2HP.
 
The Takisawa is a Japanese machine and therefor better then a Taiwanese machine IMO . That one looks in good shape but for only 2,999 seems a little cheap but on the other hand if it doesn't come with any tooling maybe a good price .
 
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