Shopping for new lathe

[Winegrower]

If you are looking for a first lathe, advice to get the features you want is good but not that useful, since you probably don’t know what you don’t know. Here’s what I learned about myself:

I started with a 10” Logan, about a 36” useful bed length. It had power cross feed, a QCGB, and a 3/4” bore. I used it for 10+ years, happily. I added iGaging readouts and added a QCTP and holders.

It had a limited rpm range that required belt switching, but the design made that pretty easy...raise the lid, the tension is relieved.

I didn’t and do not have any recurring parts or processes, it’s just general operations supporting a science project, fun projects, tooling for woodworking projects, etc. In the time I had the Logan, there were only a couple times the 10” swing was a limitation, and the 36” length was never an issue. Neither was accuracy. I was the limit there, not the machine.

But what did become limiting was the bore size and the horsepower. I wanted to do more with steel and wanted to take bigger cuts, to overcome impatience. This is what the 14” x 30” 3HP Takisawa does for me. It’s 2500 pounds, can take a 1.5” rod through the bore.

So far I’m happy. So far.

 

[Skowinski]

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth, but repeating myself probably. I started with a little 6" Atlas lathe. Very quickly I discovered that it was just too small and just not rigid enough, particularly with steels. Ended up finding and restoring a 9A South Bend cabinet model. Much better, cuts steels just fine. I think at this point it will serve me for years, but I can forsee wanting variable speed control, maybe a bigger more rigid machine.... bottom line is to get more lathe* than you think you will need right now.

*or milling machine, in the middle of deciding on my first mill and trying to remind myself of all I just said

 

[5tmorris]

Well I purchased the 1127 vf had same issue deciding what size to buy as well, I can always upgrade in the future
Im told my either shipped friday or will monday. So I should have it in the next or so!!!!!

I ordered an 1127 also(Along with a 932 mill). Have received you lathe yet and if so how long did it take after they gave you the tracking info.

 

[cwheat]

Lots of good advice here. I agree with everything Mikey said. I bought a used older pretty worn Craftsman 8" lathe around 1980, used it a little until I retired in 1999, and looked at different makes and models to upgrade to for a while. In 2017 I ordered the 1236(Chinese) lathe from Matt after talking with him with the preferred package and installed dro. In my opinion it was the best value in many different makes I looked at over a period of a year or so. I am not a pro or trained machinist by trade but was a trained millright by trade and worked in a paper mill for 43 years so I knew the basics and was familiar with machinist work in general. When I received my 1236 I put it together, cleaned it up, leveled it out per the instructions and the first test cut I did was check the tolerance on a shaft about 6 inches long. The difference in the diameter on that six inches was a half thousandth which is very good, in fact much better than I am a machinist. I guess what I am trying to say is that the Chinese machine will do everything and more than most people need in a lathe unless you are working to very extreme tolerances like for something on a space shuttle. Of coarse you can always spend more to get more precision, better workmanship, or more rigidity in a better or higher priced machine. I had a problem with the chinese motor on mine after about a year and Matt immediately offered to sent me a new one with nothing other than me emailing him and telling him the problem. He also gave me the option of paying a little difference and substituting an American made motor which I did. The after sales service cannot be beat with Matt's company and in my case I am very happy with my Chinese machine. Just my opinion and worth every cent you paid for it. I hope it helps in your decision.

 

[wrmiller]

I guess what I am trying to say is that the Chinese machine will do everything and more than most people need in a lathe unless you are working to very extreme tolerances like for something on a space shuttle.

You are entitled to your own opinions of course, but your assumption that all chinese machines will deliver the accuracy you have currently is not accurate. No offense.

The fit/finish and quality variances of Chinese machines vary more from machine to machine than that from other manufacturers in Taiwan, Germany, or the US (among others). The differences in design, materials, and manufacturing tolerances of Chinese machines are not a constant. While this is also true of all manufacturers to some extent, the variances are usually better controlled by the manufacturers making higher quality machines. Depending on usage, the Chinese machines can wear faster, potentially leading to accuracy loss. I have personally experienced this on several Chinese machines. I don't make parts for NASA, nor am I a rocket scientist. But I do build guns and in places work to very tight tolerances. And I require repeatability of those dimensions and tolerances. I am sure I am not the only one who wants accuracy and repeatability in my machines.

Matt does have his Chinese machines built to a higher standard than some other distributors, but I won't say they are the equal to his Taiwan machines. Sometimes you just have to pay more to get more.

 

[BigWalt]

I ordered an 1127 also(Along with a 932 mill). Have received you lathe yet and if so how long did it take after they gave you the tracking info.

Preview
Sorry for the delay, been very busy at work and home, I received my lathe 7-23-20. from time of order to receiving about 6.5 weeks
however Matt just made order from factory and i got one of the spare Machine they had to sell from stock order. So Matt order was just about to
ship when I place order for Lathe

 

[erikmannie]

I bought a PM-1030V with factory DRO last year. The first thing that I have to point out is that PM has stellar customer service.

I love my PM-1030V. It was all that I could afford at the time, and I will keep it for the rest of my life.

It is easy to change gears for single point threading, but I objected to the time it takes because I have such a long work week. It may take 20 minutes to swap in the “threading” change gears, and another 20 minutes to swap back in the “turning and facing” change gears. As I understand it, the “turning and facing“ change gears will not serve for ANY thread pitch, either imperial or metric.

Having said that, I found that I almost always work with mild steel so I just bought a PM-1660TL. That gets change gears out of my life (at least on one of the lathes). Parting mild steel stock on the PM-1030V goes a little slowly, at least with my HSS parting blades. I never tried an insert for that. My sharpening skills may be poor.

I would encourage you to stretch your budget to go as big as you can. I had to take out a personal loan at 22% APR to buy my big lathe.

I did not have any issue with the quality of the Chinese manufacturing on my PM-1030V. I was able to reproduce work to .0003” (clarifying, “three tenths”) with the PM-1030V. I have not been able to do better than that so far.

I honestly don’t think anybody can go wrong dealing with PM.

I love the DRO on my lathe. I am sure that it saves me time. A DRO on a lathe is not at all necessary, though.

 

[Larry$]

I agree with Mikey. I debated a long time before buying a PM1440HD. It is Chinese and runs fine. That said there are things that don't show visually that could be better. I'm retired from a manufacturing business and have bought a lot of equipment. I wouldn't buy Chinese for my business even though for many purposes it would probably be OK.

As for fetures I consider very valuable: quick change gear box so you can do most all imperial threads. Change gears are really a PIA. I do a fair amount of repair work on metric equipment and have to use change gears for that. I prefer working in metric. Having a decent range of spindle speeds particularlly the slowest ones is nice. The only thing I've used 1800rpm for is polishing. My lathe came with a pretty full set of accessories and I added a taper attachement and a collet chuck when I ordered it. The collet chuck is very nice with the set-true feature. The collets I ordered have checked out very good. I've used the collet chuck way more than I thought I might. The taper attachement isn't very good and I'm working on improving it. Having heard all the stories about sand in the gear boxes, I opened them as soon as I got the lathe. They were clean. I made a test bar and checked out the alignment when I got the machine, nearly dead on. My machine came with a DRO. Took me a while to get used to using it. Very handy but not a requirement and can be added later.

When it comes time to do very accurate work the 4 jaw chuck is the go to if you need to remove the work and replace it for any reason. Turning between centers allows for test fitting and going right back on the machine. Like others have said: there are many costs beyond the machine. You can add things as needed but there are a lot of "needs!" Obvius are turning tools. HSS and grinding your own on a bench grinder works, is cheap. Chinese insert tooling is highly variable in quality. Good inserts are expensive. You will want some boring bars, fairly easy to make. I've got a Fowler digital caliper that works well. For accurate work I use a Mitutoyo micrometer or dial test indicator. After I had my lathe for a while I bought a Noga magnetic holder. Much easier to use than the cheap Chinese rod type I started with.

Many projects need some way of milling. You can make an attachement for the lathe to do small milling BUT you will get frustrated with not having a way to mill parts accurately. I found a used Jet knee mill. Its got some wear but still OK. A DRO helps a lot on a mill. More tooling & accessories to buy! This has gotten too long, sorry. You Tube U is great for learning. ThatLazyMachinist has a great educational series.

 

[erikmannie]

Just a note, the gear box lets you select between 3 feed rates. If you want to feed faster to break a chip or slower to get a better surface, you need to use the change gears.

I am pretty sure that the change gear configuration that was installed on my PM-1030V (which one would use for turning, facing, boring, drilling, etc. (i.e. everything except for single point threading)) is the change gear configuration that allows for the slowest power feed.

Put another way, the change gear setup that comes with the machine is ONLY switched out for single point threading. After the threading operation, you reinstall the “stock” (or “factory”) change gear configuration.

 

[mikey]

The fact of the matter is that even with a quick change gear box, there will be times when you have to change gears to get the odd ones that the stock gearing does not allow. Changing gears is often a fact of life if you have to cut metric threads and even some Imperial threads (ie; 13 tpi) so whichever lathe you buy, remember that it is not complete without the full change gear set.

The other thing I meant to mention is that you don't know a machine unless you have lived with it for a while. There are good machines and not so good ones but there is no perfect machine; after you live with it and really learn to operate it, you will know every single good and bad thing about it. Accordingly, I think it is important for new guys to ask other owners of the lathe they are interested in about their experiences. The HM crew is really good about reporting their opinions on their lathes, which is really valuable.

Perhaps the biggest problem for new guys is that they don't understand how to run a lathe yet so knowing the value of the different lathe features escapes even the most avid of researchers. One day, I would like to see HM implement a "Mentor Program" where an experienced member takes a new guy under their wing to help them find and learn to use the lathe or mill that suits their needs. We have some really knowledgeable guys here and it would really help the new guys to make fewer purchasing mistakes.