I don´t think there is a "right" choice.
My own 12x24" is a heavy rigid version, at 450 kg, here in Europe.
My experience was that 2HP was a lot of power, and turning large 12" diameter tool steel pieces with power feeds worked really well at that time, 8 years ago.
For general work and especially guns I think power of 1.5 or 2 hp is more than needed when used with the belt drives and or backgear where appropriate.
I turn 200 mm squares of tool steel and stuff, massing 20-30 kg for the workpiece, about 10x bigger than most medium lathe work.
Gun stuff is 50x less inertia and many times less mass, and certainly not removing 2 kg of chips in one session from one part.
I spent more than double the cost of the new lathe on industrial cnc retrofit components, wholesale, for many reasons.
And about 800 work hours on 4 sets of rebuilds, from a new saddle to a servo driven c axis spindle to 2 toolchangers etc.
You are unlikely to have the same needs and desire to spend 8000€ on stuff later on.
And You wont need to. Imho.
And if You ever want to, You can always swap an ac servo and timing belt drive to the spindle, later on.
It is absolutely fantastic, but also quite a lot of work and money.
Hard or difficult, it is not.
Anyone can do it, but heavy mounts and heavy components cost a lot of money and effort.
My own 12x24" is a heavy rigid version, at 450 kg, here in Europe.
My experience was that 2HP was a lot of power, and turning large 12" diameter tool steel pieces with power feeds worked really well at that time, 8 years ago.
For general work and especially guns I think power of 1.5 or 2 hp is more than needed when used with the belt drives and or backgear where appropriate.
I turn 200 mm squares of tool steel and stuff, massing 20-30 kg for the workpiece, about 10x bigger than most medium lathe work.
Gun stuff is 50x less inertia and many times less mass, and certainly not removing 2 kg of chips in one session from one part.
I spent more than double the cost of the new lathe on industrial cnc retrofit components, wholesale, for many reasons.
And about 800 work hours on 4 sets of rebuilds, from a new saddle to a servo driven c axis spindle to 2 toolchangers etc.
You are unlikely to have the same needs and desire to spend 8000€ on stuff later on.
And You wont need to. Imho.
And if You ever want to, You can always swap an ac servo and timing belt drive to the spindle, later on.
It is absolutely fantastic, but also quite a lot of work and money.
Hard or difficult, it is not.
Anyone can do it, but heavy mounts and heavy components cost a lot of money and effort.
