Watchmaker's Lathe vs Vintage Hobby-lathe for making spinning tops

[blueice]

I think the Sherline will be too light. And Unimats are made of pot metal and are not designed for machining hard materials at large diameters.

Interesting that your issue with the sherline is the weight, when unimats (at least the ones i'm thinking of ie the db200, unimat 3) weigh about as much. I will take that as an endorsement of sherline over unimat. I sent an inqury over to Taig (which is apparently just a cheaper sherline) over the weekend regarding shipping but they have yet to respond.

Hardinge made some precision turret lathes. Search on YouTube for “Steve Watkins at Work”—he uses one that he named “Bob” because people kept complaining about how he pronounced Hardinge.

You are the second person here to recommend hardinge. Getting one is out of the question, but I am sure they will have no trouble doing what I want.

If Taig's shipping is reasonable and no one has a better idea, that is what I'll go for. If the Taig can't handle hollowing out tungsten even with a 0.6hp treadmill motor, I will cut the tungsten flywheels on the lathe in our university's makerspace, which I didn't know was open to all students following some training.

 

[blueice]

UPDATE: so I did end up getting a lathe, it is a vintage brass sherline. I don't know if brass will do the job, but if it doesn't work out I can always resell it without much or any loss thanks to it being a sherline. I think I got a decent deal, especially in Australia. That said, I will probably need to swap out the puny motor for my treadmill motor. And either regrind the ways or flip the bed over to the tailstock end which is much less chewed up.

If anyone knows the model I would be much obliged: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/285797816206
My guess following an online resource is a 1972-1973 Sherline 1000.

 

[Eddyde]

Awesome! please post some pictures when you get it set up.

 

[Aaron_W]

UPDATE: so I did end up getting a lathe, it is a vintage brass sherline. I don't know if brass will do the job, but if it doesn't work out I can always resell it without much or any loss thanks to it being a sherline. I think I got a decent deal, especially in Australia. That said, I will probably need to swap out the puny motor for my treadmill motor. And either regrind the ways or flip the bed over to the tailstock end which is much less chewed up.

If anyone knows the model I would be much obliged: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/285797816206
My guess following an online resource is a 1972-1973 Sherline 1000.

That is an original Sherline, so yes Model 1000.

It's not going to perfectly match up with a current model, but Sherline has tried to maintain backwards compatibility, so later attachments and even parts should work mostly. I do know the motor has been upgraded from the early machines.

Not sure flipping the bed around will be that easy. There is a hole in the bed under the headstock for a peg which secures the headstock.

I'd give it a test run and see how everything works before committing to any repairs. The bed doesn't look that bad to me, sometimes cosmetic damage is just cosmetic. It also may be possible to use a replacement steel bed from a current Model 4000 if you do find the existing bed is causing you issues.

 

[blueice]

I'd give it a test run and see how everything works before committing to any repairs. The bed doesn't look that bad to me, sometimes cosmetic damage is just cosmetic. It also may be possible to use a replacement steel bed from a current Model 4000 if you do find the existing bed is causing you issues.

Yes, no point trying to fix something that already works. I did look into getting a new replacement bed, but thanks to the ocean the shipping is twice the cost of the part.