Small metalworking lathes

[sbhunterca]

With the thread ongoing for the little Zhouyu mill, I thought it might be interesting to see what other modellers are using for lathes.

I have a Craftex 7" X 12" lathe, which I find to be a very nice little machine.

Of course I'd rather have a real toolroom precision lathe like a Hardinge, but I don't have that kind of budget or space. The Chinese- made Craftex is definitely good enough, very solid, easy to use, and smooth running with hardly any runout at the chuck and even less if I use collets instead of the chuck.

You won't hog a quarter inch off the workpiece, but with sharp tooling (I have both carbide and HSS on hand, with lots of extra toolbits) it has plenty of power.

My machine, which is available from other retailers under various brand names, came from Busy Bee Tools in Ottawa:

www.busybeetools.com/products/lathe-mini-7in-x12in-1-2hp-cx-series-csa.html

Since I can't afford a mill, I picked up the milling adapter which replaces the toolpost. It has a vise on a bracket with vertical feed. This is adequate for rudimentary, small milling jobs.

Most of my lathe and mill tooling from a previous life are a bit big for this machine, so I invested in a pretty comprehensive stock of tooling when I bought it. I just wish I had more time to play with the little beastie!

Next up will be a four-jaw chuck.

Steve Hunter

[Eccentric_Crank]

Hi Steve, great idea.

My first metal lathe, a used Craftsman(Dunlap) 6" followed me home about 45 years ago to build a live steam loco.

I now have several, from a Sieg C-0 sold through Princess Auto that is a clone of a Unimat.

Like most Asian lathes it is basically an assembled kit that had to be torn down and properly reassembled.

The queens of the shop are two used Atlas 10Fs, one with the longest bed they made and Babbitt bearings, 36" between centres.

The other is 6" shorter with ball bearings and quick-change gears.

Dan M.

[pault]

Just thought I'd put my two cents in in this area.
I've been wondering if anybody's tried any of this grizzly products? A while back I purchased one of their lays and a driller Miller which I found them to be excellent products and of great quality in my opinion they are readily adaptable to the smaller work needed to use in modeling.
And at the time I believed that they were priced reasonably for the qualities that they are unfortunately now I don't have the space that I once had and I'm struggling with what to do to be able to set them up so I can use them to pursue the rest of my never-ending project list.