metal lathe.

#1
I been thinking I need a lathe. Never touched one before. Been watching the Craigslist adds. Not sure a mini lathe is worth the trip, but to get something bigger, even used, seems 2-3,000 can be gone fast. How hard would it be for an old bastard to learn to use one? How many of you have one? Do you need 30 years experience in a machine shop to use one and keep all your fingers?
 
#2
I've been looking at those small lathes for metal. Don't know how to use one either. Looking forward to the comments from the lathe vetrans.
 
#3
I have a 12 x 36 Craftsman branded Atlas. It is the handiest thing that I have ever added to my too list. You will be amazed at what you can and will do that you never thought about doing before. My neighbor has a Southbend Model A that is a 9 x 48 that he told me just yesterday that he is going to sell. And 2 to 3 grand is about the going rate for a good used lathe.

A good example of things that don't come to mind when you think about a lathe is header flanges. We needed 3/8'' thick Stainless flanges for Bruce's Blazer exhaust. We bought some scrap 3/8'' stainless plate and I cut 2 6'' square plates in the band saw. I changed out the lathe chuck from a 3 jaw to a 4 jaw and chucked up the plate. Turned a clean 3'' hole in the plate. It made a good fit and a good weld.

What little experience that I have with the mini lathes have not been happy experiences. They are limited by size so keep that in mind. I think if you were an experienced and well versed machinist that you could do anything you wanted with a mini lathe. But I didn't like it much compared to my Atlas. I may be partial as I like my Atlas a lot...

Look at the attachments that are available for the lathe you are thinking about buying. I have a taper attachment, a milling attachment, 3 and 4 jaw chucks, 2 different steady rest, a steady rest that mounts to the carriage and follows the work at the point it is being cut, a drill chuck that fits the threads on the spindle so you can drill something you have in the milling attachment and lots of various little pieces that would take forever to list.

I make handles using the taper attachment. I made clevis ends for the pull rods on my Shrinker Stretcher with the milling attachment.

You just have to think a little about what you can do and how to do it. MOST of all wear safety glasses and be careful. And no you don't need 30 years experience in a machine shop to use one. You tube is your friend when it come to running a lathe. I had zero experience or knowledge about running a lathe when I bought mine. I read a lot and watched a lot of videos to learn about operating a lathe. You will screw up a lot of pieces to get to making good pieces...

Doug
 
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#4
I had a very small (table top) size lathe given to me when one of my customers died. You really cannot do much on it as it is so under powered. I bought a 14" x 48" lathe from Grizzy Tools about 12 years ago. If I remember correctly it has about 3 HP. I have made all kinds of parts on that lathe. I learned to operate them in high school shop class more than 35 years ago. You can read up on how to use a lathe, but if you can find someone who knows the basics to give you an hour or two lesson that would be great too. Just learn your safety stuff first and you will be fine. Follow that by center drilling, material support, cutting speeds, tool types etc, Then turning and parting. Finally threading, knurling and some other things. I own a Knee mill too. Between the two machines, I can make all kinds of stuff and have a lot of fun doing it.
Ron
 
#6
I have to say this...


DONT LEAVE THE KEY IN THE CHUCK, PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER. EVER. Cant stress this enough.


It will throw it across the shop or up side your head. It doesn't care...

We have a 14 x 40 JET lathe at school that belongs to the instructor.... He won it at SEMA.....

It is a sweet machine that I enjoyed using making parts for Bruce's Blazer Chassis.

Doug
 
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#7
From my experience, all good information here. The Atlas-Craftsman 12X36 is a great choice for an American-made lathe. Parts and tooling are available. They sorta targeted the hobby machinist as well.
For me, it started with how heavy is it? Followed by where you gonna put it? Then what kind of electrical power does the motor require?
These are all minor hurdles. Spend some time viewing youtube topics like, "so you wanna buy a used metal lathe". If the Atlas-Craftsman sounds good, the extensive video library of TubalCain on youtube is the place to start. South Bend produced a bunch of lathes over the years as well. Both were designed with readily available chuck mounting designs and internal tapers in the head stock for collet use.
I hope you find an Atlas-Craftsman or South Bend heavy 10 that a retired machinist bought for retirement years use, got sick of the Michigan winters, and moved it lock, stock and barrel to Arizona. And there it sits.
I have a Sheldon 10X26 and an Atlas-Craftsman 618 bench top for the tiny stuff. My lathe/milling attachment uses are the same as FOMOGO above.
Tooling is where you really can spend some bucks, so, in a perfect world, your lathe would be purchased "well-tooled".
I've been looking for a proper mill forever, I've long been tired of "borrowing" a friends Bridgeport.
Hope this helps,
Steve
 
#8
Tooling is where you really can spend some bucks, so, in a perfect world, your lathe would be purchased "well-tooled".
Steve
Very true. I probably have spent more money on tooling than I paid for my Lathe. I got lucky when I bought my lathe. I had been looking for 3 or 4 years and finally found this Craftsman/Atlas on Craigslist. I had to ride almost 3 hours to get it but it was the exact thing I was looking for. After talking to the old man on the phone he was a retired gunsmith that was dabbling in buying and selling machinery. He said that he bought this lathe from the widow of the man that bought it new. It was in a heated and humidified basement all of its life. It looked and performed like it was brand new. I gave $1250.00 for it 9 or 10 years ago. I searched Ebay religiously for the attachments and just waited on the right pieces to come along. I also searched and bought selective "Box Lots" of miscellaneous machinist tooling. Just have to look close at what you get. Lots of good stuff in these box lots if you hunt.

The number one improvement I made to my lathe that really helped overcome my lack of experience was to replace the Lantern style tool post with a Phase II quick change tool post.

https://www.traverscatalogs.com/lg_display.cfm/page/713/catalog/Master_2017

Once I did this and got all the attachments adjusted my results improved 10 fold. With a Lantern style tool post you have to set the cutting height every time you change tools or tool angle or need to sharpen the tool. With the quick change tool post you can change the cutting insert or type of tool or angle and back again with just the flip of the lever and slide the tooling on and off. I have square right cut and square left cut setups that allow you to cut shoulders quickly and easily. I also have some Shars cutting tools that fit the Phase II stuff very nicely.

This is a web pic because I didn't want to walk out to the shop and take a pic of mine. This is the exact lathe that I have. This is the last version of the 12'' lathe and I searched for this model because it was all self contained. The motor is 220 volt and it is inside the cabinet behind the louvered door. There are two pulley groves right off the motor for speed. Just to the left of the louvered door is a lever that allows you to choose 4 more pulley speed choices. The earlier models had the motor mounted behind the lathe and it took up a lot of space depth wise.

 
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#9
I have a little 6" I think craftsman/atlas Its pretty worn out but it works for turning down bushings and shafts and stuff thats all i really do with it. I got it for like 250. off craigslist and had to rig up a motor for it.
 
#10
Jeep and the OP,
Those lathes were marketed as armature lathes and had substantial tolerances. With some re-building and some cash, you could end up with a sweet little lathe for small parts. They are quite fussy about their leveling and truing-up on a bench. Bunches of parts are available, and somewhat pricey for your machine. It boils down to the model number on the tag near the tailstock. There are a bunch of enthusiast's out there as well for support. And ya, its a hobby lathe.
Hope this helps,

Steve
 

delray

Well-Known Member
#11
couple years ago i was looking for a lathe and stumble across a 1941 12X36 sears&roebuck from a older gentleman. the story he told me that it was his uncle's and in 1953 he brought the lathe over to his dad's small engine shop and it stayed there until 1990 when he own the business and decided retire and close doors for good. at that point he had built a retirement home and the lathe went to his house. he set the lathe up to do wood working. i thought that was kind of strange to us a metal lathe for wood working?
i still have the picture of what it look like in his basement. you can clearly see he had it setup for that. told me he only did couple things on it and his health wasn't doing so good and had to sell it. gave me all the original papers with his uncle's name on it and date when his uncle purchase it and the date was 1941. so i am calling it a 1941?
still mounted on the original cast supports and wood planks.


it's been a real life saver for me. i have learn so much about it in the last couple years and still learning how to use it.
25+ years ago i ran a CNC lathe and i was only doing jobs on it that where setup and ready to go and some adjustments and then started to get into little bit of the setup's and then i got out of that kind of work until i purchase this lathe. i always had mic's and stuff from building engines. so that was a small plus when purchasing this old lathe.
nothing like a CNC machine so the learning process has been fun.
here is a project i did awhile ago. never posted it. maybe someday?
milled the head on the lathe and also cut new seats into the head.....:thumbsup:


mans best friend...............lathe
 
#13
A lathe fun toy one thing ill tell ya what ever you get imported , us made old grandpas shaft twister . Look in to parts if you are learning you will break things . I got a real bull 7x 12 ,import like harbor freight but better . Have had to fix a few ooooopppss not a bad machine a little work and it improves but it makes parts out of the box . Extreme power on ebay is where i got mine . For china lathe parts little machine shop .com has everything you can think of got my parts from there .

Then the thing on tools expect to spend 3 times what the machine cost . Ya its and addicts toy like them all
 
#14
I have a couple 220 plugs in the garage, and barely space to walk so I do need more crap. I am getting close to retirement soon. Be nice to have a new toy that might earn a couple bucks to buy more toys. I wondered about the old Atlas/Craftsman lathes. I see where some are for sale that have "hand flaked" beds. What the hell does that mean?
 
#15
That should read hand scraped ways. Some non-hardened lathe bed ways are scraped by hand after the grinding step to precision flatness and shape. Your evaluation of the finished surface wear from use is an important part of "so you wanna buy a used metal lathe" process. See the youtube reference earlier. The more wear on the scraped surface near the chuck, the more chance of inaccuracy in your work. It can be compensated for and still produce accurate work. 0.001" of sag near the chuck doesn't affect big-sized work much, but does with real tiny work.
I have 5-6 feet on either end of my lathes that can be cleared easily, all stuff is on dollies and can be rolled out of the way. Both machines are centered on a wall.
Hope this helps,
Steve
 
#16
I see a lot of different brands for sale. Any to avoid? Are parts an issue or are these things mostly bullet proof? Do most tools and acc. interchange? So if someone says they hand scraped the ways, that sounds like that would take a degree of skill not to screw it up. Is that to try to repair years of wear and abuse? Avoid those? How to tell without using the lathe to see if it was done correctly?
 
#17
I have a small Chinese lathe and matching mill
They are from princess auto here in Canada , but are the same as ones sold by harbour freight in the US

It has worked awesome as a starter lathe and learning tool
I did have to spend a bit of time to get it set up properly as it was very sloppy

It has taught me enough to want a bigger and better one
 
#18
I see a lot of different brands for sale. Any to avoid? Are parts an issue or are these things mostly bullet proof? Do most tools and acc. interchange? So if someone says they hand scraped the ways, that sounds like that would take a degree of skill not to screw it up. Is that to try to repair years of wear and abuse? Avoid those? How to tell without using the lathe to see if it was done correctly?
Jim there are lots of brands out there and lots of worn out junk. Atlas, Logan, South Bend, Monarch, LeBlond, Clausing, Hardinge, Harrision, Sheldon to name a few. You need to learn what the machines can do and decide what you want the machine to do.... Buying the tooling is not cheap. Adding accessories will run the budget up even more. But you can do these things over a time period that makes it easier to stand the price. You need to look on Ebay for lathe parts and accessories. Search by brand and then make sure that it fits the correct size and style lathe you are considering. The bigger the lathe the more the accessories cost too.

Here is a good site with all the information that anyone interested in a lathe could ever need.

Practical Machinist - Largest Manufacturing Technology Forum on the Web

I read everything I could find and settled in on the Atlas Lathe's. I liked their accessories and the parts availability in both used and new.

Most lathes are 220 volt so keep that in mind. As you go up in size then almost every lathe you find is 3 phase. So consider what a phase converter will cost you. You will need a 2 horse phase converter to power a 1 horse 3 phase lathe. 10 to power 5 and so on. Running the phase converter and running the lathe doubles power consumption at the meter. So the cheap lathe in 3 phase is now burning up your power bill.

Doug
 

delray

Well-Known Member
#19
i think if i had to pick a size that would work the best for all of us that would use it for small engine stuff? i would have to say a 12x36 or maybe little smaller would be a ideal size:thumbsup:


 
#20
Yup, 12” lathes generally have a bigger ID in the headstock, like 1 1/8” or so, and are designed for 5C collets. The headstock mouth is tapered internally to accept the 5C collet using a draw tube and a thread protector.
Really precise.
 
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