Re: What brand of lathe is behind that green PW????


[Follow Ups] [Post Followup] [Dodge Power Wagon Forum]


Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 13:14:46 :

In Reply to: Re: What brand of lathe is behind that green PW???? posted by Doinco on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 at 12:27:37 :

That looks like one of the standard Chinese 12x36 lathes that everybody (Grizzly, Enco, Harbor Freight, etc) sells for around $2000. He has something extra where the tool post would go, though. I have one of those and it's worked well for me. I got it for $1300 and have used it for a variety of things. There are times when I would like it to be more rigid, and there have been several times when just a couple inches more bed length would have made all the difference, but all in all, it was worth the money. I recently bought a used Victor lathe that probably weighs 5 times as much and only has slightly larger capacity, but it's still in my truck as I don't have a place to set it up yet. I expect it will be plenty rigid. Used manual machines are pretty reasonable these days, especially if you can get all the tooling with them, since nobody can use them for production work any more. The main thing to look out for, of course, with used machines is that they're not worn out. Push everything every which-way and make sure it's tight. A lathe with loose bearings in the head, for example, is nothing but frustration, and in many cases on the old machines, the bearings are bronze bushings so you can't just go to the bearing house and get a new set of bearings. I do think the 12x36 chinese is a good value and a good way to start out. It will do real work, has plenty of speeds, will cut threads of all pitches, and is solid enough for pretty much anything if you're not in a big hurry and don't need to take a heavy cut. It doesn't come with a coolant system. I just drip cutting oil on it from a can, but a mist-type system wouldn't be too hard to rig up either.



Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
E-Mail:
Subject:
Message:
Optional Link
URL:
Title:
Optional Image Link
URL:


This board is powered by the Mr. Fong Device from Cyberarmy.com