Hobby Lathe Recommendation

[appletree]

A friend near Doncaster is looking for a hobby lathe about 5 inch centre height 18 to 24 inch between centres, I think he will want a new machine.
I have a Little John MK2 and A Wilson 8.5 ch lathes and like power facing and sliding feeds.
Are Chinese variable speed motors to be avoided? Both my Lathes have 3 phase motors with inverters (but thats a different thing altogether)
Does anyone have any recommendations. Phil

 

[John Rudd]

How big is his budget?

I have:
A Chester 9x20 ( with a 3/4 hp motor and vfd) a Sieg Super C3 mini lathe and recently bought a lathe from SPG, an SP2129. I changed the dc drive for a 1.5kw motor with a vfd....( still came in under £2k )

I'm happy with all three machines despite being of Chinese origin...

[appletree]

Not too sure on budget and it maybe he can manage without cross feed (limits choice and bumps price up) guessing £700 to £1400

[loply]

I think the Chinese lathes are pretty good quality all things considered. I've owned a few second hand British lathes and whilst undoubtedly better in some respects, they can obviously come with their own drawbacks and problems, mainly relating to the fact that they're often old and battered.

My most recent 1960s era lathe for example, it turns out the emergency stop button was wired up to interrupt the earth wire... I wondered why it never worked... But, on the flip side, it's a 6 x 24 lathe 350kg for about £275...

I did a lot of really precision work on my old little Chinese lathe though. If you can afford one of the bigger ones I think they'd be excellent.

On the whole I think you get more for your money with second hand old local iron though - Boxford, Denford, etc.

[JD]

For the last 30 years I have used a Boxford CUD, good solid piece of kit in the size your mate looking for.
You can pick up an AUD with screw cutting gearbox in metric or imperial for around £1400 upwards. Spares are readily available and reasonable in price.
John

[nrml]

My understanding from internet research is that the slightly bigger far eastern lathes are better in quality than the mini lathes (7X14 and similar). My mini lathe wasn't well built or put together by any description. However, it works and the runout on the spindle is excellent. Shame the rest of it isn't as good. With a bit of effort and following in the steps many have already trod, I could get it to an acceptable condition. The problem is finding the time to do it.