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Building a New Lathe

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vtsteam:
I keep thinking I wish I had a new lathe. I have the Gingery lathe that fits in my tiny shop, but it lacks screw cutting capability, and has design limited stifness.

And I have the Craftsman 12" x 36" (5' overall length) lathe that doesn't fit in the tiny shop, does have a complete set of change gears.

I'd really like something somewhere between the two -- a benchtop lathe that had say 9" by 18" capacity, to fit in the tiny shop and one which would have easy quick change screw cutting.

I don't know whether to sell the Craftsman and buy one of the Asian lathes, or think about building a new lathe. I've even considered shortening the Craftsman bed 18" so it will fit in the small shop. (I know that's a travesty!) and adding a stepper on the leadscrew for NC thread cutting.

Then there's the used lathe market. But almost nothing in used machinery is local within 200 miles, and I don't want to deal with renovation of hidden problems at this point. If it was known good to go, and I could see it and try it, and I could afford it, I suppose. But I don't want a several month lathe rebuild project. I want to build engines on a lathe.

Well, I wouldn't mind building a new lathe from scratch as a project, that could be interesting, but otherwise, I guess ideally, if tomorrow I could just sell some machinery  (lathe and Atlas horizontal mill) and get a well suited new lathe for what I want, I'd probably go for it.

I don't know how stiff those Sieg 9x20's are compared to the Craftsman. I did notice that a lot of the travel specs for things like cross slide, and tailstock are less, and the chuck looks pretty small by comparison. I don't want a less stiff machine -- I'd say the Craftsman is minimal, as is. I've had it tuck under when parting twice

Any suggestions, thoughts?

bertie_bassett:
if time scale isn't important and you want another project, id say build one

either up scale the gingery lathe, or copy a design that's the right size. a boxford or denford sounds like the size you want.
 the denford website has pd'sf with almost all the component details ( gears, shafts etc) which could be used as a reference.?

not sure how youd go about making the bed, but perhaps linear rails could be used?

RobWilson:
BUGGER !!!  :palm:

Dam shame there is a dirty great ocean between us Steve , I have a lathe going spare a Boxford AUD  , I would have done a trade for the we HZ mill .


Rob

vtsteam:
Ah well Rob, I think that would have been a happy trade -- the mill is in great shape and lots of new tooling to go with it, and I've admired the Boxfords.

I see Grizzly has the 9" x 19"  G4000 on sale for $1000 or so delivered -- that's 9" x 19"  which would probably fit the requirements. And has the QC gearbox. But never having seen or used one, I have no idea how much I'd like it.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/9-x-19-Bench-Lathe/G4000

Any G4000 owners out there?

Bertie, It is intriguing to think about building one. I would probably want do my own design rather than an enlarged Gingery, and I Imagine a lot of fabricated rather than cast parts this time around.

But certainly everything I've learned I liked about my first lathe (and the Craftsman, too) would go into it. Plus some other things. I'm not worried about the bed at all. I've got all kinds of heavy steel shapes here, Including rails from a auto lift, and anything I decide to use is likely to be heavier and stiffer than what I have now in the little aluminum castings topped with a 1/4" x 3" cold rolled slab ways of the Gingery.

I used a machined 4 foot carpenter's level to hand scrape the Gingery. But now I have a real cast iron straight edge, and surface plate I bought at an auction about 8 years ago, and unused since..

I don't think I'd mess with change gears or a gearbox at all, and handle screw cutting electronically, and the same for speed control.  I don't know if I'd go full CNC, probably not, or at least not right way. This is still a small benchtop lathe  for the tiny shop, and I still enjoying turning cranks. But for screw cutting you don't turn cranks anyway, and it would be nice to just set it and go.

I dunno. That Grizzzly is tempting, and I think I could sell enough stuff to pay for it. It would be nice to just start turning right away.

Brass_Machine:
I dunno Steve. I have heard better things about the 10x22 Lathe. I think if I was in the position to buy a new lathe, that would be the one I would get.

Eric

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