Tiny Stuff That Works Beats Big Stuff That Sits

December 29th, 2011

Chihuahua Lathe Making Chips

Og is getting his revenge.

I bought a Clausing lathe a few years back, and it turned out to be in worse condition than I had been led to believe. Also, it wasn’t the lathe I thought I was buying, and the seller would not pay the whole cost of return shipping. It doesn’t do metric threads, and the stuff to change that is extremely expensive, IF you can find it. Og said I should get a new Chinese lathe, and he was right.

Last week, I took delivery of my first Chinese lathe: a Big Dog 7 x 14. It came with a tachometer, two rests, a drill chuck, threading gears, a three-jaw chuck, a turret post, and centers. For a few bucks more, I added a quick change tool post, a carriage stop, a four-jaw chuck, and parting tools.

I’ve been using it for a while, although I’ve been extremely busy with Noche Buena stuff, so I haven’t been able to do much. It’s fantastic. It’s convenient, it takes surprisingly deep cuts, and it seems to be well made. The first time I put something in the three-jaw chuck, the runout was undetectable on a dial indicator. The needle wasn’t still, but it moved so little and so randomly I couldn’t tell the runout from the surface noise. That’s pretty danged good.

The rests are wonderful. A Clausing rest costs anywhere from two hundred to three hundred bucks, and they turn up for sale about once a decade. That means you can forget about turning anything long and thin, or about 50% of the things you would want to put on the lathe.

The Big Dog is portable, so you can run it on a Workmate, which is probably Og’s favorite tool of all time.

I am no machinist, but I think I can safely say that anything that fits on this lathe, you can work. It may be a little slower than a big lathe, but it actually gets the job done, which sets it apart from the Clausing.

I wanted to make a stainless shift linkage for my Moto Guzzi motorcycle. This was going to be my first semi-precision project. It would require machining a rod to .078″ in diameter and threading both ends. When I got started, I realized the Clausing was not going to thread it, and that’s really the honeymoon ended.

This week I started again, on the Big Dog. I had a stainless hammer handle I had made, and which I knew I would never use, so I decided to turn it down to the right size. It’s really too short to do this conveniently. In order not to be crowded, you need some extra metal at the ends. But it seems to be working. I put the follow rest on the lathe and went to town.

When I got to work, everything went fine, except for the tailstock position. The live center kept backing out of the work. At first, I failed to lock the ram, so that was my fault, but it also happened when the ram and tailstock clamp were locked. I found that there was a little locknut on the front of the tailstock, and it determined how tight the clamp was. A few seconds’ work with a wrench fixed it.

I have some cute little carbide tools for the tiny tool post, so I decided to use one, in addition to an old 1/4″ round-nose tool I had ground. It worked great. Long stainless chips spiralled all over the garage, and the finish on the work was not bad at all.

If I can get the threading to work, I’ll try to finish this thing. I may have to scrap it and start with a longer piece, but it has served its purpose as a learning tool, so I can’t complain.

I’m looking for a bigger lathe. The Clausing has to go. I stupidly bought a DRO for it. Oh, well. It still has to go. Working with the Big Dog has reminded me how great it is to work on metal instead of working on my lathe. It seems like every time I want to use the Clausing, I can’t do it, or I have to find some clever way to work around the lack of tooling. That’s no good. I want to walk into the garage, flip a switch, throw crap on the lathe, and start turning. I want it to be just like my mill or my table saw. Turn on, do work, turn off, clean up, have beer.

Some guy in Tampa is moderately interested in the Clausing. I think I turned him off, though. I told him everything. The Clausing is a good quality lathe, and it appears to be in good working condition. It’s just limited in what it can do, and in the availability of affordable tooling. It’s not a junkheap. I guess I’m a bad salesman. I wanted to make sure I overcame the temptation to describe the lathe in a flattering way that would get it out the door, so maybe I went too far.

I found some interesting machines. First, I found a Yam (no kidding) Taiwanese lathe that had belonged to a prototype builder who used it in his garage. Here’s a photo. I could have had this for $3500. It’s a very highly regarded lathe, in spite of the hilarious name. Sadly, someone nailed it while I was getting a shipping quote.

I found a Millport, locally. It looked wonderful. I wanted to inspect it in person, so I sent an email. I used to think Millport had to be a horrible brand, because the name was so stupid. It was like they weren’t even trying. But I found out they make excellent machinery. Taiwanese. But as soon as I inquired, I found out there was a deposit on it.

I just found a Famot. It looks like it has been run about three hours. This is supposed to be a fantastic Polish lathe, considerably better than Taiwanese. It’s expensive, but it has every piece of tooling imaginable, and it should last forever. I put in an inquiry. I’m waiting to find out who just bought it. Someone up the road has a Nardini MS 1440E which looks like it hasn’t been used too much. I have read that the green Nardinis are good machines, but the blue and white ones are horrible. This one is green. Hopefully not the result of spray-painting.

I considered a new Birmingham, but everyone says they stink. I also inquired about GMC, the company that made my mill. I emailed the guy who sold it to me, but he never answered, and neither did GMC’s headquarters. So I looked around for Taiwan stuff. I found Eisen lathes. They’re not expensive, but they’re supposed to be very good. Their 1440 appears to be the same as Webb’s, and Webb is a good company. The lathes are not real heavy, however (1364 pounds), so the rigidity is something to wonder about. Anyway, you can get a new one for $7500, which is not bad at all.

I found another brand of new equipment: Clark. This is not the Chinese “Clarke” lathe that costs about forty dollars to make. It’s different. They make a 2500-pound lathe with lots of features and tooling, and you can get one shipped to you for $6000. The big problem with Clark is that no one knows about them. I contacted three sellers. One said the machines were Taiwanese. One said they were Chinese. The third gave me the truth: they have Chinese castings, but the other stuff is Taiwanese. That’s actually pretty appealing. I don’t think it takes a lot of skill to make a lathe bed, but screws, slides, bearings, chucks…you want a competent manufacturer for that stuff. My mill is made from Taiwanese parts, but it was assembled in China. I can’t complain at all. The only problems I’ve had were mostly the result of my own stupidity.

I guess I better put the Clausing on Craigslist and Ebay and get serious about replacing it. I want to get something I will never need to upgrade. Never buy cheaper or smaller tools than you can afford. You will always regret it in the end, and it will cost you more money than buying right the first time.

I’ll tell you something funny. I think I get much clearer guidance from God than I did back in the Clausing days. Maybe that’s how I ended up with the wrong machine. I’ve mentioned this before: when I started looking at the Big Dog, I kept feeling something inside me saying, “Just buy it. Just buy it. Go buy it. Buy it now.” And it worked out great. Hopefully I’ll get the same helpful guidance the next time around.

15 Responses to “Tiny Stuff That Works Beats Big Stuff That Sits”

  1. og Says:

    The Grizzly G4003G and the Shop Fox M1112 are the same lathe, one by Grizzly and the other by Northern tool. At 12 x 36 with a gap bed that can be removed to deal with items as large as 17″, you’d be able to use them, for instance, to turn rotors on your truck. Or cut inch or metric threads. And tooling is inexpensive and readily available.

    Either one can be delivered to your home for under $4k.

  2. Steve H. Says:

    Tell me you’re not loving that Yam.

  3. og Says:

    The Yam is a well made machine. Not easy to get parts from Singapore, and the controls are a bit difficult to understand. Grizzly and Northern tool will be around at least a little while.

  4. og Says:

    Ah, my mistake. This is actually a Yang. Yam is singaporean, but the Yang was called a Yam for a while. Lost in translation, I guess

    Either way, it’s similar to an early Mori. Well made, but possibly overcomplex for your purposes. And again, Griz and Northern will be a better source for parts.

    I do know, at that price point, if you call Grizz and haggle a bit, they’ll give you a good package of tooling for a good price.

  5. Steve H. Says:

    I don’t blame you for having problems with the name. I had to do some research. I found out this is the same outfit that made Taiwanese Cadillac lathes. One of the angrier guys on Practical Machinist brags about them.
    .
    It would be nice to have a new lathe, but now that I’ve played with the Clausing and I know how being burned works, I believe I could conceivably buy a low-miles used lathe with tooling and do really well.

  6. og Says:

    If you were buying a high end lathe, like a Mori, or an Okuma, or a Colchester, I would be less afraid of used. Those machines are worth the risk. I wouldn’t buy a used asian machine when the new ones are very nearly the same price, and the shipping is included.If you can get the used asian machine for half price, go for it. I’ve used those lathes at customers, (actually, JET makes a good one too) and they’re ok, they’re professional tools. You should fly up to Chicago in the fall for the machine tool show, and see the whole magilla, anyone interested in machining should see IMTS at least once.

  7. HTRN Says:

    You can still get new Steady rests from Clausing. It will run you about 600 bucks the last time I checked. I think I paid 300 bucks for mine, but it was NOS from a dealer. The cheaper solution is to go to Tools4cheap, pick out a steady rest for a similar swing lathe(I’m pretty sure they don’t make ’em for Clausings), and make a new base plate, as T4C uses generic steady rest designs with the bolt on base for a specific machine.

    I’m honestly not surprised it doesn’t cut metric threads. Most American lathes built before the 1970s don’t, unless it’s something like a SB 9-10″ with quick change gears, where you can buy a quick change gear set. In the case of the South Bends, you can buy reproduction metric gearing from Tools4Cheap.

  8. Steve H. Says:

    Og, maybe that Famot is the best bet.
    .
    HTRN, I know you can get parts for these things, but the real Clausing part prices are flat-out obscene (new OR used), and you have to ask yourself, “Do I want to put three hundred more dollars into this thing, when it was a bad deal to start with?” You start with three hundred for a steady rest. Then two hundred for a follow rest. Then five hundred for a few metric parts. It doesn’t take much time at all to reach a point where you could have gotten a really nice European or Taiwanese lathe, with more tooling, for comparable money.
    .
    Coincidentally, when I did a quick Ebay search for steady rests, one of the first things that came up was a brand-new Famot rest from Toolmex. It was $345.

  9. og Says:

    If the steadyrest was your biggest concern, that’s a cakewalk; I made my own steadyrest for the office lathe because the one that came with it was too small. It’s really not that hard, if you have a mill. I can email you the drawings if you like, I’m sure they’re around here somewhere.

    The metric threading is the biggest pain. You can play around with gearing and get a good approximation of metric threads, but it’s such a pain I’d rather have an inch/metric lathe.

    I passed up a good lathe last fall that had the swapout inch/metric gearbox/leadscrew.

  10. og Says:

    BTW, our office lathe is a Nardini, it may be a 1460, I don’t remember, but it’s a hardcore machine. Quiet and good running. We had a bronze bearing fail in the headstock, but we made a replacement- on the lathe.

  11. Steve H. Says:

    I found a Nardini MS 1440E in Florida at Sierra Victor. Looks good but not great. I have read that when Nardini went to the dogs, they changed from green paint to blue or white, so now you have to look for green ones. Don’t know if it’s true.
    .
    Thanks for the drawing offer. I was thinking I might make a follow rest first, since it seems very simple. I was thinking about it last night, and I couldn’t see any reason to worry about making the upper part circular. Seems like right angles would be much easier to make.
    .
    It occurred to me that a circular shape might be less flexible, but I don’t know if it would be enough difference to matter.

  12. Steve H. Says:

    Og, I have bad news. Colchester lathes are now made in China, by DTMG (Dalian). Here’s one for $5400:
    .
    http://www.machinetools.com/us/listings/view/clausing-colchester-1550
    .
    People say they’re pretty bad, and the weird thing is, you can buy them without the Clausing badge for a lot less.

  13. og Says:

    yeah,, Colchester used to be one of the very last good mfrs in the UK- they made the Harrison Alpha line of products (Or, at least the iron for them) for many years. The Alpha was a Fanuc controlled CNC lathe that could be used manually as well, very nice. Now of course, they’re chinese iron and Siemen’s controls- Siemens were Nazi collaborators and thugs who built factories that used slave labor in the Auschwitz area called Bobrek, helped build the crematoria. I have no use for them on personal moral grounds. Give me the old UK Colchester anytime.

  14. Tom Says:

    I have a Jet 13″ belt drive with class 5 head bearings that is very smooth, with an acuright DRO that holds .00004″ over 40″of travel.

    A Jet 13″ gear head that is good.

    An emco 11″ that was used and is very accurate.

    A Hardinge HDLV that is nuts.

    Two small lathes from Harbor freight that are “loose”.

    A Sherline with a microscope and DRO that is amazing.

    I would say the belt drive Jet is the most for the money and Blue Ridge Machinery is the supplier.

  15. Virgil Says:

    I’m glad to see the Workmate and mention of og’s love for it back here on the Blog Steve.
    .
    I started to order you and og a “Jaw” Workbench each for Christmas but I figured you both had already jumped on line or ran down to Sears and bought one.
    .
    I’m thinking of making some brackets to allow me to clamp my Workmate into my own new “Jaw” and end up being able to hold and rotate something like a small car into an infinite number of positions.