Head Spinning; Metal, not so Much
February 9th, 2009I was Robbed
I know you’re all dying to hear a status report on my search for a lathe.
When I started looking around, a mammoth Sheldon lathe with a six-foot bed was available for $550. But some vulture got it before I could. Some miserable, evil, slimy person. Anyone who gets a good buy before I do fits that description.
Right now, I have two interesting options. One is an old South Bend Model A 9″ lathe with a bunch of tooling, for $650. It belonged to an old inventor who used it in his business. The obvious question is how hard he used it. Hopefully, his business was really bad and he rarely turned it on. The other option is a Logan Model 820 10″ lathe, which has a big pan and feet on it. It has some tooling, too.
The thing I noticed right away is that 10 is bigger than 9. This is the kind of thing my keen eye can sometimes be counted on to pick up.
I am tempted to get the Logan, because it’s twenty minutes away, and it’s bigger than the other lathe, and it has a stand. But I keep thinking about it, and I am worried that it will be too danged small.
This isn’t such a big problem with the South Bend. Unless it’s a complete bag of garbage, I can get my $650 back when I sell it. But the Logan guy wants $1100. And if that were a good price, he would have sold it by now. He has been advertising it since Christmas, at least. If I get a crappy price, I’ll feel like I have to hang onto the lathe, because the resale will be an exercise in something lathes are good at: reaming.
While either of these machines would probably make me happy, I live in horror of buying tools that are too small. And these things measure under 20″ between the centers. A lot of lathes go 36″. Maybe I would be smarter to wait for, say, an 11″ lathe with a longer bed. Otherwise, you know what will happen. The first thing I make with the lathe will be no problem, and the second one will have to be 20.1″ long, and I’ll have to kill myself, because it won’t fit on the lathe.
I can go to a dealer and get anything I want. For three times the Craigslist price. A dealer probably nailed that big Sheldon. I’ll probably see it for sale for $9000.
I guess the smart thing is to sit around until some more lathes pop up. The economy is tanking, and people are selling their business tools as well as their home-shop toys. Bargains will be easier to find in a month. President Obama and Speaker Pelosi are going to see to that.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:24 AM
As long as you’ve got a 1.25″ spindle center or larger, you don’t need to be TOO concerned about a 36″ bed; unless you are dual purposing is for wood, and want to turn thick table legs.
I say 1.25″ (or 32mm), because that’s about the thickest rod stock you are going to want to work with. That’ll give you pretty much any gun barrel, threaded rod, guide rod etc…
You aren’t going to be turning any high diameter stock bigger than say 16″ long on a shop lathe. For one thing, you won’t have the horsepower, for another, it isn’t really particularly safe.
February 10th, 2009 at 7:34 PM
Well, Chris said it. That said, it occurs to me (and I’d like og’s opinion) that since the tailstock on a lathe is generally removable (you slide it off the end), that you could weld up a simple tailstock replacement that would hang off the back of the lathe and have a simple center for turning table legs. We’re not talking aircraft work here. You don’t need a long bed for metal machining. But the larger the clearance between the spindle and the bed, the better. Turn your own brake discs.