Four installments in, and we&#;ve come a very long way from our old ways of making stuff. Gone are the angle grinder and Sharpie, replaced by computer-aided design, 3D-printed prototypes and CNC-machined aluminum. 

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If you&#;re like us, you&#;re probably shocked at how much we&#;ve accomplished with such a minimal investment. We&#;ve done everything to date with a total budget of about $400 and two small squares of bench space. 

But we want more, so it&#;s time to up the stakes and play with real materials and real machines. Let&#;s get started. 

Let&#;s Talk Money

If you&#;re financially squeamish, this might not be the right story for you. We&#;ll finish out this series by significantly increasing our investment of space, time and money, but we&#;ll also significantly increase our capabilities. We&#;ll cover our purchase of a lathe in this installment, then talk about our Bridgeport vertical knee mill next time. 

These are real tools that cost real money, and you&#;ll need to budget a few thousand dollars to follow along at home. On the bright side, you can accumulate these machines and tools gradually, and if you buy right, they&#;ll actually appreciate in value as you build parts. 

Why a Lathe?

Lathes and mills may look different, but they&#;re remarkably similar. The lathe spins the work while holding the tool steady, while the mill spins the tool while holding the work steady. 

Seriously, that&#;s all there is to defining the genres. We&#;d call them complementary tools, and every well-equipped machine shop has both. If you can only have one, though, we recommend starting with a lathe. 

The basic layout of a lathe is simple: There&#;s a bed with ways, on which the carriage slides back and forth. One end has the head stock assembly and spindle, which holds the spinning part, while the other end has a moveable tailstock, which holds the drill chucks, centers and more. To build parts, metal is put into the chuck mounted on the spindle, then tools are attached to the carriage and used to cut the metal. 

What can you build with a lathe? &#;Round things&#; is the standard answer, but part of being a machinist is figuring out how to use the tools at hand to solve the problem&#;even if that means using the tools to make new tools. 

Rule number one: There are no rules. As long as you don&#;t do something unsafe, just about any combination of tool, setup, machine and technique is fair game if the result is the part you were hoping to create. 

A skilled operator can use a lathe to make bushings, spacers, shafts, hubs and more. Basically, if a part can be drawn with cones, spheres and cylinders, you can probably make it on a lathe. 

And that&#;s before you get creative. With the proper attachments, you can also use a lathe for light millwork, like cutting a keyway or milling a slot, or for some more specialized techniques, like winding your own springs. 

We&#;ll explain it this way: Some tools are obviously designed to do one thing out of the box incredibly well, like a balljoint press or an inner tie-rod removal kit. Other tools, like a vise, don&#;t have any obvious purpose or project out of the box, but over time you wonder how you could ever live without one on your bench. 

Lathes fall firmly into the latter category. Drag one home and you&#;ll soon realize why every great shop has a lathe in the corner. 

How to Buy a Lathe

&#;I think I&#;m going to bid on a mill at this furniture auction.&#; 

That was how we opened our call to Steve Eckerich, lifelong friend, machinist and advisor when it comes to our every tool purchase. His response was a sigh, an explanation of how to evaluate a used mill, and then a simple statement: &#;If I could only keep one tool in my entire shop, it would be my lathe. Are you sure you want to start with a mill?&#;

Damn right we were. After all, buying that crappy mill from the back corner of an off-brand couch auction would open up a whole new world of building parts, and we couldn&#;t wait to bid it up to the top of our budget&#;just $300.

We watched the bidding unfold: $50, $100, $150, $200, $250, $300 and&#;. 

Nowhere near sold. That tiny off-brand bench mill sold for more than twice the cash in our pocket, and a smirking old man opposite us in the crowd became its new owner. 

The group walked over to the next lot, a lathe that looked like something you&#;d buy out of a Sears catalog at the train depot, and the bidding began: $50, $100, $150, $200&#;SOLD. 

Shockingly, we were holding the winning paddle. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was divine intervention, or maybe Steve Eckerich really is that powerful. We&#;d just bought our first lathe. 

Meet Our First Lathe

What does $200 buy in the used lathe market? If you&#;re as lucky as we were, you&#;ll get a Craftsman 6-inch lathe, also sold under the Atlas brand name. We also received a few buckets of random tooling, some extra chucks, milling and taper attachments, and a stand to put it all on. 

If that read like Greek to you: same. 

Our Craftsman lathe was serviceable, but ultimately too small for our needs. 

We had no idea what we&#;d purchased, but over the next few years we slowly learned the ropes of maintaining and running a lathe. We learned that 6-inch refers to the maximum diameter of work that can be turned. We learned that our lathe&#;s antique &#;lantern&#; tool post was frustrating and slow when changing tools. 

But we used it. There are parts made on that Craftsman on our LS-swapped 350Z and our Isuzu Trooper. Thanks to YouTube videos, we were able to learn how to run a lathe effectively, even when cutting tough metals like stainless steel.

But we also learned that, above all else, our lathe was just too small for what we wanted to do.

After giving the little Craftsman a bath, a tune-up and a modern quick-change tool post, we sold it to a friend for $500. We credit the pandemic for most of our lathe&#;s appreciation, but this is also a great example of how well these sorts of tools hold their value.

Building a Lathe Shopping List

Our first lathe wasn&#;t great, but it was a great learning exercise. We kept a wish list every time we used it for a project, culminating in the following:

1. Rigidity: This is the primary differentiator between a good machine tool and a bad one&#;same as how, when it comes to engines, there&#;s no replacement for displacement. Two strong people could pick up our Craftsman lathe, which was great for relocating but bad for staying rigid while cutting metal. We wanted our next lathe to be a giant hunk of metal that would allow deeper cuts. 
2. Power: A rigid machine that can take deep cuts is pointless if those cuts stall the motor, so we needed more horsepower from our next lathe. 
3. Gears: We wanted a quick-change gearbox, which allows the gear ratio between the spindle and the leadscrew to be changed quickly for threading operations. Changing the thread pitch on our Craftsman required replacing gears on the back of the lathe, called change gears, to vary the ratio. We wanted to simply pull a lever when cutting threads. 
4. Work Envelope: Six inches just wasn&#;t enough to get the job done. We wanted to be able to cut larger-diameter parts. More importantly, we wanted a larger-diameter through hole in our spindle; that way we&#;d be able to insert axle shafts in the chuck without having 3 feet of stickout. 

Buying a Better Lathe

Wishlist in hand, we cruised Facebook Marketplace for a few months until we stumbled across our next lathe: a rusty JET PS on a homebuilt stand. The asking price was just north of $, and its location was less than 45 minutes from home. After talking the seller down to $700, we loaded up our newest acquisition with the help of the seller&#;s old tow truck and headed home.

Start buying real tools, and you&#;ll need a real plan to drag them home. Ours involved a tow truck, flatbed trailer, engine hoist and car skates. 

The company is the world’s best Lathe for rice cooker heating plate manufacturing supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

Further reading:
Are You Struggling with Inefficient Melting Processes in Your Furnace?

What exactly is a JET PS? This imported machine is about 40 years old and definitely one solid step up from the Craftsman. It&#;s about the best machine we could reasonably fit into our garage and budget. It weighs about 800 pounds and has a 12-inch capacity with a 36-inch-long bed&#;hence the in its name. It also has the other niceties on our wish list: a quick-change gearbox, a much bigger motor and a quick-change tool post.

We spent a week or so getting our the JET ready for action, which meant a thorough wipe-down with ATF, replacing the seals around the spindle, and rewiring the motor to plug into a 220V outlet. Along the way, we got to take an intimate look at our new lathe&#;s condition and realized it was in great shape&#;we&#;d rolled the dice and gotten lucky. Finally, we had a real lathe in the garage. 

Meet our newest tool, this JET PS. For just $700, it wasn&#;t perfect but didn&#;t have any major flaws. We cleaned it up, fixed the wiring, replaced a few seals and started making parts. 

But we soon realized that, just like pet guinea pigs, pet lathes are happier with a buddy. In our quest to build the best parts possible, we&#;ll find a milling machine companion for our lathe in the next installment and take our home machine shop to the next level.

Jan 03,

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Buying a Lathe: What You Should Know Before Investing

Are you thinking about buying a lathe? One of the first things to determine is what you want to do with it and what kinds of materials you will cut. Are you a hobbyist looking to make some wooden candlestick holders and salad bowls? A benchtop wood lathe might be all you need. However, if you wish to hold greater accuracy or cut metals, a more rugged and versatile machine is in order. If you&#;re among the latter group of people or just want to know more about precision lathes in general, keep reading.

 

A Proud Legacy

Lathes are among the oldest of all metalworking machinery. In fact, many refer to them as the mother of machine tools for their ability to make parts for other machines. These include threaded fasteners, shafts, bushings, and much more, including the candlestick holders mentioned earlier. Historians will tell you it was the early Egyptians who invented the first crude lathes, yet it wasn&#;t until that they gained thread-cutting capabilities. That invention is attributed to Englishman Henry Maudslay, although others certainly laid the groundwork for his important work.

 

The Modern Lathe

Henry Maudslay would recognize any of these modern metal-cutting lathes from Kent USA. All have hardened and groundway surfaces that allow the carriage to move longitudinally via a leadscrew. Sitting atop the carriage is a cross slide for axial motion, with a four-sided indexable tool post attached to that. A series of changeable gears power the carriage and give the lathe its screw-cutting capabilities, while a geared headstock provides plenty of power at the rotating spindle. For anyone interested in buying a lathe, these are just a few of the primary functions to keep in mind. The Kent USA MLX-T precision lathe is a very good example of a well-equipped modern lathe.

You Get What You Pay for

There&#;s way more to buying a lathe than these basics, however. Let&#;s start with the price tag. My father used to tell me, &#;You get what you pay for, son.&#; He wasn&#;t necessarily talking about machine tools, but his words remain valid nonetheless. Here&#;s the thing&#;if you want an inexpensive lathe, you won&#;t have to look too far to find one. There are plenty of entry-level machines listed on websites and in catalogs that seem to offer a good bang for the buck. And even though they might be similar in appearance and function as those listed on the Kent USA website, looks can be deceiving (another of my Dad&#;s many adages), and a year or two of use will prove differently.

 

&#;She&#;s So Heavy&#;

John Lennon was writing about Yoko Ono in this classic Beatles&#; tune, but he might just as well have been buying a lathe. Consider this: Kent USA&#;s TRL- Lathe comes in at a hefty lbs. Compared to a benchtop or bargain brand lathe, it&#;s a big step up, and yet, it&#;s the lightest machine in the Kent USA lineup. Who cares? You should. A heavy machine means heavier cuts, greater rigidity, and less vibration. For the longest life and highest precision, always opt for a lathe with a heavy cast iron base, not one constructed made of welded steel.

 

The Headstock

The headstock and its rotating spindle is the heart of the lathe. It goes without saying that you should look at available horsepower&#;anything less than 2 HP or so will be inadequate for metal cutting. Also, make certain that the chuck is large enough to grip whatever workpieces you have in mind and that it has a standard Camlock-style or equivalent spindle mount. Beyond that, be sure to ask about the type of bearings used, how many, and how far apart they are. A cheap spindle with low-quality bearings will cause nothing but problems a year or two down the road.

 

Get in the Swing

Swing indicates the maximum diameter workpiece you can turn on a lathe. Measure from the top of the bed to the center of the spindle and then double that value. Similarly, the bed measurement is the maximum length of the workpiece that you can turn. It&#;s determined by the distance between the spindle face and tailstock. Also, look at the bed width. Wider ones provide greater stability and better results in turning operations. You should consider all of these factors before buying a lathe.

The Shopping List

What else separates the good from the not-so-good when buying a lathe? You&#;ll want a foot brake for stopping the spindle quickly. A geared headstock with multiple speed ranges helps to make sure you have plenty of available power. Hardened and ground ways assure years of productive use. A job button makes gear changes easier. Hobbyists probably won&#;t care about inch/metric dials, but someone starting a machine shop will. They&#;ll also care about cutting threads, so make certain your lathe has the right thread-cutting capabilities.

 

A Few Turning Accessories to Consider

The tool post should make it easy to change and adjust tools. For shaft work and other longish parts, you&#;ll probably need a steady rest. This is an attachment that bolts to the bed and supports the workpiece while turning. You&#;ll need a three-jaw and four-jaw chuck, as well as a faceplate, live center, and various Morse taper adapters for the tailstock. How about power? If your shop has 220-volt, three-phase electricity, so much the better. If not, be sure to pick up a phase converter or buy a lathe able to run on a 110-volt single phase. And if you have the cash, a digital readout (DRO) makes lathe operation much easier and less prone to mistakes.

 

Buying a Lathe: the Final Word

Granted, you&#;re facing a significant investment right now. Before whipping out your credit card, take a look at the big picture, and determine what will be best for you long term. Yes, a hobbyist or someone just getting started can often get by with a bargain brand machine. As their needs grow, however, this could end up being a mistake. Spending a bit more now on an industrial-quality lathe means better parts and far less hassle. That, and a larger, heavier, more rigid machine typically saves its owner money on repairs and replacement parts in the future. Whatever else you do, be sure to kick plenty of tires, and give us a call to discuss your project.

 

PS: You Might Want to Consider CNC Teach Lathes

CNC Precision Teach Lathes Series allows any shop to step up to CNC turning. It&#;s easy to learn teach-in conversational programming enables machinists of any skill level to produce higher quality parts with lower labor costs. These CNC lathes are perfect for machine shops transitioning to CNC and for machine tool technical schools. Read more about CNC Precision Lathes.

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