Thread: Hare and forbes lathe al50ga

Welcome to the forum JB.

This is a 9x20 lathe in one of its' many guises. Whilst I can't comment on the H&F incarnation, I recently bought a 9x20 from Plant & Equipment and have been more than happy with it so far. The rather extensive tweaks and fixes that were talked about several years ago were not necessary with this lathe, the version I bought is a electronic variable speed model which also has a camlock tailstock.

More than happy with that one, all I have modified so far is the toolpost, got a Quick Change Toolpost from the US and adapted that to fit.

I've been contemplating one of these myself - would be interested to know what you think of it if you end up buying it !?!?!?!?

I purchased an AL50GB (same as AL50GA but with metic leadscrew) about 5 months ago and here are my impressions.

I am generally happy with the lathe but it has taken a bit of work to get it to this point. For the price, the lathe is OK and seems to produce parts with reasonable accuracy. That said, I know that I still need to align the headstock/tailstock as the alignment is not quite right, but up to now this problem has not been a big issue. The procedure is well documented at various internet sites. I have just been a bit slack with this tweak as I have been busy making chips. Also, the 4-jaw chuck is a piece of rubbish and I am thinking about an upgraded chuck should I be able to buy one at a reasonable price. The 3-jaw is OK though.

Regarding the lead screw, I also read that it may require deburring but mine was OK.

Out of the box, the lathe required a disassembly of the carriage to clean out a fair amount of paint chips and swarf that had accumulated in the half-nut assembly. Also the whole carriage set up was not lubricated at all and need it badly. Adjustment of the power feed interlock mechanism was also required.

As per Steve Bedair's and others' comments about the compound clamp mod, without this improvement, the lathe was not much chop with the tool bucking up and down while taking heavier cuts. That said, I made the upgraded clamp out of 5/8" plate and there was a dramatic improvement. I also replaced all the gib adjusting screws with cap head allen screws to make their adjustment easier. I have also modified the saddle lock so that it is now easily lockable via a permanently installed handle. These improvements are essential to improve the lathe's rigidity.

I bought a set of carbide cutting tools from H&F and while they can chew through the metal at a reasonable rate, I have found that I need to use HSS tools to be able to produce a smooth finish.

The standard tool post set up is also a bit on the light side and I will be upgrading to a quick-change setup. In time, I will also do Steve B's upgrades to the cross slide.

I don't mind tinkering with the lathe so these mods are not a problem for me. If I had more space in my already-crowded workshop, I would have thought about a larger machine. However, given my budget and space constraint, I would recommend the lathe but you would probably need to do a bit of work to get it up to scratch. I haggled a bit with my local supplier and got the price down a bit and also had several accessories thrown into sweeten the deal.

Thanks for the info BR - can't beat a good heads-up before an outlay like that.

I also bought an AL50 about a year ago and absolutely concur with Blu Rocks comments, although I didn't find the 4 jaw chuck too bad once you got used to it's eccentricities.

You absolutely must do the compound clamp mod, the tool pitches and tosses without it. I also made a few extra mods, mainly changing the feed wheels and tail slide lock.

Overall I'm very pleased with mine, and I doubt we'll see them again at this price.

Originally Posted by Bodgy

Overall I'm very pleased with mine, and I doubt we'll see them again at this price.

You got that right, it has gone up by $100 in the last week.

Thanks everyone for the replies. When I actually saw the lathe I discovered how flimsy it looked, my decision was to get the Hafco AL-60 with the mill attachment. It certainly is a much more robust machine and I'm hoping it will prove to be successfull. Thanks again.