Thread: Advise on a Lathe Upgrade

hi Robert,
personally i would buy a larger second hand lathe, but you then have the task of making sure the machine is running well before you do any work. With your budget a very good second hand lathe should be easily obtainable. Will you be keeping the mini or not?

Hi

This is my somewhat biased opinion . I would go for a Hercus 260 because of the backup of spare parts and the quality thing . These lathes are solid and they evolved from a basic 1930's design that soldiered on being manufactured by Hercus into the lathe 1980's ? With many 260's still serving owners after long years of use and abuse , these machines are proven winners .

The other choice would be a Myford 7 or Super 7 . Again , fantastic backup of spares and accessories and these are quality lathes . The favourite model makers choice for many years , Myford .

The Asian stuff worries me in terms of spares . If you need something , the chances are they have changed the design and you will be up the creek .

Mike

Dear Robert. It depends on what size loco you aim to build. Having ben involved in the Melbourne Model engineers I have worked it out that if you attack any loco it take about 14 months per axle this is if you can keep at it. I agree that a loco like the Sweet Pea 4-0-4 tank engine could be built on a Hercus or a super seven. They should be available at about $1500. Keep an eye on the machinery part of this forum for bits and pieces. Also try and budget for a small mill drill, they are a bit of a problem when you put any tooling in them the work height above the table is reduced.
Next problem I used to make castings for Sweet Pea but no longer. This is a problem in this day and age. Sweet Pea could probably be built from stock if no castings were available. They would be from England at a price. I would recommend that you contact or join The Hornsby model railway club. This is where you will get good advice from Like minds. Stay away from the larger main line engines they take too long to build. The idea being that get the first one done then tackle some thing larger.
Sorry to prattle on but I have seen this only too frequently when some one starts a large job and it ends up under a bench some where.
If you want any model engineering advic send a PM and I will help.
Yours 4-6-4

I found the AL50G to be an excellent lathe. There are a plethora of sites dedicated to the AL50G (elsewhere called the 9X20 lathe), all with dozens of tips and mods to make the 9X20 more useful. I made many M/C parts, without any problems. master cylinders and fluid resevoirs spring to mind: master cylinders being made from 1" 316 S/S with a 3/4" bore, .45mm bleed holes and threaded with a 1" brass thread; the resevoirs being made from 50mm ally with an acme threaded cap, after some mods I was also able to turn up some L/H threads, it did an excellent job, highly recommended. At around the $1000 mark it's priced well; however, I found the 20mm spindle bore limiting and the drive belts very expensive and prone to breakage and slipping. There is a Titan clone, with electronic speed control, available through Titan, but it is considerably more expensive and quite possibly has the same drive belt. I've just sold my AL50G and replaced it with an AL250G, if you can get by with just metric threading, the AL250G is a reasonably good lathe: with a 25mm spindle bore and a geared head it ticked all the boxes for me. It will cut some imperial threads with a 34 tooth gear substitued for the stock 36 in the gear train, but still won't have the range of the AL50G. As with most Chinese lathes, they do require some tidying up, but that's half the fun...

Originally Posted by morrisman

Hi

This is my somewhat biased opinion . I would go for a Hercus 260 because of the backup of spare parts and the quality thing . These lathes are solid and they evolved from a basic 1930's design that soldiered on being manufactured by Hercus into the lathe 1980's ? With many 260's still serving owners after long years of use and abuse , these machines are proven winners .

The other choice would be a Myford 7 or Super 7 . Again , fantastic backup of spares and accessories and these are quality lathes . The favourite model makers choice for many years , Myford .

The Asian stuff worries me in terms of spares . If you need something , the chances are they have changed the design and you will be up the creek .

Mike

I disagree. I regard both the Hercus and Myford as minimal machines, the Myford in particular being vastly overpriced and feeble in construction. I would never bother owning either and I recommend others do the same, that is unless you like making lots of tiny cuts and living with bed deflection etc. For the life of me I cannot understand why people hold these machines up as any exemplar of good design because they're not. I'll grant the build quality of Myfords is superb, but it's still a small, feeble flat bed lathe incapable of taking a decent cut. The fact that people have built wonderful models using one is a tribute to the people not the machine.

As for spares, come on. Look at the threads concerning Colchester and spares prices. Sure they *might* be available if you want to spend the price of a brand new Chinese lathe to replace a feed screw & nut. Personally - no.

My advice, get an older industrial machine in reasonable condition. If you don't want to wait, look closely at the Chinese machines, read the threads here and decide if you can live with the lack of attention to detail. I'd much, much rather have a D1-4 camlock Chinese lathe with a 12" swing, 24" between centres than a Myford or Hercus.

PDW

Originally Posted by PDW

I disagree. I regard both the Hercus and Myford as minimal machines, the Myford in particular being vastly overpriced and feeble in construction. I would never bother owning either and I recommend others do the same, that is unless you like making lots of tiny cuts and living with bed deflection etc. For the life of me I cannot understand why people hold these machines up as any exemplar of good design because they're not. I'll grant the build quality of Myfords is superb, but it's still a small, feeble flat bed lathe incapable of taking a decent cut. The fact that people have built wonderful models using one is a tribute to the people not the machine.

As for spares, come on. Look at the threads concerning Colchester and spares prices. Sure they *might* be available if you want to spend the price of a brand new Chinese lathe to replace a feed screw & nut. Personally - no.

My advice, get an older industrial machine in reasonable condition. If you don't want to wait, look closely at the Chinese machines, read the threads here and decide if you can live with the lack of attention to detail. I'd much, much rather have a D1-4 camlock Chinese lathe with a 12" swing, 24" between centres than a Myford or Hercus.

PDW

Yes OK but

I was trying to make the point about spares . If you go the UK ebay site and do a seach on MYFORD, you will get something like 2000 to 3000 hits. The 7 and later Super 7 were manufactured since the early 1950's . I'm just so impressed that you can buy virtually any part for a 60 year old lathe , and the prices are reasonable . For examle A new cross fed screw and nut is easy to buy . I just wonder how many Chinese machines will have spares availabilty for that length of time



As for taking deep cuts . I struggled with my Sheraton 9 until somebody pointed out , just whack it in backgear and use a chipbreaker . I can take 1/4" deep cuts , or remove 1/2" , no problem , once I learnt the technique it was easy .

Mike

Originally Posted by PDW

I'll grant the build quality of Myfords is superb, but it's still a small, feeble flat bed lathe incapable of taking a decent cut.

Define 'decent cut'.

What a hobbyist calls decent would be entirely different to what a professional does. I can't speak for the Myford, but my Hercus when fitted with a crobalt bit or carbide insert can remove metal at an alarming (to me) rate.

Originally Posted by PDW

I disagree. I regard both the Hercus and Myford as minimal machines, the Myford in particular being vastly overpriced and feeble in construction. I would never bother owning either and I recommend others do the same, that is unless you like making lots of tiny cuts and living with bed deflection etc. For the life of me I cannot understand why people hold these machines up as any exemplar of good design because they're not. I'll grant the build quality of Myfords is superb, but it's still a small, feeble flat bed lathe incapable of taking a decent cut. The fact that people have built wonderful models using one is a tribute to the people not the machine.

As for spares, come on. Look at the threads concerning Colchester and spares prices. Sure they *might* be available if you want to spend the price of a brand new Chinese lathe to replace a feed screw & nut. Personally - no.

My advice, get an older industrial machine in reasonable condition. If you don't want to wait, look closely at the Chinese machines, read the threads here and decide if you can live with the lack of attention to detail. I'd much, much rather have a D1-4 camlock Chinese lathe with a 12" swing, 24" between centres than a Myford or Hercus.

PDW

Hi there,

I'm not going to make any suggestions regarding which lathe to buy, I'll let others do that. I was interested in your opinion of the Myford lathes. I have been buying MEW magazine for a couple of years now and anyone who reads this magazine would be forgiven for thinking that the Myford lathe is the best in the world! They seem to do numerous articles on this lathe and talk non stop about it. I just assumed it must have been to holy grail of lathes! I can only assume it's a British patriotic thing then? If you are correct then you have made my day! I could never afford or justify the price of one anyway!

Don't mean to hijack the thread!

Cheers

Simon

I've never owned a Myford or Hercus or any other of that ilk, but I have had 4 Chinese lathes and all have been excellent. A number of members have Myford or Hercus lathes and do truly excellent work on them. When brought back to life are a thing of beauty, if one can use that vernacular for a machine, Anorak Bob's lathe imediately springs to mind. I did have an AL300 for a few years and although Hafco hadn't distributed them for several years I had no problem in obtaining racks, lead screws, gears and the like (all broken due to user error I might add). All Chinese lathes are capable of producing excellent results with excellent accuracies straight out of the box, any tinkering afterwards can only make them even better. Perhaps parts may be a problem if their service life is to approach that of Hercus and the like, I guess that's the beauty of Chinese lathe prices. But, lets not forget when new, Hercus lathes cost more than a new car. Any lathe, regardless of country of origin is only as good as the distributors backup. If purchased from a reputable distributor, selling machines in reasonable numbers, they should provide good backup service. I would love a Hercus like Anorak Bob's, if only for aesthetics, but I couldn't justify the cost of the purchase or restoration.

I agree in part with what Simon and PDW have said, and one of the reasons that I was finding MEW less interesting was that continual focus on Myford lathes to the sometimes exclusion of other brands. With the closing of the Myford factory I suspect the focus will now shift to "Mini-lathes". Until I went to the UK I didn't understand this emphasis, but after seeing the size houses (and sheds) they have I can understand why they emphasise small equipment over reasonable sized stuff. (It's also a patriotism thing too)

One thing I want to toss into this discussion is the idea of importance of spares for a lathe. Why? Spares are nice to be able to get, but when you start looking at a lathe it is a self replicating machine. I have learnt a lot stripping mine down when it doesn't work and making up parts. While some people may not have the confidence initially to do this, it is a great way to learn. You can make new leadscrews and nuts on machines with buggered ones - it just takes some care and thinking. Yes, you might need to have a couple of goes, but it's practice if nothing else. Why else would you buy a lathe if not to turn parts? This forum is a great resource too - just have a look at any of the threads where someone has a problem and there are several people either offering advice or even physical help. It would be a rare problem on a machine that could not be solved with the collective wisdom of this forum.

I think if the most important reason for buying a lathe is that you can get spare parts for it then perhaps you haven't thought enough about what you can do with a lathe and what it is capable of. I am in favour of old machines. They are usually solidly made, can be repaired without too much trouble (unless you have a Monarch or Chipmaster speed control) and give you a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you have made them better than they were.

Michael

True enough, problems start however when you bugger a leadscrew, gear, halfnut, etc, when you have a buggered leadscrew, halfnut, gear, etc, how do you make a new one. The obvious answer to that is to make spares before they are needed, but which ones, where do you start?

That's where a forum like this helps - you can ask others to help. There have been a number of discussions on making up new half nuts; ACME thread can be bought from other sources; gears can be cut. Currently I have a couple of jobs on the go for others here. One day I hope that they will help out others.
You'd have to think too - if you buy a new lathe, are you really going to need to replace those parts in the next few years or should they last 5 or more, in which case the lathe may not be made any more. I have no faith that any stockist of cheap import lathes is still going to have spares in 10 years time.
My second lathe was a Taiwanese machine. I broke a part and had to buy a new one. The company who sold them wasn't even in business any more, so I had to go to a power transmission place to have a gear cut. These days I'd ask if anyone here could turn me blank and then I'd cut the teeth on the mill. Might cost me a favour but it would be returned one day.
Michael

Originally Posted by jack620

Define 'decent cut'.

What a hobbyist calls decent would be entirely different to what a professional does. I can't speak for the Myford, but my Hercus when fitted with a crobalt bit or carbide insert can remove metal at an alarming (to me) rate.

My Chipmaster, with its dodgy Kopp variator, has no problems at all with a 6mm depth of cut in 316 stainless or 4140, on 40mm dia, running at 600 rpm. TCT tooling naturally. Can't remember the feed rate but basically I jack both the speed & feed up until the chips come off blue and travel 4 feet before hitting the floor (my hair, my face, the wall and everything else around.....).

I'm not interested in engaging in a prolonged debate on this. My opinions have been formed by using the various machines discussed here. I don't give a damn about spares because I've rarely needed them and I've been able to make them when I did.

So, my advice to the OP is, hunt up a good heavy duty used lathe if you've time to do so, or if you want a bigger machine right now, go and buy a new one. If possible, get one you can see running under power and do some test cuts, make some measurements before paying over your money. Your budget is a little on the lean side, but you should still be able to get something reasonable new. Have fun & don't take any of it too seriously.

PDW

Hang on chaps. The original post was what lathe with in a budget and this was stated was required to build a a 5 inch gauge locomotive. I suggested a 5 inch Sweet Pea which is a largish 0-4-0 narrow Gauge engine with a simple valve gear. The wheels are aboul 4 inch dia and could be made of steel. Gun metal cylinders could be purchased from the UK. The tread seems to have deteriorated into size of cuts and spare parts and Asian or local lathes. Please give the lad a go yours 4-6-4