Thread: Sieg C3 mini lathe?

Originally Posted by oz94

There 11X24" looked well made too, it had the 1" spindle and cut all the threads I want too. Can you get an imperial lead screw as a spare part for the PARAMOUNT - Part No. FI-610?

You can't just change the leadscrew, you also have to change the half nuts and the threading indicator. Also if the machine has a QCGB, none of the thread pitches indicated on it will be correct, you'll need to recalculate them all.

There's a possibility that some hand-fitting of components like the half nuts might be required.

This is one of those jobs that is technically quite feasible but often bogs down in lots of small details.

PDW

The C3 manual http://users.tpg.com.au/users/p8king/files/c3lathe.pdf indicates that there's an optional metric leadscrew needs to be changed to go between metric and imperial. There's no QCGB involved.

Sounds like a lot of faffing about.

The Sieg minilathe is a very simple and basic lathe. It exists in many variations. By numbers it is one of the best selling lathes currently on the market. Because of its low price it is an ideal first lathe. Very easy to sell on if you outgrow it. It has a great followship on the internet, there are minilathe yahoo groups, and this site is a good source of information:http://www.mini-lathe.com/ (a must read before buying anything minilathe).
There is also a "workshop practice series" booklet #43, by David Fenner, dedicated solely to this Mini-Lathe. Maybe worth getting to make up your mind...

Regarding metric/imperial threading: A large diameter 127T translation gear just does not make any sense on such a small lathe. Choose metric or imperial, and be done with it. If you need to often change between mertric and imperial, this is definitely the wrong lathe to buy. The leadscrew/halfnuts sold separately are intended to convert an existing machine, for example if you buy a used mimperial machine but really wanted a metric machine. You do not want to do that conversion on a regular basis. But if say you only needed imperial threading once or twice a year, then it would be conceivable to convert as the parts are small and light (this lathe is still light enough to be put into a cupboard when not used) and you can combine the swapping with regular cleaning out the apron and checking alignments. Of course it is possible to cut SOME imperial threads on a metric leadsrew as approximation, and vice versa, by purchasing additional changegears... but there are limits depending on what pitch error you can accept.

Get the seller to confirm on the receipt that the lathe you buy is a genuine Sieg sourced directly from the Sieg factory in Shanghai. There are many fakes around (this is probably the best selling chinese lathe by numbers) and albeit the quality of Sieg is not stellar, the fakes can be much much worse and are not worth the small savings.

I see that you posted this question on PM as well.

I already *told* you that PM bans discussion of hobby type machines. All the Sieg machines, lathes & mills, are classed (rightfully) as hobby class machines. You were lucky not to get pulled up when you posted that Gumtree ad reference to the Taiwanese lathe (which I note that you obviously didn't buy). Any mention of hobby type machines on PM is banned. Don't do it, you won't get anywhere and if you keep it up, you will get people off with you.

Why am I typing this here? Because your thread over there has already been locked for non-compliance with the rules.

Do yourself a favour if you want to post on PM - read, understand and *follow* all the guidelines as posted in the 'stickies' in the General forum. You need to add your location, for example. Australia will suffice.

PM is a great place on how to do stuff, it doesn't matter what you want to do. Questions relating to machining are remarkably well received. Questions relating to hobby level machinery are simply not tolerated at all. Learn how to frame questions *without* mentioning what machine you're using and you won't run into problems. Break the rules and you'll end up with your head in your hands. The moderation rules are VERY different to here.

FWIW - which is likely not a lot.

PDW

FWIW - we strongly discourage discussion of other forums (in particular PM) here.

What the rules are on other forums is a matter for those forums, we have our own rules here and encourage people to familiarise themselves with them.

I would think the C3 too small to do much of anything and changing the leadscrew to switch between metric and imperial screw cutting sounds - screwy. I'd buy something like titans 920 or Hare and Forbes Al51 or the C6. All three cut metric or imperial threads, are reasonably good, cheap lathes to learn on and suffer minimally from depreciation.