Lathe for Beginner

[Dave CorderyParticipant @davecordery59279]

[Dave CorderyParticipant @davecordery59279]

I am starting out from scratch, with a small amount of knowledge of lathes but would like to know what would be a good starting lathe. The two that I have heard about are the Unimat 3 and the Hobbymat.

I look forward to replies from past experiece which I am sure there is allot of on this forum.

 

DaveC

[Geoff TheasbyParticipant @geofftheasby]

It depends what you want to make.

 

The Unimat has only a 2 and a bit inch centre height, which is a bit small for flywheels and loco wheels.

 

The Chinese lathes, Chester, Warco, Arc, are a greater centre height and are more modern.

 

Myfords are expensive, but very good quality.

 

Regards

Geoff

[Dave Jones 1Participant @davejones1]

I started out with a unimat 3, and they are excellent little lathes.  The problem is that they are now becomming regarded as collectable and as such parts can be a bit pricey.  I would recommend having a look at the website http://www.lathes.co.uk which has feedback on most types of lathe. 

The main problem I had with the unimat is that it has small centre height, but i suppose it depends what type of model your interested in making as to whether thats a problem.

The arceurotrade sieg lathes are good value for money but they require a bit of fiddling with to get them set up properly. 

I would also recommend getting the mini lathe book from the workshop practice series if your thinking about getting a 3 1/2″ centre height chinese lathe.

[Graham HorneParticipant @grahamhorne65034]

Dave C, FYI….. I bought a MD65 Hobbymat in Germany recently, for 240€, without any extra change gears or tools. 2 new belts of plastic cost me 24€ posted. No book yet.  Graham

[Dave CorderyParticipant @davecordery59279]

Thanks to everyone for their input. As a starting point I thought of scratchbuilding OO gauge hence the smaller type lathe. Which out of the two I mentioned Unimat/Hobymat would be the better bet? Can anyone who has one of these lathes let me know how they find them with good and bad points.

daveC  

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

For 00 gauge a Unimat would be ideal.

If you can afford it, the milling drilling attachement would be useful as you can pitch out frames. A three jaw chuck should be fine with a tailstock chuck for drilling.

Also the Unimat is metric, ideal for 4mm to the foot.

regards David

[CirclipParticipant @circlip]

Seen the Fleebay prices of the £50 Unimats DC1 ???? Like every tool made for lathes is for a “Myford” on there. Can’t agree more DC, a Uni would be ideal, but if you look round, Cowell, Peatol, Seig, Taig  and Hobbymat are all ideal if you can get them at the right price, sadly, some peoples Grandkids think that Grandads hobby used machinery that is “Antique” and highly collectable, bit of a downer if you want to try to make something.

 

   Unless you go down the Chiwanese crap route (No, lets not have a brainstorm on that one — Again), your selection is a bit limited, BUT you can use the afore mentioned as a LEVER to state “A brand NEW one only costs ——“. I’m all for a FAIR price, but some need to get real.

 

  If you do mange to hit on a Uni with its original motor, take the motor orft and store it safely and try to find a scrap Variable speed tread mill and scavenge the motor and speed control and use that.

 

   Regards  Ian

[EddieParticipant @eddie]

Hi

The question is How much are you prepared to spend?

What would you like to do with the Lathe, this will determine the swing, distance between centers etc.

Do you want a metric or imperial thread cutting capability or both.

Then start looking for a lathe that has the capabilities that you require.

There are people standing in their suits, claiming the a Sports car is waht you must buy, you might need a run-around.

Eddie

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

You said “For a start..”.   Does that mean that later you want to go bigger?

 

The problem being that a lathe is just the start.. You make a lot of tooling, buy more, and in  reasonably short order you have a very considerable investment in one machine,  and you have to do it all over again, if or when you trade up.

 

 

Also, you can, within reason do small work on a big machine (depends relatively, how small and depends how big), but doing big work on a small machine is impossible.

 

Doesn’t matter what sized machine you have, you always want bigger at some stage.

 

Just a thought, …and you have to strike a balance somewhere..

 

(There is someone at our club who turns out very nice 5″ gauge stuff on a Myford ML10, which is not a lathe you hear much about these days. Pretty compact, and you could I’m sure do some very good small stuff on that too. Might be worth looking at if one as available. 

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 24/08/2009 18:05:00

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 24/08/2009 18:07:30

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 24/08/2009 18:07:45

[Dave CorderyParticipant @davecordery59279]

Thanks again for all input strangely enough I do have an oportunity to get hold of a Myford ML10 but felt it might be a bit advanced for me also not sure of its accuracy as quite an old lathe. That is why I mentioned the lathes that I did from a starting point.

 

My idea is to start with OO gauge but again dependant on how that develops I might want to go up in size. I notice that no one has mentioned the hobymat much is that not such a good lathe?

 

DaveC

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Dave I’d earnestly advise getting all the features you can. While you start you don’t have to use them. But, later, when you haven’t gottem and you wantem – youm knackered!

 

If you take my meaning.

 

 I doubt an ML10 would be too much worn. Unless a model engineer actually abuses something, a model engineers lathe is unlikely to be inaccurate. Badly set up possibly, but actually inherently inaccurate, probably not

 

How old is old? I have a Super 7 B. Its rising 30 years old, and its absolutely spot on – much better than a thou per foot in taper – but then one false turn of a spanner on one jacking screw and it would be so curved it wouldn’t see Xmas.  So before you do or don’t make a decision on a machine, its worth getting a good look at it. 

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Before buying my lathe I did a bit of reading,I got Stan Bray’s Introducing the Lathe,and during a look around a secondhand book shop I found a copy of Lawrence H.Sparey’s book The Amature’s Lathe.I then spent a number of months serching the machinery suppliers here in Christchurch NZ,partly to assess the different makes models,it also enabled me to bargan the price down about NZ$1500 (the lathe I decided on had damaged switch gear),when it arrived at my place-no damage.Its a TY-1324BH a larger size than I originly thought of getting,but I bought the largest I could afford and it has earned it’s keep,where as a smaller machine could not have handled the work I’v done on it.With hind sight maybe I should have swapped it in the mid 80s when I could have got a Colchester Student,but I was unsure about it being 3ph.

[ChrisParticipant @chris16039]

I am using the Clarke 500 lathe with mill head and find it to be a pretty good all-rounder. I know it’s Chineese and probably not perfect but is well built and big enough to do anything I will ever be able to afford. Machine Mart sell them so you are quite likely to be within easy reach of one of their shops to actually see one. Chronos also have a page on their site with good photos etc. The add on bits are rather expensive but you don’t have to buy Clarke add ons, I certainly don’t.

I am just getting into using the mill head and finding it as good as the lathe.

When I set it up after moving house last year I checked it by stripping a 2 inch length of 3/4 rod down to 3/8 using only the markings on the cross slide feed and auto feed on the bed. On checking with a micrometer at the end of the exercise the rod was within 1.5 thou. I have no idea if this is good or bad but is good enough for me. Under normal circumstances I would have been checking the dia with a mic long before getting close to the final cut.

Chris.

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Chris if that’s the thing i think it is, someone at the Taunton MES built a lovely 5″ gauge Hunslett type loco with it, and was pulling himself and a pile of kids too.

 

Models are getting bigger as capability gets cheaper, and for anyone buying machinery nowadays, I’d go for the biggest I couldn’t afford.

 

I’ve done tiny work on a 6″ lathe – just by sticking a collet chuch on it., but you cannot swing a traction engine flywheel on a Myford. -depending on scale I suppose.  Also size does matter because of the increased rigidity and imporvement in finish. (Very crudely stiffness increases in proportion to D^4 . So very small increases in dimension make a huge difference to stiffness)

 

BTW D^4 refers to a solid shaft but the general point remains good.

[ChrisParticipant @chris16039]

Thanks Meyrick, glad to know someone else is using one. They have been on the market for a long time but never seem to get a mention in the magazines. I have had mine for about 15 years although it has had little use until I caught this dreadful disease called ‘model engineering’. It’s only failing is a lot of what I believe is called back lash on the cross slide. ie there is a lot of free movement between forward and backward movements on the feed thread. Is this curable or just something to be expected from a Chineese machine?

As to your comment about machines becoming more affordable. The Clarke lathe/mill is almost exactly the same price today as I paid for it 15 years ago. That has got to make it relatively cheap.

Chris.

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Chris its plenty curable.

 

There’s the expensive solutions like fitting ball screws. Deluxe, quality result, best if you have a DRO, because you may  end up with a funny amount of thous per turn. (or .01s of a mm)

 

Step 1 is to check the handwheel/feedscrew clamp at the  x slide bracket. Make sure that’s adjusted properly. If you can, fit roller thrusts. Very cheap very easy, which is why I have never got round to doing it on the Myford (but it is properly adjusted!) All the Chinese kit and the Dore Westbury has them. Worth doing.

 

Step 2. The easy DIY fix is to knock up a tap in silver steel. ie thread cut and then gash the flutes. (or try Tracy tools) Best if it matches the threads very closely, bearing in mind the tap cuts the spaces. But if they don’t well its not a disaster. What you are going to make is a feedscrew nut extension, secure the two together with a couple of allen bolts (or even a bit of tube and Loctite retainer though that’s not as great on bronze feedscrew nuts as it is on steel) Pop a few shims in between the old nut and the new bit. Backlash gone.

 

If it bothers you. If your slides are properly adjusted, and you always come back beyond  ie you always physically drive the slide into position, then its not really a problem, except possibly on an interrupted cut. (But hten you just lock the slide)

 

You may find a new feedscrew and nut is pretty economical too. Quality has improved a lot.

 

If you need a tool ground up, let me know and the Quorn will oblige.Won’t take more than a few minutes. You’ll have to set it in a toolholder at the helix angle, or it’ll rub while you are screwcutting, (sorry Granny) but apart from that, cutting acme threads is no more difficult than any other.  Any of the screwcutting books will tell you how to work out the helix angle for your thread. That allows a setting flat to be ground, and the correct offset to be applied on the Quorn (in rotation) The operator just puts the flat up against a setsquare.

 

 

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 29/08/2009 22:32:02

Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 29/08/2009 22:35:10

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Hello Chris,I don’t know your lathe,but mine is a larger Taiwanese 1324 BH,the nut on the cross slide has a split about half way along it that can be tightened by a screw that is set in the nut parallel to the cross slide screw,don’t know if the Chinese have done this.IAN S.C

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Hi Dave,

I started with a s/h Hobbymat which I quickly found was not big enough. I now have a Warco 220 – 105mm centre height x about 500mm betwenn centres.

 

I would suggest that you get the biggest you can because as sure as anything, you will start cutting larger and larger lumps of metal.

 

Although I’ve no experience of Myfords, the Series 10 machines are relatively simple (compared to the Series 7 machines) but are slightly smaller at 3¼” centre height. If you’ve the chance of one, get it rather than any of the smaller machines. When all said and done you don’t need to use all the facilities immediately. And don’t forget that Myfords are UK based, and I understand have a good support system for spares & refurbishment etc.

 

Good luck,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Dave CorderyParticipant @davecordery59279]

Just to let everyone know I bought the Myford ML10 so the learning curve begins as from this weekend. Thanks to everyone for their input and I hope to post more to the forum but next time not as such a beginner.

 

Regards

 

Dave Cordery

[Author]

Posts