Small lathes

Who make small lathes like 6 x 14 besides harbor freight and grizzly ?

I have a Jet I would sell

Well, neither Grizzly or Harbor Fright make them. They are just labeled for them.

As far as I know most of them come from factories in China, Southeast Asia, or Taiwan. All very similar but not strictly identical.

As far as vendors who sell them. I am sure Little Machine shop has them, Probably Shars as well, and you can probably find several vendors on Ebay that sell almost identical lathes with other names on them.

MCS tools. Don't know what you are looking to spend.
MCS tools

Rockler and Woodcraft sell mini lathes.

Mine is a MicroMark Microlux true inch model. I like it.

TRK is right. Al most all the modern small lathes are clones of the same design. There are minor differences in the cross feed thread pitches but they are really all the same. Micro-mark sells one that has a true inch cross feed (0.04 inches per turn) vs. others that use a metric thread (0.0393 inches/turn). I have used them but have found that a lathe with back gears in the headstock is much more useful. The HF/Grizzley style ones cannot be run slow enough to cut threads decently. Even the small (8 inch swing) Jet lathes have this problem.

At the link provided, lathes 1,5,6,7, and 9 are the same design. Likewise, 4, 8 and 10 are almost the same. Lathes 2 & 3 are both serious machines, but cost 10x what the others do.

If you want a 6-inch swing, one of the older Craftsman/Atlas lathes is a good deal... you want a 618 lathe. Stay away from the light-duty craftsman lathe with the 1/2 inch spindle. If you have a little more room, a south bend 9-inch is a good lathe to get ahold of. These machines are comparable in price to the newer 7x12's, have a lot more features, and the south bend is truly a machine shop grade piece of equipment.

Good luck,
Dave
lathe reviews

Where are you located?

Dave41a has it exactly right, listen to him.
Those tiny far East lathes are extremely limited in usefulness and are extremely cheaply made no matter who puts thier name on the tag. Much better options out there.

45 years ago I knew an old man downsizing and living in a 28 ft travel trailer. I was lucky to buy this old atlas lathe. Around 1949 I think.

I would search for an old lathe made in the USA lathe before buying anything made today in China.

Grizzly Industrial is an American manufacturer of woodworking, metalworking, and other machinery located in Bellingham, Washington. The company was founded in 1983 by Robert showedalter and Stephan Michelson.

Grizzly manufactures exactly nothing. They are an importer of far east manufactured equipment. They have an upscale finish on the stuff they import but the metalurgy, fit and accuracy is no different than most other imports. I tried to save a bit of money when I bought my 8 long bed, spiral head jointer, been sorry ever since due to accuracy problems and thier support has been basically been thanks sucker we have your money and we don't care about your issues. I should have spent the extra on a Powermatic

Central mich

Did you see this South Bend model A in Clare?

https://centralmich.craigslist.org/grd/d/clare-south-bend-lathe/7545269956.html

I also have a MicroMark Microlux and like it. By adding a 4 jaw chuck I can get it down to a thousandth.

Plenty of mods on YouTube available.

Take a look at

https://littlemachineshop.com

They have machines as well as all the parts and tooling you would need.

Butch: Thanks. I do want to correct what I typed. The micro-mark is 0.050 inches/turn (not 0.040) and they sell metal threading gears as an option (plastic gears are standard) and some other upgrades. Little Machine shop and Seig also market these lathes. They are fitted with different motors, so some provide better low-speed torque which will be needed for threading--I think the brushless DC is a little better in this regard. Additional info provided for anyone still reading this (see link). Dave
Lathe comparison

I didn't know that.

Then find an antique made in the USA lathe instead.

I'll never sell mine.

I bought a Grizzly 2 years ago. I don't recommend them. Most of their mini's have plastic gearing. They sell a descent drill press, but their lathes not so much. I've done some business with Little Machine Shop. Knowledgeable and friendly staff.

Yep, I am aware of the work arounds people have come up with. If all a person ever wants to do is make a tiny washer or a bushing with loose tolorances then they can be made to do that work but you still don't have the slow spindle speeds and clutched headstock that is needed so many times in a repair type environment. There are tons of those little lathes and similar mills rusting in somebodies basement because they are so limited in usefulness. Most new buyers don't realize that the every day usefull capacity of a lathe is a
about one half the swing and bed measurments. Physically fitting a part in the lathe and being able to do anything to it is two different issues, as you likely know.

How small do you want to go?

Yes. The HF lathes I had seen all had plastic gears. They are essentially a disposable part. Plus, these lathes are listed as 6 inches over bed but have 3-inch chucks (some have 4), but either way, you're lucky to get 3 inches between centers. The Jet I used had metal gears but no low-end torque. Useless for anything much more coarse than 20 TPI, and even then it was tricky to cut a thread without crashing the lathe. I have never used one of the models with the DC-drive motor, so it is possible they are better.

Not all old lathes were good. I have a Craftsman/Atlas 12 inch but it is really an Atlas 10-inch that has been blocked up an additional inch when craftsman badged it. Over the carriage/between centers is only about 4 or 5 inch swing. Zamak gears and handles. Flat bed ways. It works, but my father had a South Bend 9C that was more machine than the Craftsman despite the smaller size. The SB 9A that was posted for sale in a link is a real Cadillac of a machine: power cross feed, quick-change gear box & much more. Monarch, Clausing, LeBlonde, Hendey, Warner & Swasey, and Hardinge are all good. Even some of the older Enco stuff is solid despite being import. Late 90's their quality started going south along with everything else. By then all the production machines were going CNC so the manual ones were shooting for a hobbyist market & price-point with quality being the first to go.

Many modern lathes are fantastic but are way beyond what any individual can afford. The good older machines are the best combination of quality and price for the home machinist. The 9-15 inch range (swing over bed) is the happy middle: too small for production work yet too big for many hobbyists so they can be picked up at good prices. Despite its limitations my 12-inch has paid for itself with repairs. Sometimes I surprise myself at what it can do.

Try to find a Hardinge engine lathe.
There turret lathe is designed for production work.
Mine has a set of collets and 2 chucks.
It is very rigid and accurate.
Jim

I had an older Enco geared head 12x36 in my shop for quite some time and it did satisfactory work. I bought a new 19x60 Summit lathe about 20 yeard ago. It is basically a Colchester copy made in Bulgaria. I paid for it on the first 2 jobs I did with it which was full length metric threads on supplied shafting. Was about 2 1/2 diameter and 40 of threads. Had about 300 of them to do. I kept the Summit when I closed my shop and use it just a couple times a month.

About 7 years ago I purchased a used Harbor Freight 93212. It came with same tools etc as new and maybe a couple more. I paid $200 for it and have had way more than $200 worth of fun with it. No, it s not a serious machine shop lathe, but for a tinkerer like me I ve really enjoyed it. The plastic gears I don t find to be that big of a problem. Later I got a chance and purchased a similar China made Speedway Series 7x12 lathe and a Micromark mini mill. I haven t got to play with these much yet but they came with A LOT of accessories and tooling all for $600. I m hoping to spend some time with them this winter. I have more expensive toys that I don t think I ve as much entertainment time with.

I didn't know Enco was still in business, I bought a drill press from them 41 years ago, it's a good tool.

Pretty sure Enco is just another importer of the Chinese machines these days.

Precision Matthews is another brand not yet mentioned. They are made in Taiwan.

Hello Dave41A,
What is your opinion on this Atlas TH54?
It is very close to me, I might go get it.

https://ocala.craigslist.org/tls/d/ocala-atlas-lathe/7563582186.html

This post was edited by DoubleO7 on 12/12/2022 at 10:13 am.

I recommend finding an older US made 12x36 lathe as a minimum. Clausings are good, Logan, etc. The Asian mini lathes aren't really useful for much beyond hobby model type stuff.

The larger Asian machines, 13x40 and up can be decent, particularly any from Taiwan, but they are in a different class entirely from the mini stuff, as in ~1,500# or better vs. under 100#.

The lower cost China ones tend to be referred to as a "lathe kit" and can be ok if you have the time and knowledge to tear them apart, replace all bolts and other hardware and re-assemble doing a bit of tweaking and fitting along the way. I was fortunate to get a lightly used Sharp 1340 (Taiwan) at a good price and it's been an excellent machine and needed little attention beyond a broken switch.

Tooling up properly for any machine tool will far exceed the cost of the machine itself, if you get a $2,500 used machine expect to spend $5,000 over a few years tooling up to the point where you have what you need to tackle whatever project you need.

(quoted from post at 14:11:46 12/12/22) Hello Dave41A,
What is your opinion on this Atlas TH54?
It is very close to me, I might go get it.

https://ocala.craigslist.org/tls/d/ocala-atlas-lathe/7563582186.html

This post was edited by DoubleO7 on 12/12/2022 at 10:13 am.

Click to expand...

The price is probably fair for what it is. It is a larger lathe, however it's quite an old one with flat ways. Most all newer lathes have inverted V ways where the carriage rides on an inverted V and a flat and the tailstock rides on a separate set of ways.

It does have a threading dial and looks to have at least some quick-change threading gears. You can be sure from the age that it is inch only, no metric threading capability.

Given the size class is about what you should be looking at, most tooling you might invest in would be transferable to a newer lathe in the same size class. It may be a reasonable starting / learning point for the low price.

Just don't buy any new chucks for it since it's almost certainly a thread mount spindle and a newer lathe will have a different mount. Modern lathes are mostly the D1 series cam-lock spindle mounts and that size lathe would typically be D1-3 or D1-4 mount.

Look up tubalcain / mrpete222 on youtube, he has a bunch of good videos that will introduce you to lathe operation.