04-18-2014, 05:32 PM
A lathe Achilles heel is swing. I have worked lathes that have turned 4 meter diameter steam rolls 7 meter long while on the same machine turned down 3/16th diameter pins.
In my opinion its the tooling. Nothing wrong with small lathes if you have real estate problem, buy the largest swinged capable lathe you can .. you can always match the tooling up or down.
precision is not sacrificed as you get larger or smaller.
One more piece of advice tooling for any machine in a machine shop will always be greater than ten times your investment of the machine itself.
Anthony..
In my opinion its the tooling. Nothing wrong with small lathes if you have real estate problem, buy the largest swinged capable lathe you can .. you can always match the tooling up or down.
precision is not sacrificed as you get larger or smaller.
One more piece of advice tooling for any machine in a machine shop will always be greater than ten times your investment of the machine itself.
Anthony..
ieezitin, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Jan 2013.