SpudFiles

Hey everyone

I'm keen to get back into making air gun's but i have realised my lack of appropriate machinery has limited me for too long.

I'm am looking at purchasing a small bench lathe and are wondering what the machinists here think of this one:
http://www.machineryhouse.com.au/L194

Just looking for some knowledgable opinions. Would it be appropriate for making small components such as hammervalves etc.
Is there any certain specifications i should be looking for?

Thanks!
James

look for a used one on gum tree or eBay, they are usually cheaper and you get tooling, but my question is, are you going to be machining small parts or do you think you will make bigger parts, i went through this whole stage before, wanting to get a sieg c2 but then realizing it would be better off getting a bigger lathe and ended up get a south bend model 9A (hercus are clones of south bends).
Alot of the older lathes are better considering they are heavy (which is good, stops alot of vibration)
And they are a solid unit compared to some Chinese crap.

Thats just some of my imput.
By the way were are you located?

That's pretty much your run of the mill mini lathe- plenty of information on them around. Not bad, but if you can make your budget swing this is much more capable. It's the baby version of mine (this) and should be a good machine.

http://www.miniaturesteammodels.com/fil ... v%2008.pdf

http://lathesonline.com.au/estore/index ... cts_id=890

Quite pricey in your part of the world...

I´m thinking about a lathe too, as my dad agreed in buy me one.
But apparently they are not sold here and nobody ships to here either

If you want something hard wearing and capable of cutting screw threads i would suggest the Myford ML7 or an ML10, I wouldn't buy these chinese lathes they seem poorly made, if you look around you may be able to find one for under £600

What I have been doing is using a variable speed electirc go-cart motor connected to the car battery, which i charge using a wall socket. I had to buy the tools separately but it works for brass and aluminum

Sherlines are good but for the price, it isnt really good and how small they are.
Your better off buying a my ford, south bend, hercus, Sheraton, herless and there are a couple of other brands but i cant remember, the ones that i just listed are a solid heavy unit which is really good, and usually the seller will throw in some tooling to.

The good thing about these older lathes is that you know you are buying some pretty good quality machinery, and they last for years, even though there not as fancy as the newer lathes, the older lathes will at least last way past the newer lathes. My lathe is 60 years old exactly, it was made during world war 2 and still works like a dream

Cooper

Thanks everyone
Yeah i have had a look at some second hand ones but haven't been able to find anything appropriate. normally ex-industrial asking for $2000+

CooperJS
Those brands are a good starting point.
I'm looking to making small hammer valves and check valves, just internals mainly.
I'm in Perth, WA

Living in Perth is pretty hard to find machinery, so buying a sieg would have to be your best option or something different.
Grays online is pretty good to. Sometimes they have work shop closures and sell everything.

Cooper

Yeah i certainly agree with that.
We have bought tools from the hare and forbes machinery house (the first link) before and i had a look at the lathe there and it looked decent quality and a good size but it might be better to look for a known brand like you suggested
ill keep searching. thanks!

if you only want to make small stuff

http://taig.com.au/index.php?main_page= ... 024708666f

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-TAIG-MIC ... 2c6241f82d

this one doesn't have a motor:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Taig-1017-Bn ... 4ab4740b69

jmez1996 wrote:Yeah i certainly agree with that.
We have bought tools from the hare and forbes machinery house (the first link) before and i had a look at the lathe there and it looked decent quality and a good size but it might be better to look for a known brand like you suggested
ill keep searching. thanks!

Bought my lathe and tooling there. The toolmaster lathes they sell (from my experiences) are bulletproof and accurate. Mine hasn't skipped a beat and it's been run HARD for several years. They do sell some cheap tooling but it's worth splurging on decent indexable carbide stuff. If you can't afford that then you can make do with HSS blanks, I wouldn't buy crappy carbide though.