Really great perspectives all the way around, thanks.
Aaron: the incremental slide up in cost kind of gets to the crux of the hobbyist’s dilemma, right? On the one hand, it’s just a hobby, so going overboard on tools doesn’t make financial sense; on the other, it is a hobby—definitionally an activity meant to give you personal satisfaction—so if you aren’t enjoying working with the tools, what’s the point?
With respect to your latter discussion about the potential merits/shortcomings of the super cheap lathes, that all makes sense.
And not being able to realistically work w/ brass puts it a step down from the kludgy cordless drill/dremel lathe proxy, even if you get a bit more precision.
Now I’m coveting ‘real’ entry level mini lathes/mills, and I’m not even really sure what I want to machine. Even if there isn’t much immediate application to scale modeling, maybe I’ll make small metal art objects and that will be satisfaction enough.
Unimats in good condition with enough stuff (chucks, tools, etc) to get started are going for $500-600 on ebay, which is about what a new Taig bundle costs. And which is twice what I wanted to spend… thus that incremental slide up.
Got myx11x17 sherline on offerup used 1homade tool holder 10 cutting tools with the milling attachment and a couple basic tools 450.00 and it works great still learning though.havent used the mill attachment instead i bought a benchtop drill press and an x y axis vice again still learning at 53 but im happy with the equipment just bought me a scroll saw too but like they say ya get what ya pay for and if you do buy a used one dont just turn on a say it works have the owneror your self make a small simple piece. To make sure it does what it supposed to do figured 1more comment couldnt hurt to bad
anyime you can learn on something cheap you should. If you want to learn guitar and you run out and buy a martin, take it home put it in the closet and never touch it. You are wasting your money. If you go out and buy a Squire and play it everyday, you will realize why you want a better one!
How can you tell if you even will mess with a lathe if you don’t have one? These are questions only you really know.
I have given many people guitars over the years, books, lessons, and they never touched the guitar again.
Learning to use a lathe effectively will take years. SO if you can’t even make yourself learn on this low end, low investment lathe. You will save thousands of dollars from buying a “better” one. On the other hand if you buy this cheap one and use it so much you ware it out, then you are fully justified in spending 2 grand on professional one.
I always get cheap stuff to learn on. Used, craigslist. Heck I am sure someone else out there has bought a nice lather they keep in thier closet and never use who would make you a really good deal on one.
Now this guy I have been watching is like some sort of lathe maniac, if you want to see what can be done with a lathe watch this guy. AMAZING
I tend to agree. It’s gotta be good for something, and it’s not expensive. It doesn’t cost much more than a good electric drill, and hey I’d like to hear how you like it.
Update: I finally decided that the lack of speed control on those cheepo lathes was a deal breaker. I was leaning toward just getting a Dremel workstation/faux drillpress. But then, my Dremel only has fast and super fast speeds, and doesn’t really get slow enough for a lot of styrene operations, which is probably the main use case.
But still having this irrational ‘need’ for some sort of machinist tool, I stumbled on this, for $65:
Gino Development 01-0822 0-8500 rpm TruePower Precision Mini Drill Press with 3 Range Variable Speed Control, 1/4"
It’s small. I haven’t measured the runout, but it’s precise enough for my needs and is pretty stable. It doesn’t take larger bits, but I’m not planning on drilling big holes.
So far I’ve used it to drill small (70-80 size bits) holes in styrene, brass and aluminum, and also as a cludgey vertical lathe, and it’s been completely fine. I got a set of mini mill bits, but haven’t yet had the need to mill anything. I know we’re not supposed to put sideways force on a drill, but I figure if the material is soft enough (eg: styrene, maybe aluminum) it would be fine.
The one thing, is that the slowest speed is still pretty fast. So, the whole rationale for why this over the Dremel thing didn’t really work out, but I bet this is a whole lot more stable.
I’m saving up for a Taig mini lathe, probably, but in the meantime this soothed some of my machinist longing.
You should be able to put small end mills into the chuck of that thing if you wanted to do light milling. If you got yourself a cheap milling vise like this you would have a crude but effective little mill. I bet with a little creative thinking you could chuck the work in the drill and figure out a way to put a tool holder in the vise to make it work better as a lathe.
The problem with “milling” with a drill bit is they are not made to cut with the side, an end mill is. As long as you didn’t get crazy I don’t think the drill would mind the side forces.
The other problem with milling with the cutter in a drill chuck is that there is a fair amount of vertical force on the cutter during most milling. The cutter can drift up further into the chuck as you mill. It only works with very light milling, taking very small vertical steps in softer material.
For Sherline lathes, they have a reasonably priced accessory that mounts the power head on a new, vertical problem. But the problem of drift into a normal chuck is still there. Fortunately, Sherline does offer a milling mandrell as another accessory.
I got an ER type collet set to hold my endmills, but that isn’t a practical option here. That collet set cost almost as much as the cheap lathe in the OP. A good chuck costs as much as that little drill press.
I would hope anybody using a cobbled together $100 “mill” has set the bar very low and wouldn’t push it very hard. Plastic, balsa, renshape etc should be ok with some care. I wouldn’t try working with brass or aluminum beyond the drilling that a drill press is intended for.