Harbor Freight

[44-henry]

There are a lot of people out there devoted to the little 7" lathes a quick search on the Internet will find hundreds of hits. Don't let some of the posts here fool you, I'd hazzard a guess that most of these people have had little actual hands on experience with the HF lathes or machine tools. No it is not a Southbend, or Myford, but what do you plan on turning? Unless you plan on trying to attract subcontracts with NASA than I'd say it would answer your needs quite nicely. As far as accuracy is concerned it will probably hold it's own against a lot of the manure sold on ebay that have worn beds, worn bearings, and god knows what else wrong with them. Buying a 50+ year old machine is not trouble free either and accessories are antiques and cost dearly, fun, but not cheap. If you consider that the import lathes are kinda kits in themselves, and rather fun ones, you can buy it at a good price and tap the internet for knowledge on how to improve it and build neat accessories for it. By the time your done you will have a good lathe capable of good work, plus if anything goes wrong with it you'll have a pretty good idea on how to fix it.

 

[rayb]

NASA is buying muzzleloaders?????

:crackup:

rayb

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Very good point and well stated.

I have often mentally kicked my butt for ever getting rid of my Emco Maier Maximat Super 11 lathe/milling unit. Even at the then 1980 prices, I still had over 8 grand in it when finished tooling up to the nines.

No comparable unit today in my price range, so will likely be obtaining one of the HF 44142-2GVA 3-in 1 Multipurpose machines. Saw one the other day for $1295.00 with free shipping, at 640 pounds that is quite a savings unto itself.