Lathe recommendations?

[Mike Pickwell]

This is my first post on this forum so please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Mike Pickwell and I'm what you might call a hobbyist frame builder. In the last 18 months or so I've completed two of the well known frame building courses in the U.K. and since then I've produced two frames at home, one for an ex-colleague and one for a family member.

I moved house 12 months ago and I've just had a modest outbuilding/workshop built in my back garden which I'm in the process of fitting out. My annual sales bonus has just been paid in and now that I have the room and the spare cash I'm considering 'biting the bullet' and getting a metal lathe.

I like to hear what words of advice other frame builders have on this topic, what they find useful, what's unnecessary what works and what doesn't.

My workshop space is a modest 3.7m x 3.7m so anything enormous is out of the question. In terms of budget I was hoping to spend under £2,000 (GBP). Beyond usual frame building jobs it would be nice but by no means essential if I could use it for automotive repair jobs such as skimming brake drums etc.

Your recommendations please!

Kind regards, Mike Pickwell

[bambuko]

Mike,
Never buy new one, there is plenty of old iron that will do better job for lot less.
Buy as big as you can - big lathe will do small job, small lathe will struggle with job.
Don't buy one with main spindle threaded for chuck - you are better off with short taper modern spindles (safer running in reverse, easier to fit the chuck etc, etc).
Get one with three phase motor, even if you only have single phase at home - VFD will take care of it and will give you also easy variable speed (great for thread cutting).
Don't buy into the usual UK propaganda about Myford - they are overpriced c***p.
Don't buy into Chinese propaganda - you are always better off with secondhand industrial stuff (made in the days when we had industry).

The only problem is, that it is clear that you need somebody holding your hand when buying secondhand ... (there is plenty of old s****t out there as well).
Since you are in UK (apart from frame building specific considerations) you are probably better off asking on some UK based forums? for local advice?

BTW my workshop is 5.5m x 2.8m and I have Bridgeport mill and 4" centre height lathe and a lot more in... H&S guy would have a fit if he saw it, but it works for me.

[bencooper]

Plenty of decent Boxfords etc about - try G&M Tools or Home & Workshop:

G&M Tools - Huge stock of used lathes and machine tools for engineers and cabinet makers shipped worldwide
Home and Workshop Machinery - used Lathes, millers, drills, grinders, saws, tooling

Agree about Myfords - they sell for double what an equivalent non-Myford would because of the name. Also keep an eye on eBay for local bargains - my main lathe is a very good Denford that cost me £160.

Other advice depends on what you'll be doing with it. Threaded spindles are fine and there's loads of spare chucks and other stuff still about for them, though you might need to make a new backplate - no big deal, took me about half an hour to make one for a second-hand 6-jaw chuck. That's one thing I'd strongly recommend for bike building use, by the way.

[shand]

We only have a very small lathe and it does 95% of what I'd want a lathe to do while building frames and bikes. The other 5% could be done if I had a bigger bore through the spindle. As above, buy something as big as you can.

I'd also quite like a screwcutting gearbox. Also, a lot of older lathes will come with imperial dials so either get used to that, look for a machine with metric dials or fit (or buy a machine with) DRO. Consider tooling also. You'll spend way more than you think on tooling.

I've used these guys before :

PremierMachineTools

worth keeping an eye on their site. Some of the bigger Harrison and Colchester machines can be picked up fairly easily on ebay but prices do seem to be creeping back up.

Harrison-155 on EBAY

[Mike Pickwell]

Thank you for the replies folks. Some great advice there and it backs up my own thoughts, which is encouraging.

I've been down in the workshop this evening knocking up a hand file rack from some the angle steel offcuts left over from making my bench frame. It's starting to feel like a proper workshop now.

I understand that some of the larger lathes will have a spindle bore diameter big enough to take a frame tube which makes doing things like squaring off a head-tube super convenient. Is that something I should realistically be looking for or will that only be possible on the real monster machines?

[bencooper]

I've never missed having a bore that big - any conceivable head tube I want to use will clamp perfectly nicely in my 6-jaw, and for long things a bullnose centre in the tailstock is usually the best way to go. I quite happily do crown races by just clamping the steerer in the chuck.

Of course it's also possible to square off a head tube with a head tube reaming and facing tool. That's how I usually do it - the facing and reaming is the final stage with hand tools after the frame is painted.

With small workshops - mine is about the same size as yours - then there's a tradeoff where the possible advantages of a very big lathe are outweighed by the space it takes up.

[Mike Pickwell]

Thanks again.

I would always ream and face a head tube after brazing to take care of any distortion, it's more that I want to start with a nicely squared off head tube on the jig to encourage things to start out nice and straight. Eventually I would like to be able to do at least some of my mitring by machine to speed things up.

[Dazza]

Squaring HT or ST is essential if your fixtures use cones that fit the tube ends.
Also the head tube reamer will enter and start cutting if the head tube is square and the lug edges are square.
A lathe makes this easy.
but be careful to de-burr carefully

"a lathe is a beautiful thing"

[bencooper]

Cut the tube with a tube cutter, deburr it, bingo - square tube ;-)

[Broady]

Harrison M300 is a good all rounder, I have a Myford Super 7 and a Hardinge and the M300 probably gets the most use. Solid little machine.

[Mike Pickwell]

Thanks, the M300 would be within my budget.

[Doug Fattic]

One time saving task done nicely on a lathe is turning down the headset race on the fork. To do this on a lathe requires a bigger spindle bore than some smaller lathes have. Being able to use 5C collets is only possible with a bigger through hole too.

In the States a very common lathe is South Bend. The company name comes from the city of South Bend, Indiana about 80 miles east of Chicago and known mostly for the University of Notre Dame. Studebaker cars used to be made here too. I actually live only a few miles from the old factory which was torn down a few years ago. The name has been bought by Grizzly. I have a 9” model that has a small spindle hole (9/16’?). It can do most of the tasks I need for building frames but if I was starting again I would want the 10” Heavy model with a 1 3/8” hole so trimming tubes and turning down races is easier. The 2 lathes have the same footprint size.

Doug Fattic
Niles, Michigan

[adarn]

Good advice here. I would also add that if you plan on reaming and facing welded frames on it, you will want a belt driven machine.

[Bill Bryant]

What Doug said-- a larger spindle bore is very good for turning fork crowns and other tubes. I use my trusty Logan 200 lathe for all sorts of frame-building jobs and making tooling-- but it has a small spindle bore. I got it in 1985 and can't imagine not having it in the workshop, but if I could do it all over again, I would have kept looking for a Heavy 10 or something similar with the larger bore.

Bill Bryant
Santa Cruz, CA

[nicokosch]

Hi Mike,
In my experience on motorcycle industry and now on frame building, better a little machine but precise, instead a bigger but with some problem.
After searching some machine for my business, I’ve opted for a wabeco, a very good company in Germany that produce (no china rebranded) milling machine and lathe.

I bought the D6000 model, with 1,4kw motor (ther is also a 2.0kw)and I’m very satisfied with the purchase.
I can mitter all the main tubes, make tools, turning fork... almost everything with an very high accuracy

Nicolò

WP_20141023_001.jpg

[bencooper]

You don't need to have a through bore to turn fork races:



I can get 90mm of steerer into that chuck, that's going nowhere ;-)

[Mike Pickwell]

I'm finding this website a treasure trove of useful information: Machine Tools For Sale & Wanted

I like the look of this Harrison M250 although it's a bit over my planned budget: Lathes.co.uk Advertising page

This Boxford also looks OK but it's single phase: Boxford AUD Lathe For Sale

[Bill Bryant]

Yes, one can certainly turn the steerer and crown sub-assembly without a big through-bore by using a stout chuck-- have done that a lot, but I'd like to braze the entire fork crown at once and then do the crown race turning last and avoid the two-step heating process.

Bill Bryant

[William Chitham]

Probably not what most of you have in mind but I managed to file a crown race seat down pretty rapidly with this after I got bored of winding a blunt cutter round and round:
IMG_20150830_183214249.jpg
William Chitham.

[waterlaz]

Probably not what most of you have in mind but I managed to file a crown race seat down pretty rapidly with this after I got bored of winding a blunt cutter round and round:

Do you hold a metal-cutting tool bit in your hands only with some help from that hand vice? o_O