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In all of the continuous discussion about lathes that goes on around here one comment that is made often, and by people who are clearly respected, that you should buy a bigger lathe than you think you need because you'll outgrow it eventually.

My question... as a lathe-outsider... is how will you outgrow it? Is it just matter of stem length and being able to turn bowls with longer shanks? I'm looking in the 9" swing range right now, FYI.

What about that size lathe makes you turn a wistful eye toward Craigslist and long for that extra half inch radius or more?

Thanks!

Jonathan

I bought this one 6 months ago http://www.warco.co.uk/metal-lathes-met ... lathe.html

With 280mm swing I can even turn a bowl with a bamboo attached on it.Plus the power cross feed is absolutelly amazing.
I don't think that you ever going to need more.

Don't buy anything with less than 250mm swing, you're going to regret it.

Michail

I use a 10x18 wood lathe for turning my stummels. I love the experience of turning them by hand on the wood lathe, and would not consider using a metal lathe for turning stummels (just personal preference for the wood lathe experience). After many years of pipemaking, I think I would "like" a bigger wood lathe, but I do not "need" a bigger wood lathe.

I have recently aquired a used 12x24 metal lathe which is a dramatic upgrade from the 7x12 mini benchtop lathe that I started off with. The only advantage for me of having this larger lathe is the larger bore through spindle. I can now fit my rod stock through the spindle and turn as close to the chuck as possible to combat material deflection.

That's my way of doing things, and more often than not, my way is outside of the norm... but there it is.

Nice! this is the 12x20?

BigCasino wrote:Nice! this is the 12x20?

Sorry, I meant 12x24... Where's my head???

Yep, that's it. Came straight out a friend's specialty machine shop. Made in 1982, she's not pretty, but she's tight, accurate, and runs like a champ!

there is something wrong with me cause I think the older the lathe the more awesome it looks.

I just bought a 9x19 grizzly that I am going to try and use I also have a wood lathe I was thinking of getting a chuck for it and using that for the stummel and the 9x19 for stems

Walt what brand is that lathe ? I am waiting to hear back on a real similar model from 1981 but with a Lux Cut name on it. He is asked $1700 and I told him I'll give him $1,000 if no one buys this week and he gets tired of looking at it
That comes back to the original question. I have a Jet 920 and it makes pipes pretty good. I still hate it. I dream of all the features of a bigger machine (wider spindle bore, collet closer, wider swing, heavier machine, cam lock tailstock, power cross feed). If you are making a few pipes a year, the 920 will do it all. A bigger machine with more features will do it all easier.

Alden wrote:Walt what brand is that lathe ? I am waiting to hear back on a real similar model from 1981 but with a Lux Cut name on it. He is asked $1700 and I told him I'll give him $1,000 if no one buys this week and he gets tired of looking at it
That comes back to the original question. I have a Jet 920 and it makes pipes pretty good. I still hate it. I dream of all the features of a bigger machine (wider spindle bore, collet closer, wider swing, heavier machine, cam lock tailstock, power cross feed). If you are making a few pipes a year, the 920 will do it all. A bigger machine with more features will do it all easier.

I think the Lux Cut is a Tiawan made machine. This is a Millport, also a Taiwan made machine. Consensus is, made in Taiwan is by leaps and bounds better than made in China. All I know is that this Millport is built like a tank! It has been turning stainless for surgical instrument fabrication for years. My buddy is getting out of the surgical instrument business (I worked with him in the 90's, in the "lab", which is really like a machine shop, only cleaner), and he was looking to move his machinery. I'm pretty comfortable with the deal I got on the lathe, especially knowing where it came from.

BigCasino wrote:there is something wrong with me cause I think the older the lathe the more awesome it looks.

That's just "patina"... It's what all lathes strive to acquire!

How interesting. I could've sworn that the lathe was a Taiwan made Jet 12/24. Looks exactly like mine only a different color. Same factory, maybe?

UberHuberMan wrote:How interesting. I could've sworn that the lathe was a Taiwan made Jet 12/24. Looks exactly like mine only a different color. Same factory, maybe?

Who knows, man... who knows...?

This ENCO looks exactly like mine too!

Yup its the same game today as it was in the 80's. Same factory with a different name slapped on the front. The Luxcut is made in Taiwan and it has a 5C collet closer. The drawbacks are it is 3 phase and no toolpost and not a lot of tooling So I'm a few hundred in extras to get it running. But if I can get it for $1,000 I'll sell my Jet and upgrade. One interesting thing though, the Luxcut is an 11X22.

Bigger lathe is better- more stable, usually better made. The extra length also proves useful.

However, I have a jet 9x20, and it works for everything I need. Do I wish I had something bigger and better? Yeah!

But if you are on a tight budget, a 9x20 will work- anything smaller begins to compromise your capabilities.

PipesByDesign wrote:In all of the continuous discussion about lathes that goes on around here one comment that is made often, and by people who are clearly respected, that you should buy a bigger lathe than you think you need because you'll outgrow it eventually.

My question... as a lathe-outsider... is how will you outgrow it? Is it just matter of stem length and being able to turn bowls with longer shanks? I'm looking in the 9" swing range right now, FYI.

What about that size lathe makes you turn a wistful eye toward Craigslist and long for that extra half inch radius or more?

Thanks!

Jonathan

Also, it isn't so much that you'll literally "outgrow" a smaller/lesser lathe, just that you'll pick up new skills and learn more and more about using it to your best advantage. As you learn all this little stuff, you'll start to wish you had a lathe that could do all of that with ease. It's the stuff you don't know that you will know that you want to account for when buying your lathe.

Thanks for the discussion. I guess I'll let whatever good deal I find dictate what I go with right now. As I've mentioned elsewhere I'm waiting on a guy with a South Bend 9A with the quick change gear box to break on price. If he doesn't succumb to what he obviously needs to do... that is accommodate me and what I'm willing to offer ... then I'll just continue the waiting game on something else.

I'll let the good deal dictate, but I'm definitely not going smaller than 9x20. I've made too many tool purchases in the past that were compromises and most of those have found their way to craigslist.

I think what is meant by "outgrow" is simply that you may find the lathe won't actually do everything you need to do somewhere down the road. Fir instance, if you're trying to turn the dome for a calabash, the jaws will not open wide enough to hold the material. You can spin the jaws around and use them the other way, but this sort of thing is a real pain, and when you do this for a living, you don't want to spend the time to reconfigure your tools and machinery to perform certain tasks.

Another example would be that you're making a very wide shank pipe with a flush-fit stem, and you need to chuck a 4" piece of 50mm rod stock up in the lathe. On a 9" x 20" lathe, the material will be sticking out 3 1/2" from the face of the chuck and it is almost impossible to turn it without chatter. With a larger lathe, you can just slide it all the way in, and cut much nearer to the chuck.

Another issue can be facing long pipes with curved shanks after hand drilling. They may spin freely over the ways, but when you slide the carriage down to face the shank, the bowl won't clear the cross slide. Again, with some ingenuity, you can work around this, but it's cumbersome, dangerous, and inefficient. If this happens once every five years, and you're just doing it as a hobby, then it's no big deal, but if you run up against this problem on every 10th pipe, then you will have a tendency to tailor your work to suit your tool limitations rather than putting all your focus onto making great pipes.

Additionally, when you're 6' 2", a BD920N is about eight inches too short to work at comfortably, and you will end up in traction eventually. The Jet lathes and their stands are also very light in weight, and when you turn something large and off center, you'll get a lot of vibration. This is both dangerous and inefficient as it leaves you with a lot of sanding to take out the chatter. You can turn the stand on its back and fill both compartments with cement, but then you lose all your storage space. You can also pour a small slab to raise the lathe's height, but again all of these things are solutions for which there is no problem if you buy a big heavy stable lathe.

Can you use a 9" x 20" and make great pipes? Absolutely, you can. Am I thankful for my 12x36's and my 11x27's? Every day.

That said, I think there's a lot of wisdom in "working your way up" when it comes to tooling. You'll learn how to do certain things you wouldn't learn if you started out with a Norm Abrams style shop from the get-go.

TJ

Thanks Todd. That's the kind of stuff I was wondering about.

Are you an apologist for any particular brand? I'd like to outfit my shop with stuff that I won't regret, and thankfully I'm at a point where it doesn't take me half a year or more to save up enough to make a big purchase. My goal is to make this my full-time gig over the next few years, and I've got my wife on board with that goal so I no longer have to beg and plead to spend money on good tooling. That being said, I am probably not going to purchase anything new right now. I'm in Central IL, and enough lathes pop up on craigslist to encourage me to be patient. I've already passed up on a few Jet 9x20s, and a couple of South Bend 10 heavy lathes (kinda wishing I hadn't on those now). I'm wary of import brands from my experience with my very ill-conceived purchase of a too small lathe from the prestigious and five-star outfit Harbor Freight, but I recognize with the right guidance an import lathe can end up being a good bargain.

Thanks again.

Jonathan

Jonathan,

I've had great experiences with Precision Matthews. This is an imported lathe that's made in a factory with German engineers and engineering standards. You can get the same lathe, branded as a Knuth for several thousand dollars more. I have owned two 12x36's and an 1127VF. All of them are solidly built, and the tolerances are very exacting.

TJ

Thanks for the tip.

Question... the 12x36 weighs over a thousand pounds, and this thus applies to any lathe that size...how does one get that monster into position? I don't have a forklift, or a pallet jack, or four strong friends named Hercules.

You should be able to rent some type of dolly (appliance, piano or something of the sort) to move it. Other than that you could call a moving company. It will cost ya, but they will get the job done.