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Lathe - How much is too much?

Scouseget

By Scouseget
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Scouseget Watch Enthusiast

Scouseget

Posted
Posted

Well, after much, way too much, thought and cogitation, I took the plunge and purchased a Peerless watchmaker's lathe from my best friend Uncle Larry. It was in great shape and came with a good selection of collets, some gravers, and a bag of raw materials to practice on. I've since rounded out my set of collets, made a few additional gravers, and bought a good but used Jacob's chuck.

I know Peerless lathes aren't as highly regarded as, say, Boley but I'm really impressed with the quality and design of it, and it had obviously been treated well during its life by a old lady who only ever drove it to church on a Sunday. Oops, I'm confusing my purchases; that was the car I bought with only 350,000 miles on the clock!

Anyway, I have been practicing on it for some weeks and am now considering upping the ante and purchasing a cross slide so I can use it as a conventional, albeit tiny, lathe. My question is, is this viable, or would I be wasting money by doing so, given the expense of purchasing a good, but used, cross-slide for a 8mm lathe, which will be around $600, Add a three and/or four jaw chuck for around $400 each, and it's now well over $1000 for attachments, over and above the cost of the lathe itself. A new machinist's mini lathe can be had for considerably less than that, and it comes complete with all attachments, however I'm really restricted in space (I live in a high-rise condominium) so, all other things being equal, would rather not go that route.

Why would I consider this, well I'd like to get into model building, small steam engines and the like? I certainly can't do this without some sort of lathe unless really ugly will do, which it wont. I'm not sure if a watchmaker's lathe is up to something as demanding as that though as, while they're really high precision, they lack cutting power and would probably stall out when making anything other than the lightest of cuts, especially in steel. 

I will be guided by opinions on this so please let me know your thoughts if you would be so kind.

Cheerio for now.

Roger Adams

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Geo Distinguished Member

Geo

Posted
Posted

Roger, unless your into 16mm narrow gauge railways, you would be better off with a small mini lathe with cross slide and attachments.  The watchmakers lathe is not ideal for what you have in mind, but if you insist on using it I would recommend the cross slide attachment for model engineering.

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