Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

I've been seriously looking into purchasing one of these the last few weeks and I have a question that will probably make my decision for me when I get an answer. I know the Mini Lathe (7-10 model) from Harbor Freight can thread, but do you have to physically change the gears in the machine to change the auto feed speed?

I have access to a large Kerry lathe at work (think its a 12x40?) but would like to have one at the house to play around with, just thinking that working on this larger lathe has already spoiled me. lol

Thanks
Jake

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

jakerz, I just bought the harbor freight 7x10 mini lathe and when I was taking it out of the box when i got it home there was a bag of gears in with the lathe so yes I assume that you have to change out the gears for some of the different threads. but the bigger lathes that some of the shops have have to have the gears changed out for some threading as well. so that wasn't a big deal for me as I will probably never be doing any threading with my mini lathe. but I really like my mini lathe so far.

Thanks bud, yea I think I'll just spend the $500 on my truck and use the machine I have access to at work.

Thanks again,
Jake

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

I have the HF lathe and I figured it was a spare set of gears. The auto feed seems to be the right speed for everything I have done so far.

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

I had the Microlux 7x14 mini lathe, it was a pretty nice little lathe for general hobby use. You change the plastic gears on the lead shaft to alter the thread pitch. I've used both the HF and the Micro Mark lathes, I'd suggest to spend the extra $$ and get the Micro Mark version, it seems to be better built and has better features that will cost you in the form of upgrades to get a HF lathe up to the 'spec' level of the Micro Mark. I'm not knocking the HF lathe, it just seems to take more work to get it to perform as well as the MM version.

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

The gears are for cutting different threads. ..........



the Lathe comes with an instruction book and the gear/thread chart is on the side cover. :mrgreen:

Well then maybe I need to read more. Never figured something from HF would have useful instructions.

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

For a tiny lathe it is fine its just for the $ its way overpriced honestly. In my *snobby machinist opinion* it needs some new gibbs for the cross slides and maybe some smoothing of the machined surfaces to make them better. That said if your willing to put the effort in, it is a decent machine.

In my case I am working on setting up one with a "turret" attachment so I can make lots of parts very easy and not have to mess with the pesky carriage at all. ;-)

As for the power feed/gears... ive cut threads on one before and its totally doable just be smart about it is all I can say. I don't like having to remove and stare at a gearbox but if your willing to put up with that it is good for thread cutting.

Overall opinion: It isn't what you use at work but if you can deal with the quirks about it... it can be a good investment. For me for the $ i'd just buy the spindle unit and make my own lathe :lmao:

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

I haven't threaded on mine yet since I mainly turn alignment tools for go peds, but.... IIRC there's a gear swap and selector at the bottom right ( right end of feed screw) that changes the feed as well.
Actually it's not a bad mini once you take out the backlash on the cross, I've had difficulty with lash on the compound though. I'm not mad , hell, the lathe has paid for itself and has plenty of life left in it.

Yea thinking I'm just going to order this one, $399 isn't bad, like I said I have access to about 20 lathes at work but they're all to big lol

Jake

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

I think I am going to pick one up as well. I have a LMS mill (also made by seig) and if the lathe is as good as that then I will be happy. It did take a little work to get the mill running well but for $400 its hard to beat. I am just tired of using the rotary table to make round stuff, so much easier on a lathe.

Does anyone know if you can get the 20% off in store without the physical coupon or where I can get one?

Re: Hobby/Mini Lathe question for those of you who own one.
 

Found this printable coupon if anyone needs one:
http://images.harborfreight.com/hftw...100112-aff.jpg