Buying a harbor freight lathe, any suggestions?

["N8"]

I hope your not referring to a clone of one of these lathes:

This thing sucks so bad. I would never consider turning anything accept false metal like aluminum on it. The tail stock cam isnt strong enough to keep the tail stock rigid against parts. The whole thing flexes like a sob so I cant take more than .005 on some materials. I had to face a part .015 the other night and it took 4 passes. wtf. They use nylon gears. huh? :

Weve already striped out one set of gears. There is just nothing good about this thing. Yes it has a thread dial, but you cant single point thread on it so why is it there? The only engagement of the lead screw is through the half nuts.?.? why would you do this?

I approached using this machine with an open mind thinking I was just doing little rc car operations on it, but I hate it. I am now franticly looking for a single phase motor so I can get our other lathe running so I can never look at this thing again.

 

[Joat]

I hope your not referring to a clone of one of these lathes:

This thing sucks so bad. I would never consider turning anything accept false metal like aluminum on it. The tail stock cam isnt strong enough to keep the tail stock rigid against parts. The whole thing flexes like a sob so I cant take more than .005 on some materials. I had to face a part .015 the other night and it took 4 passes. wtf. They use nylon gears. huh? :

Weve already striped out one set of gears. There is just nothing good about this thing. Yes it has a thread dial, but you cant single point thread on it so why is it there? The only engagement of the lead screw is through the half nuts.?.? why would you do this?

I approached using this machine with an open mind thinking I was just doing little rc car operations on it, but I hate it. I am now franticly looking for a single phase motor so I can get our other lathe running so I can never look at this thing again.

The head stock gears or the lead screw gears stripped?
The headstock needs tapered bearings and metal speed change gears, since the microlux version comes with metal spindle gears,yes half nuts on the lead screw suck for threading

 

[RyansRubicon.co]

Yeah, I have a Central Mach. (Harbor Freight) 7x10. Don't waste your time if you intend to do anything with precision. It does what I need to, which is soft stuff like delrin and nylon. It's just fine for that. With a good tool, it will cut aluminum but that is IT. It is not precision, it WILL chatter, and the backlash is bad. I use it maybe twice a year, the rest of the time it's on the bottom shelf of the bench collecting dust which seems to be it's best quality. Save for something better, you will thank yourself later.

 

["N8"]

The head stock gears or the lead screw gears stripped?
The headstock needs tapered bearings and metal speed change gears, since the microlux version comes with metal spindle gears,yes half nuts on the lead screw suck for threading

The lead screw gears stripped. But the whole drivetrain less a couple gears is made of nylon. So you would have to replace just about the entire transmission to make it decent. And half nuts are the standard for what you use to single point thread, but you don't use it to engage your autofeed also that's just dumb.

 

[warriorsimi]

hove you checked sherline products my friend has one and he loves it.

 

[brokeitagain]

ok so i went to the local harbor freight today to look at one of the lathes, they had the 7x10 on display, im not really very familiar with lathes bit i can tell these are junk,
So i guess my new question is how much money am i looking at spending to get atleast an 8x12 machine for, I could probably get by using a 7x10, but it just looked tiny and maybe not quite as small as i wanted

CLIFFS: i want to buy a decent 8x12 lathe with pretty much the same features of the harbor freight pile, i dont really NEED a threading capability, but i guess i can learn it lol

 

[Joat]

ok so i went to the local harbor freight today to look at one of the lathes, they had the 7x10 on display, im not really very familiar with lathes bit i can tell these are junk,
So i guess my new question is how much money am i looking at spending to get atleast an 8x12 machine for, I could probably get by using a 7x10, but it just looked tiny and maybe not quite as small as i wanted

CLIFFS: i want to buy a decent 8x12 lathe with pretty much the same features of the harbor freight pile, i dont really NEED a threading capability, but i guess i can learn it lol

Pretty sure the HF 8x12 is made by real bull?at first I thought was made by seig, but when I checked seig site, they dont list it? I know LMS would know who makes it.