Lathe/Mill/Press question

[Jaepheth]

Not car related, but this seemed the most appropriate forum...

I like to do occasional hobby work that sometimes involves fabricating my own parts for various widgets or modifying existing things. I probably won't be making anything too complex, mostly just need to cut blocks of aluminum/wood/plastic/mild steel with reasonable precision.

Towards this end I'm thinking of getting a Smithy 3-in-1 Lathe/mill/drill press (Probably Midas line ~$2K) Any thoughts on my choice? Are there better brands at comparable price? Would it be better to get separate machines for each function (perhaps Sherline)? I'd like to keep price below $3K total.

I'm also assuming (As I seem to remember my father doing) that a machine and bits that can turn/cut/mill mild steel will be able to do the other materials without a problem. Or are wood turning tools designed different in some way?

 

[skyking]

It really depends on how much space you have for it and how much time. If you get into it very much those consumer-sized multifunction machines get frustrating fast. Low power, loose ways, not so tight tolerances, special cutters and parts. I see a ton of them on craigslist for cheap.

If you have the space a bridgeport type mill is the bomb.

Look at this and then look at the little ones.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/tls/2308592072.html

You need room and 220V, and rent a forklift to unload it.

 

[Eli]

It really depends on how much space you have for it and how much time. If you get into it very much those consumer-sized multifunction machines get frustrating fast. Low power, loose ways, not so tight tolerances, special cutters and parts. I see a ton of them on craigslist for cheap.

If you have the space a bridgeport type mill is the bomb.

Look at this and then look at the little ones.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/tls/2308592072.html

You need room and 220V, and rent a forklift to unload it.

Damn, I would love to have something like that.

 

[skyking]

For $1700, that would do a lot.

 

[PottedMeat]

remember you're going to spend quite a bit in tooling ( cutters/vises/measurement )

also there are milling attachments for lathes, but you can't really turn on a mill

and as said above cheap multifunction machines have many many quirks and poor manufacturing, you're going to spend a lot of time fixing what's wrong


my dad settled on a 9" lathe and i put together a milling attachment for it. no problems with plastic/aluminum, have to be careful with steels though.

 

[Jaepheth]

At what price point to multifunction machines generally become acceptable, and who makes them? Or are they not made or is the design fundamentally flawed?

I don't think I'd ever be making anything larger than what you could hold in one hand.

 

[rstrohkirch]

If you have the room I'd buy them each separately. A drill press is the most common and easiest to get an adequate model used for a good price. You need to decide on a work envelope to figure out what lathe or mill you need or want. You may be able to get away with a small bench top lathe but perhaps opt for a bridge port style mill with a good sized table. Or you may want to turn larger parts and can find a suitable bench top mill like a x2/x3/bf20 or perhaps even a taig.

 

[JCH13]

I would stay far away from the all-in-one machining centers. I would definitely get dedicated machines.

If a Sherline can handle the maximum dimensions of 90% or more of what you want to do, get one, or two. They are inexpensive, do a pretty decent job, and tooling/setup stuff is cheap because it's so small. Hell, for less than $5k you can get a CNC sherline lathe, mill, computer, and tooling. Even if you just get the manual machine you can upgrade it to CNC later.

As for mill vs lathe... I've always found more use for mills. One big reason is that 95% of the time i can buy a shaft in the diameter I need. Push comes to shove you can drill/bore a bar on a mill, and if you're tricky you can even turn the outside of bar down with a boring bar. A friend of my has, on occasion, tossed a piece of round stock in the matching collet, put a lathe tool in the mill vise, and turned parts that way. My point is that a mill can do basically everything you need it to, more so than a lathe can in my humble opinion. Like potted meat mentioned, you can make or buy a milling attachment for a lathe too. I just think that a mill is better at pretending to be a lathe than a lathe is at pretending to be a mill... if that makes sense.

 

[rstrohkirch]

It's actually only about $2500 for a cnc Taig or Sherline setup with computer/software and some tooling. Personally, I'd go for a $1500 bf20 and get something that can cut steel with issues.

 

[drnickriviera]

I was in the same boat as you 15 years ago. I decided on a full size milling machine. Bridgeport style, just like the one skyking linked. Mine uses 3 phase power, but I was able to make a rotary phase converter from parts I had + ebay deals. The most important part of the machine is the DRO (digital read-out) My milling machine was made in 1978 and it has some slop, but it doesn't matter with the DRO. CNC would be a nice addition. Keeps you from sitting by the machine baby sitting it when you have to take a good chunk of metal out of something

 

[Howard]

A friend of my has, on occasion, tossed a piece of round stock in the matching collet, put a lathe tool in the mill vise, and turned parts that way.

That is soooo ghetto.

 

[Jaepheth]

I'm liking the look of the Sherline stuff more and more...

Their size and weight would mean I could take them with me wherever I move fairly easily and I can still consider townhouses and apartments for residences.

Plus they have DRO models...

 

[JCH13]

That is soooo ghetto.

Well, yeah it is

 

[rstrohkirch]

I'm liking the look of the Sherline stuff more and more...

Their size and weight would mean I could take them with me wherever I move fairly easily and I can still consider townhouses and apartments for residences.

Plus they have DRO models...

If you want to cut steel at least look at a Taig, Sieg x2 or x3. The sherline is a pretty light weight bench top mill.

 

[Jaepheth]

Sherline's website says that they can handle steel, stainless steel, and titanium...

Are you suggesting that a marketing department would lie or exaggerate their products' abilities?

I may get the sherline package for light duty stuff and the digital readout, and then spring for one of those BF20s previously mentioned if I find I need something more serious (and once I'm more settled down)

I have plenty of time to think about it. The average time between me deciding I want something and making the purchase is measured in months (sometimes years)

 

[JCH13]

Sherline can definitely do steels, though it helps a lot to go slow and have nice sharp tooling. I had a sherline mill and a sherline lathe in the prototype lab at my college when I was supervising it.

 

[rstrohkirch]

Yes it can cut it but it's like saying I want to tow 2000lbs so should I pick a car that's rated at a max of 2000lbs or get something that can comfortably tow more?

The only reason I see to buy a sherline is if you absolutely need a DRO and want to spend about a $1000. The taig is a flat out better machine and costs the same. The only difference is it is manual or cnc where was the sherline has manual, dro and cnc ready options.

The sieg x3 is a vastly superior choice if you want to cut steel or stainless. It'll cut it 3-4x faster than that little sherline and it costs the same as the dro setup. The cnc aftermarket on it is big too so if you ever want to convert it to cnc there are plenty of kits available.

Go here and do some research once you decide what you want to cut and how fast you want to cut it. http://www.cnczone.com/forums/benchtop_machines/

 

[kornphlake]

we've got a little Jet 9x20 lathe at work, if I were to buy a lathe for myself I'd buy something quite a bit larger, but for what we needed it to do at work it was a good fit. Anyway, it will cut steel, better than I expected and with a little time tuning it up it is fairly accurate. If space is your primary concern I'd have little apprehension recommending a benchtop model, if your concern is budget, keep saving, a better machine is a better machine. Keep in mind that the distance between centers is literally distance between centers, not the distance from the face of the chuck to the end of a drill bit in a chuck in the tailstock. It's pretty easy to run out of travel on a little machine.

 

[Jaepheth]

One last question.

If I have to choose between SAE and Metric, which would you all recommend for general purpose? I would think it's easier to approximate SAE using metric than the other way around due to the smaller step sizes (mm vs 16ths or 32nds inch), is that right?

 

[Howard]

For what, tooling? Why don't you buy what you need as you need it?

 

[skyking]

One last question.

If I have to choose between SAE and Metric, which would you all recommend for general purpose? I would think it's easier to approximate SAE using metric than the other way around due to the smaller step sizes (mm vs 16ths or 32nds inch), is that right?

You're talking about cutting threads, etc? I have not tried that.

 

[rstrohkirch]

If you're talking about tooling, sae is generally much cheaper. It's also much easier to find starter sets for hss tooling in sae than metric.

 

[Jaepheth]

If I get a machine with hand dials. What would be the better to have the dials graduated in?

Say I have a rod I want to cut into some sort of custom bolt.
I want to cut the shaft diameter in SAE, but the head in metric. Would it be easier to do that on a metric graduated mill/lathe, or on an SAE graduated mill/lathe

 

[jlee]

I would go with metric on principle alone, but other than that I can't be of much help.

 

[Howard]

Say I have a rod I want to cut into some sort of custom bolt.
I want to cut the shaft diameter in SAE, but the head in metric

You would be doing something very wrong...