Mini-lathe from harbor freight.

[triggerhappy243]

Does anyone have one of these harbor freight Mini-lathes? I would like to know your thoughts of them.

[adcoch1]

My dad used to have one, did a few barrel projects with it. Its a great toy to play with, a cheap way to find out if you like/need machining, and a great little tooling lathe after you get a bigger one. Haven't checked current prices, but you can get your money's worth in education on one for sure.

[Moleman-]

If you're wanting to do barrel work you'll find even their 9x20 lathe too small for most projects.

[farmerjim]

I have one. It works. I have made a few reloading parts with it. I am a raw beginner I know nothing about running a lathe except what I have learned on youtube. It works great for spinning a WFT or WCT case trimmer. Also chuck a deburring / Chamfering tool in the spindle and you can do about 15 cases a minute each side.
Wait till they go on sale and have a 20- 25 % off coupon.

[jcren]

I don't have one, but in researching the hf mini, I noticed Grizzly has a 7x14 for less than $100 more money. I have heard many good reviews on Grizzly for hang for the buck.

[FLYCUTTER]

Don't waste your $500. bucks ! Open it up and you will see plastic gears. Buy a good lathe like Hardinge and make sure you can cut both Metric and SAE threads. Quick change gears are a must unless you like swapping gears by hand. Buy it used and you will save bucks.

[HangFireW8]

If a mini lathe is big enough to serve your needs, this one has no spindle gears and is dialed-in better than the ones right off the boat at HF.

https://littlemachineshop.com/produc...ory=1271799306

[P Flados]

The units on fleabay are made at the same factory as nearly all of the "mini lathes".

I got a 7x14 for under $480 delivered just before Christmas.

The plastic gears work fine and I am not worried even a little bit.

Swapping gears to cut threads is a major pita, but few will cut enough single point threads to justify a machine that makes this easy.

It seems the 7x14 comes mostly with a metric leadscrew (not good unless you want this) where the 7x10 and 7x12 come mostly with an inch leadcrew (better for most).

If you get one, plan on spend lots of time "tuning" it up before you expect it to properly do many of the things that you want it for.

I used lots of carbide tooling when I ran a 13" lathe as a part time job ~35 years ago. I bought some carbide tooling but found that HSS is just a better choice for this machine most of the time.

[country gent]

With good solid equipment of sufficient power carbide does good. on light equipment it dosnt take the vibration chatter as well as high speed steel with cobalt. Cemented carbide takes a different grinding wheel to sharpen and insert while nice may require special holders inserts for some jobs. HSS cobalt can be easily sharpened to do just what you want easily and quickly. Unless you working a lot in pre hard or the tougher die steels carbide is a extra expense.

The harbor freight machines will do a good job. As with most machines the added tooling is more cost than the machine is. One that can use easily found used tooling is a big plus.

The Hardringe is a great lathe very solid large spindle hole ( most are 1 1/2") and a solid bed. But chuck mounting is a hardringe special backer. Very accurate but also expensive. As is the basic machine a good used Hardringe 8" x 20" with threading feeds and readout will cost as much as a bigger Sheldon, Clausing, Monarch with much more tooling and tooling that's more available.

[jimkim]

Don't waste your $500. bucks ! Open it up and you will see plastic gears. Buy a good lathe like Hardinge and make sure you can cut both Metric and SAE threads. Quick change gears are a must unless you like swapping gears by hand. Buy it used and you will save bucks.

When I was in trade school we had two 13" Bridgeport gear driven lathes. They had nylon gears. I hated them. Given the choice I always used either the Bridgeport belt lathes, or the big 17" Bridgeport. Only thing with the 17 was, it had no emergency stop, or brake. It sure had some hp though.

Sent from my VS880 using Tapatalk

[jmorris]

No matter how large of lathe you have, you will find a need for a larger one.

That includes ones I have ran that require a forklift just to swap from a 3 jaw to 4 jaw chuck.

[DougGuy]

I gave $500 for a 1947 Logan 9x18, and about another $1,000 in tooling for it, this would be money a LOT more well spent than any of the Asian models regardless of who's name is on it.

[troyboy]

Most useful 500$ you'll ever spend. Great tool for what it is.

[dikman]

If you can find an older one, like DougGuy did, that is in good condition and NOT worn out, then yep, it would be a good buy. Those little Asian machines, however, are pretty good for what they are and in my opinion if that's all you can find/afford then go for it. Even a small lathe can be very useful and will allow you to learn the basics of using a lathe.

I bought a larger one (similar to the Grizzly G0602, 10"x22") and have found it to be an excellent machine, Made in China (of course) and requires manual gear changing for thread cutting but I don't consider that to be an issue as I don't see myself cutting too many threads. There are times when I would like a smaller one too as trying to turn small things in a bigger lathe can be a problem sometimes!

[Bent Ramrod]

As long as you understand the limitations, any lathe is a huge improvement upon no lathe. If that’s all you have money and room for at present, get it and learn from it. You’ll know when it’s time to upgrade and the knowledge you’ve gained will be well worth the price.

If you buy the enhanced warranty, you’ll at least have a longer period to see whether the machine holds up.

I started with a Unimat, the old style with the rods for ways. It taught me a lot, and I made plenty of useful small parts for my junkers on it. If you want a lathe, it’s a much better use of your time getting something that’s available now and learning on it than waiting for that widder lady out there somewhere to sell you her late husband’s Hardinge tool-room Model for $50.

[Ole Joe Clarke]

I worked 40 years in manufacturing, and started in the machine shop. I recently looked at the HF lathe and I wouldn't spend my money on one of them. There was about 2 turns of slack in the cross slide on the display model.

Look for a used South Bend, or similar brand name. The Hardinge is a top of the line tool room lathe, a beautiful, well built piece of equipment, but they will be pricey.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

[BlackRat]

I'm going to get my *** kicked but even an old Atlas would be better than the HF mini lathe. Depending on what you can find I would get a South Bend 9a, a 9/10 inch Logan with Quick Change gearbox or a Craftsman / Atlas 12 inch (also with QCGB). Any of these would require patience and taking light cuts and would work even better with HSS tools (however carbide will also work).
I have a Craftsman 12x36 and so far it serves me well as I usually turn small parts and the higher spindle speeds come handy.

For these lathes it's all about condition and tooling. There's a TON of info online but you if you're new to machining just look for Tubalcain on Youtube. He's got lots of tips on how to buy a lathe and about all the basic operations.

As a final consideration, if any of these lathes is in good condition and later you want to sell it to get a bigger machine it's very likely that you'll get your money back.

I hope this helps.

[country gent]

Change gears are a pain in a way. But with most things youll find out that a certain pitch is more predomenint and the machine will be set to that normally. Here for most of the use 14TPI is probably a good guess. The quick change gear box is nice in that its quick and there are no loose gears to store. As far as threading goes how involved do you want. Single lead, double lead, triple, metric, standard, and or timed starts. Threading is a broad term in reality, like turning is. There are many types of threads besides the thread form.

[oldhenry]

Triggerhappy243,
Have you ever filed a warranty claim with HF?

[Kenstone]

Bought this HF lathe to make a MC part sold online for about 1/2 the cost of the lathe.
So I made 3 parts and sold the other 2 to pay for the lathe.
I have operated lathes of all sizes in a former life and knew what I was in for though.

I had to do a lot of "tuning" on it and the spindle bearings are junk...I don't intended on threading with it.
There are websites that deal with HF lathes and some sell better bearings/etc.
You can search for them too.
Lots of info here. as well as links to more:
http://varmintal.com/alath.htm
More:
http://www.mini-lathe.com/Mini_lathe/Tuning/tuning.htm
I had to fab a carriage clamp as it would drift when facing and I turn by hand feeding the carriage, as the slowest power feed rate is too fast for me.
I have fab'ed a few reloading parts (bushings/sleeves, etc) but nothing precise or complicated.