Brand New LittleMachineShop Lathe Owner

[wmgeorge]

It does not need a quick change box!!! READ the spec's above this is a first class machine with bells and whistles included.

[Doozer]

It does not need a quick change box!!! READ the spec's above this is a first class machine with bells and whistles included.

No QC gear box.(read constant fiddling for threads and feeds)
No back gear. (read no heavy cuts)
Metric pitch leadscrew (hope you like keeping the half nuts closed for Inch threading)
I wonder if the feed screws are metric too with inch fudged dial graduations.
Spindle flange mount bolt on chuck (huge pain to change chucks)
This is absolutely not a first class machine.
It is a 3rd world machine.
If you don't like my opinion, I am sorry if I offended your fragility.

---Doozer

[oxford]

Doozer, serious question what would be your pick for a new similar sized 8” swing manual lathe for a 2nd world machine and a 1st world machine?

[Fasturn]

Wait. that thing costs $2700???????? What????? 😱

Yes the chi-com machines have gone up 25- 50% in price over the last 2 years. It's a SIEG SC4 Bench Lathe. Pretty easy to work around the issue of feed gears. Little gears drive the big gears to slow down the feed screw. I have the HF lathe and run gears , not shown to slow the feed rate. Small lathe, so I hand feed most things. Leave the Banjo set for 20 tpi which is the most common thread for me. Pretty amazing what can be done on these lathes if you are experienced ? Mine was $900.00

[Peter.]

It does not need a quick change box!!! READ the spec's above this is a first class machine with bells and whistles included.

It's a pretty good bench-top hobbyists machine but it's a long way off being first class anything.

[Fasturn]

It's a pretty good bench-top hobbyists machine but it's a long way off being first class anything.

Your both right... comparing to a Monarch 10EE, its junk. In the hobby machine types, its considered very good. I have studied these bench lathes for years and came close to buying the C4 . For me, the HF 8x12 was the best price and capable for my home shop. I worked many years on a 10EE. I preferred the La Blonde lathe. 10EE is a classic, but never my cup of tea. Hardinge HLV-H was the best in its class.

My last project : made with PURE- JUNK !

[Doozer]

Doozer, serious question what would be your pick for a new similar sized 8” swing manual lathe for a 2nd world machine and a 1st world machine?

11" x 26" Bench Lathe w/ Gearbox at Grizzly.com

Not my ideal choice at all, but...
This lathe is less money,
has a thread on chuck
has an Inch lead screw
has a QC gear box, but limited, because you have to swap
a few gears to get different threads, even with the lever selections.
It does have 127/100 gears for metric threads (not the other way around).
No back gear, but 3 pulleys with steps,
so you get a range of speeds and when speed goes down, torque goes up.

As I said, save some money up and get a 12x36" class of machine and be
way happier. Or find a good used American lathe, as listed above, with
all these fine features.

---Doozer

[Doozer]

Your both right... comparing to a Monarch 10EE, its junk. In the hobby machine types, its considered very good. I have studied these bench lathes for years and came close to buying the C4 . For me, the HF 8x12 was the best price and capable for my home shop. I worked many years on a 10EE. I preferred the La Blonde lathe. 10EE is a classic, but never my cup of tea. Hardinge HLV-H was the best in its class.

My last project : made with PURE- JUNK !

Tony,
Serious question...
After having the finest lathes around,
how much satisfaction do you get by using a HF 8x12 lathe ?
If I ever had to go back to my first lathe, a 10" Atlas,
it would drive me (more) stark raving insane ! ! !
I have a HLV-H and a Hendey tool & gaugemaker's lathe (like a 10EE)
and other larger lathes. So I know what smooth precision is all about.
(I have a friend with some Weiler lathes, and he says they are the
smoothest and quietest lathes in the world).
But anyhow, So really? You went from Cadillac to Kia in your retirement ?
Inquiring minds want to know. Or maybe you are sick of machining after
all those years, and you just want a knock around lathe.?

--Doozer

[Peter.]

My first lathe was also an Atlas 10". I was pleased to be rid of it. I didn't mind having to use change-gears it's just that they were so damned fiddly to change and set up on the Atlas. It's like someone deliberately designed it to be difficult.

[Fasturn]

Tony,
Serious question...
After having the finest lathes around,
how much satisfaction do you get by using a HF 8x12 lathe ?
If I ever had to go back to my first lathe, a 10" Atlas,
it would drive me (more) stark raving insane ! ! !
I have a HLV-H and a Hendey tool & gaugemaker's lathe (like a 10EE)
and other larger lathes. So I know what smooth precision is all about.
(I have a friend with some Weiler lathes, and he says they are the
smoothest and quietest lathes in the world).
But anyhow, So really? You went from Cadillac to Kia in your retirement ?
Inquiring minds want to know. Or maybe you are sick of machining after
all those years, and you just want a knock around lathe.?

--Doozer

No doubt the Hardinge would be nice to have, but this is now for hobby work. If you look at the cross slide you find a jeweled swiss tenth indicator. With a magnet to drive it, that junk will hold +- . 0002... no smoke. Doozer you know me, I have used Hauser, sips and hardinge holding dims down to .0001 which was my everyday work at TRW / NGC. I owned a injection mould shop back in the 80's with the real machines. Now I dont have the room or the need for commercial machines. Even I have to laugh at the stuff I make with Junk! Nothing wrong with Junk, just have to be more careful lol.

[Joel]

Download a copy of Southbend's 'how to run a lathe'.
All the basics are covered and you will learn a lot from this short treatise. Read it carefully and feel free to ask questions about anything that doesn't make sense.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+run+a+lathe+pdf&iflsig=ALs-wAMAAAAAYbzwWWXZIZ44MvfvEPHmg_dIcYv8c8CY

[BCRider]

P.S. I still don't understand the difference between the power feed and the half-nut. It sounds to me like they do the same thing.

Folks got off on other topics so I didn't see that this was addressed.

First off the link to the manual for the mechanically same machine is found under LMS's "Support" area. And HERE IT IS. Yes, the switch panel on the headstock is different. But changing stuff like that is pretty common on these import machines. But the mechanical aspects will all be the same. So this IS the manual you will be using. There may or may not be a new manual for your version out there.

On Page 13 of the manual it clears up your two feed speeds issue. The lever marked #4 is the half nut lever. The half nuts are used strictly for cutting threads with the single point tool. The feed from the half nuts is almost always going to be far too coarse to use for simple turning. Mechanically the half nuts lock the carriage directly to the lead screw threading and draw the carriage along the bed at the pitch speed of the thread. This is important for getting the proper spacing of the thread.

As already mentioned by the others the speed that the threading rod turns is determined by which change gears you use. The information on which gears go where and the tables used to select those gears is found on page 30.

Generally on machines with selectable threading and feeds the feed selector incorporates some additional gearing to reduce the speed that the carriage moves. That's your "second" speed that you found by using the lever marked #5 on page 13. Fairly often on these smaller machines where there's only the lead screw that screw will have a slot along the length and the carriage has a follower sleeve that rides over the lead screw but engages with a key in that slot. The drive then goes through some reduction gearing in the apron of the carriage to drive the carriage through the hand wheel and rack as if it were you turning the handle. This is quite a different operation from threading as it's typically done at something like a 1/10 to 1/20'th of feed that is used during threading.

On page 28 of the manual it describes cutting with the feed lever. It states that it comes with the gears set up for a fine feed. So likely with the gearing set up as 30-120-60-120 for A-B-C-D as described on page 30 under setting up the change gearing for threading. Looking at the 30-120-60-120 combination in the thread cutting tables I see that it is the combination used for. I'm a bit shocked that they don't have more of a table for other options. But you can generate your own if you wish by using a dial gauge on a magnetic base and turning the chuck by hand for between 4 to 8 turns manually and note the distance the carriage moves. Just pick a number that doesn't over run the dial gauge travel. Then do the same for the power feed. Divide the readings you get by the number of turns you did on the chuck to get the movement per revolution of the chuck for each control. The relationship between the two will give you the ratio difference between the "1:1" of the threading lever and half nuts and the geared movement of the power feed.

Knowing that ratio you can then use the threading table data to figure out what feed rates you'll get with each combination. And with a bit more math you can do up some other options depending on what gears you have and how you arrange them. If you're handy with spreadsheets you can even do up a spread sheet to do the math for you and thus generate speed and feed tables of your own.

For example, if the change gears are set up for 20 threads per inch (TPI) and there is a 1:12 ratio between the carriage feed rate when threading vs when the feed lever is used then you can figure out your feed rate. 20 threads per inch is .050" of advance for each turn of the chuck. And if the ratio between the threading and feed option is 1:12 then the feed rate for that combination of change gears would be .050/12= .0042" per turn. .05 for any cut other than threading would be pretty well insane. But .0042 would be a usable feed rate for a roughing cut.

I just grabbed that ratio out of thin air though. You'll certainly want to run the sort of test I described to find out and mark down the saddle's ratio between threading and feeding to permit your own calculations. The ratio is likely to be a lot lower than 1:12 given that the gearing listed for the two feed rates in the manual suggest pretty fine threading as well.

As for feeding manually vs using the feed lever? My own lathe at speed has a pretty noisy set of change gears. Even using sticky open gear and chain grease only quietens things down so much. So I do by far the lion's share of my turning with manual feeding. It takes some practice to develop a feel and consistency of movement. But not as much as you might think. And it's a WHOLE LOT more quiet when those gears under the end cover aren't churning away merrily.

I see that you posted that you're using HSS inserts. I looked at those and the price scared me away. But then I'm pretty good after a lot of years of practice at grinding my own HSS tools from blanks. You'll need to get there too since a lot of shapes for special jobs are simply not available. Or for other things like O ring grooves you'll go broke buying all the different inserts to do the different section sizes. So learning to grind your own tooling is a good skill to have.... And a LOT cheaper than buying HSS inserts. And even cheaper than the cheap carbide inserts. There's a wide variety of good videos on how to grind a basic turning tool. The two in particular that are well done are by Blondihacks and This Old Tony. My only warning though would be to not buy the odd looking tool set she shows at the 2:00 minute mark. Just get some mild square stock and some HSS blanks and dive in.

The cool thing about learning the shapes with mild steel is that you can test them on some aluminium round bar scrap pieces. They won't last long but that first few seconds tells you quickly if you got it right or not.

A good size to use on your lathe for general HSS blanks would be 5/16 square. It's a decent size for the size of lathe but it's not so big that it'll take a lot longer to grind compared to even 3/8 square. And anything you make out of 5/16 square will fit into some future quick change tool post you buy or make. So no future obsolescence to deal with.

Hope that helps you out. I might be repeating some of what the others posted.

[reggie_obe]

No doubt the Hardinge would be nice to have, but this is now for hobby work. If you look at the cross slide you find a jeweled swiss tenth indicator. With a magnet to drive it, that junk will hold +- . 0002... no smoke. Doozer you know me, I have used Hauser, sips and hardinge holding dims down to .0001 which was my everyday work at TRW / NGC. I owned a injection mould shop back in the 80's with the real machines. Now I dont have the room or the need for commercial machines. Even I have to laugh at the stuff I make with Junk! Nothing wrong with Junk, just have to be more careful lol.

I can't understand that logic. Especially in a time where fine quality equipment is plentiful ( Ak., Hi. and N. of the border excluded ), affordable and in most cases current owners a dying to see it sell instead of being scrapped.

[David Powell]

Whether a person starts with a junker or a gem does not really matter
What matters most is their attitude. If he or she really wants to learn how to use, understand and get the very best out of their machine then the way forward involves reading,( Eg the Southbend book already mentioned), watching good quality videos( Mr Pete, Abom etc) and making friends with, visiting and learning from others who are already successfully running vaguely similar equipment. Then trying things for themselves,
There are no shortcuts to acquiring knowledge and gaining experience, My journey was a long and hard one, but it can be much smoother with planning and care.
Regards David Powell,

[Fasturn]

I can't understand that logic. Especially in a time where fine quality equipment is plentiful ( Ak., Hi. and N. of the border excluded ), affordable and in most cases current owners a dying to see it sell instead of being scrapped.

Agree... No Room and not machining for a living. I kinda like the challenge. With a DRO on a Hardinge most can hold .0002, try that on a C4 ?