where do you find a good lathe for smith work

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gunnut310

New member
I'm taking a gunsmith corse & hope to take a mechenist corse this fall. I was woundering if you could tell me who makes lathes for gunsmiths & what the cost might be .I've seen them in Northern but I don't know what I need
 
There has been a lot of machining going on in Texas for a while.Economic hard times,you might find a good old lathe.

At a 10 in swing,you start getting a spindle hole size you can stick a barrel or a 5-c collet drawbar through.

Might be a South Bend or Clausing or Harrison or such,medium-light decent industrial machines.

Many have taper attachments,and most shops tool them with a 3 jaw,4 jaw,and 5-c setup.,and an Aloris type toolpost.Try to get the tooling with it

Good luck.
 
Be careful with some of the cheapo machines out there.... and there are a lot of them. Very lightly constructed and poorly designed. You could throw a lot of money at one of them without getting much benefit. What do you plan to do with the lathe? HiBC made some good suggestions, but there are alternatives, based on what you need.
 
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A small tip,most industrial machines will have 3 phase motors.Not to worry,there are devices called "phase converters" that work quite well.

One place you may want to visit online is MSC(Manhattan Supply)

They have about everything,and are quite decent to deal with.
 
A small tip,most industrial machines will have 3 phase motors.Not to worry,there are devices called "phase converters" that work quite well
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Yes, you can get a phase converter but there may be a cheaper way. Most gunsmith size lathes don't require lots of horsepower and the motor frames on them are pretty generic. You can get an aftermarket motor for less than a couple hundred bucks (less than a hundred if you know how to shop around). A good phase converter would cost more than that.
 
I thank yall for all your help sofar. I'm 36'' to a 40'' leathe to threed barrels crowning making small parts screws bolts pins. I allso want a small milling machine. what price range does a deacent leathe or milling michine cost. i know someone with a smithy for sale cheap but I dont want to through my money away on crap
 
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what price range does a deacent leathe or milling michine cost
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A new Bridgeport will run from $12K - $20K and up depending on options and tooling. Used copies, in decent shape can be had for ~$2K and up, but sometimes you can find a deal. My brother just ran across an old Lagun (knockoff of a Bridgeport) for just a couple hundred dollars. Nothing wrong with a used Bridgeport, Lagun, Sharp or Tree. Decent lathes are kinda the same, price wise.

People can and do make very nice, precise parts by cranking handles, counting turns and approaching from one direction to minimize backlash, but I would highly recommend that you get machines with digital read outs; they'll make your life much easier. Both lathe and mill should have them, but more important on the mill.

Tooling will likely cost more than the machine. You'll need/want stuff like vises, angle plates, indexers, rotary tables, parallels, clamps, collets, chucks, boring heads, face cutters, end mills, drills, taps, boring bars, reamers, carbide inserts.... the list is nearly endless. Then you'll need/want measuring tools... ID, OD and depth micrometers, calipers, test and travel indicators, bore gages.... ad infinitum.

Then you gotta kinda know what you're doing. Machining gun parts should generally be fairly easy and most people could learn. But developing good machining skills is not for everyone. Decent math skills, good spacial perception, patience and practice are required for success.

Not to discourage you and I will say you can piecemeal a lot of the tooling and learn as you go, but I want you to know what's involved here. It's really not just buy lathe, buy mill, fix guns.
 
The actual lathe and mill are cheap, it's the tooling that well kill your wallet.

The all in one machines do not do either job well. If you have no space available then you might consider one.

Older industrial machines can be bought fairly cheap, converted to 220v they can be a good choice. They tend to be large and very heavy.


Not to discourage you and I will say you can piecemeal a lot of the tooling and learn as you go, but I want you to know what's involved here. It's really not just buy lathe, buy mill, fix guns.
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+1 It can be a steep learning curve, there is a lot to know. The more you learn about being a machinist, the more you realize you have a lot to learn.
 
Get a good machine and a few pieces to start, and build all your vises, fixtures, and jigs while you're in school. Don't screw around. Take it seriously, or it will cost you big $$$ later. You will need a good variable-drive motor to turn both large and small work on a medium open bed lathe at the same time. That's more $$$, but well worth it. A digital readout is $$$, again-well worth it. You will need all kinds of measuring tools, but start with a good set of calipers and 0-1" mics, and one indicator each of .001", .0005", and .0001" graduations with a good mag base. Never skimp if you're in it for the long run. You can easily grind in a set of parallels, but put good money into tooling ans measuring equipment. Once you've found out what you want, there are plenty of auctions coming up weekly, since all our machining is now done overseas!:mad: Get a catalog from these guys:

www.use-enco.com

Ebay is also a great place for tool values!

-7-
 
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The all-in-one type machines like a Smithy are a compromise that severely limits their capabilities and the little Taig and Sherline type machines are really too small to be of real use for most gunsmithing tasks. For hobby gunsmithing use you might consider bench-top machines such as those produced by Jet, who's bench-top milling machines might be adequate. But I'm not sure their lathes will have a big enough spindle through-bore to accommodate a barrel.
 
Machines

Go to school first buy later after you learn how to do what you think and what is real is often very different. I would recommend you find a very good Gunsmith and offer to work for him to learn not get paid. Dan
 
Get a lathe with a fairly large hollow headstock. Then you can do jobs like cutting and crowning without removing barrels and without using a rest.

Jim
 
I happen to like Grizzly tools. They are about the best of the asian imports
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Huh? You can buy a Japanese 12" manual lathe for upwards of $50K, you must not know about high quality Asian machine tools. Better limit that quite a bit. We typically don't ever see the really high quality Japanese manual tools over here, lately they have been too expensive even for a production shop like mine.

I've purchased many machine tools over the last 20 years, Grizzly would not be high on my list. I feel Jet tools are higher quality than the Grizzly tools I've seen. That's not putting Grizzly down too much, all the cheap Asian machine tools will need tweaking in my experience.
Grizzly is not a high quality Asian machine tool. Jet and Grizzly and many others, even Victor among many other importers will cull the Asian market for bargains, they often buy real cr*p machines and sell the honor of their names for a few bucks.
Your Grizzly or Jet could be made in either Taiwan or PRC commie land, and may be either reasonable good or pure garbage. I bought a good name lathe from a much better named company than Grizzly or Jet and got a real lemon. I bought a cheap Jet 1236 belt drive once many years ago that was a great lathe.

Buy a cheap lathe like Grizzly, Enco, Jet etc.

Toss the dice!
 
I would personally stay away from the lathe/mill combos. Grizzley does make two "gunsmithing" lathes, that although I have not personally used one, seem to be OK for the work. They have large spindle bores to accept barrels, and a support system for the barrel at the opening. This is what makes them a gunsmithing lathe.

Has anyone used either of these machines?
 
Words that I'll never forget from an old machinist "A lathe is the only machine that can reproduce itself", I was an apprentice in '72.

There used to be a big Gov't auction in TN, don't know if it's still going on. All mil-surp and some really good deals.

For gunsmithing I'd not drop to some Chinese BC. Buy the finest that you can afford and don't think that new is better. I'll put an old South Bend up against a new Enco anyday. I'm also old enough to trick the Enco or any other into doing what I want.
 
I thank thank yall for all the input.This is a very good web site with alot of good helpful folks. It seems that I have my work cut out for me. The work is the easy part the money to make it happen is the hard part. I worked at a mill for 13 years and have been a power lineman for almost 13 years guns has always my favorite Hobie I hope someday too make it a profession
 
Huh? You can buy a Japanese 12" manual lathe for upwards of $50K,
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As I toured Dr. Mori (Mori Seiki Machine) through my shop, I told him I really liked the old Mori Seiki manual engine lathes I used to run.... too bad they didn't make them any more. He said " Oh, we'll still make those for people that really want them." I said "Yeah, but you probably want $60K for one of those things". He laughed and said "I think twice that much might get you one". :)
 
Anything "good" in manufacturing means expensive.

A Hardinge tool room lathe is almost tailor made for barrel work. They used to run about 20K but I've seen some going for under 10K on Ebay. Just gotta be diligent when shopping.
 
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