Gunsmithing mini-lathe worth investing in?

[anotherwannabe]

I’m thinking about picking up a mini lathe to expand my home shop capabilities primarily outside the gun world.

Aside from brass cleanup/turning and misc projects is a minilayhe useful for anything on the gun front? indicating a bolt maybe?

i’m sure some folks here must have one they’ve accurized, what do you find it being used for primarily?

 

[Swampass]

Depending on the quality of the lathe, you could do bolt work, receiver truing, baffle work etc. just needs to be able to hold tight tolerances.

 

[fdkay]

You can do quite a bit on a quality mini lathe, including threading some Rim fire barrels.

 

[anotherwannabe]

hmmm - i never though about bolt work, that could be interesting. However I'm not sure I would want to work on a bolt unless I was sure I could hold under a thou in tolerance. Surprisingly, despite there being a big mini-lathe community, you don't hear too many people talking about trying to do precision work on them (at least that i've found).

 

[Ledzep]

I had a 7x12 Grizzly lathe for a few years. In almost every case I wished I had something bigger or if I did have something bigger I used that instead.

 

[ajridgedell]

If you dont have a bigger lathe and havnt used a lathe, it is a great place to start. That was the first lathe I had and you will learn a lot with it. With light cuts you can thread barrels if the bore of the headstock is big enough. After i bought a big boy lathe I threw the mini lathe in the scrap pile because it never got used anymore and had enough "repairs" that i didnt feel comfortable selling it. I dont see any reason one couldn't hold tight tolerances with it provided good technique.

 

[anotherwannabe]

the 7x12 is certainly the most common mini. when you say you wanted something bigger do you mean in terms of bed or HP?

little machine shop has their 7x14 and 7x16 variants as well and they're trivially more expensive than the 7x12 variants. I'm not sure if an extra 4 inches of bed really makes it "that much more useful" however. They do have slightly bigger motors and a few nicer features however.

 

[anotherwannabe]

If you dont have a bigger lathe and havnt used a lathe, it is a great place to start. That was the first lathe I had and you will learn a lot with it. With light cuts you can thread barrels if the bore of the headstock is big enough. After i bought a big boy lathe I threw the mini lathe in the scrap pile because it never got used anymore and had enough "repairs" that i didnt feel comfortable selling it. I dont see any reason one couldn't hold tight tolerances with it provided good technique.

I'm an avid furniture maker so have a pretty well equipped wood shop, but most of my metal working is for farmering on trailers an the sort but I'm comfortable tapping, helicoils, etc on the dirtbikes as things need repairs. Not exactly precision work and 1/32 precision is the most common tolerance I have to shoot for with wood including turning on my wood lathe. I've used a friends milling machine for a few projects on the bikes, like decking a head so I've got enough experience to want to start doing more on my own, I'm just not sure I'm ready to jump into something really big initially.

 

[Walt K]

Just a rough rule of thumb. Depending on your work and budget get the biggest, heaviest, lathe you can afford and or desire.

 

[Easy_E]

Just a second larger lathe would be helpful . It seems like I need the lathe every time something is in the lathe .

 

[fdkay]

There are mini lathes, then there are small bench top lathes in the 9x20 range (give of take).
That is where I would look.
Big enough for some decent projects, heavy enough to be rigid.
Something like this. Well worth the extra money over the mini
https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly-8-x-16-Variable-Speed-Benchtop-Lathe/G0768

 

[chevy_man]

Mini's are great for brass and aluminum. Typically end up with really light cuts on steel to keep everything happy.


I got to play with a mini-mill for awhile. It was great that it was CNC, because you'd have never finished anything going small enough to get good precision. Start taking bigger cuts and the deflection starts adding up.
It was fun to make something like a 1" flashlight mount. Start it and walk away. 6 hours later it's done. He bought it strictly for rc car parts.

 

[ken226]

Yes. Assuming your new to turning metal, the education you get from it alone will be worth the price paid.

You'll outgrow it pretty quick, and find a bigger one even more worth it.

 

[Rubicon Precision]

You can make small parts on a big lathe. It’s harder to make big parts on a small lathe.

 

[anotherwannabe]

Yes. Assuming your new to turning metal, the education you get from it alone will be worth the price paid.

You'll outgrow it pretty quick, and find a bigger one even more worth it.

Yea - while not a total novice I’ve never had to setup and maintain my own equip so 1k to learn seems like a better bet than 2-3k (let alone 5+) to learn.

The suggestion on the 8x16 grizzly is interesting but without being x32 that would keep me out of “easily” doing barrel work, so it seems like that is a bit of no man’s land between the mini 7x16’s and a big boy large?

is the rigidity going to be that much better moving to a 2kish machine? if it’s still something i’d have to trash/resell in the long run, bigger and heavier isn’t a selling point ?

 

[anotherwannabe]

Mini's are great for brass and aluminum. Typically end up with really light cuts on steel to keep everything happy.


I got to play with a mini-mill for awhile. It was great that it was CNC, because you'd have never finished anything going small enough to get good precision. Start taking bigger cuts and the deflection starts adding up.
It was fun to make something like a 1" flashlight mount. Start it and walk away. 6 hours later it's done. He bought it strictly for rc car parts.

That’s a good piece of experience - I’ve looked at the mini mills as well but was def concerned with the deflection. I’ve got three slash 4x4’s for the kids I am team mechanic on, I hadn’t even considered being able to make our own al parts (factory stuff is cheap) but I would imagine noodling around with making things for fun!

 

[fdkay]

Yea - while not a total novice I’ve never had to setup and maintain my own equip so 1k to learn seems like a better bet than 2-3k (let alone 5+) to learn.

The suggestion on the 8x16 grizzly is interesting but without being x32 that would keep me out of “easily” doing barrel work, so it seems like that is a bit of no man’s land between the mini 7x16’s and a big boy large?

is the rigidity going to be that much better moving to a 2kish machine? if it’s still something i’d have to trash/resell in the long run, bigger and heavier isn’t a selling point ?

It is certainly more rigid than a mini lathe.
Your original post was concerning mini-lathes, then morphed into doing slightly larger work like facing actions and truing bolts, now has moved to possibly doing barrel work.

That sounds EXACTLY like what I went through.
I wanted a small lathe to learn on, then figured that a somewhat bigger lathe to do some heavier work like truing actions. What really turned me off on the mini lathes was that most of them come equipped with plastic gears. Those CAN be upgraded via the mini lathe website to metal gears.

But, to kind of answer your question, the 8x16 could likely do sporter weight barrels, it wouldn't be ideal.
The main problem that I see with most of the smaller bench top lathes is that they do not have a separate feed rod.
Larger lathes have a separate power rods for threading and your other turning operations, this prevents too much wear on the threading rod.

To get something with that capability and sufficient spindle bore diameter to do larger barrels, you'll need to look north of 3000 dollars.
Like the WBL290F (note the other machines do not have the separate feed rod)

Weiss Lathes

That is the same machine sold by precision matthews here:

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/pm-1228vf-lb/

The advantages are a smaller footprint, lighter weight. Cost is nearly the same as for a gunsmithing lathe.
Grizzly, Precision Matthews and Smithy all make very nice entry level gunsmithing lathes. Just be aware, you are talking something that weighs 1000 pounds. Cost for the lathe is around 3500.
Each manufacturer includes different things in the package.

Tooling will far exceed the cost of the machine.
You want to learn and make parts and such and have limited space? then the 8x16 to 9x20 lathes will suit you just fine.

 

[ken226]

The lathes fdkay mentioned would make good machines to learn on.
They are just big enough that you wont outgrow them in a month.

The 20ish inch bed and small spindle bore is a great size for someone who wants to get their feet wet with some barrel work. Its a size that will force you to work between centers alot, and learn to use the tailstock and steady rest.

the next step up in size is the 12x36 class machines, which are all around better machines and not much more in price. Don't be afraid of a 12x36 class machine. You can move it around with a harbor freight engine hoist and heavy duty cargo strap.

 

[anotherwannabe]

Just to be clear - my intention here isn't to buy a lathe specifically to do barrel work. I'm not convinced that I want to go that far down the rabbit hole (yet).

But this is great conversation to be thinking about what is possible in the 3-ish classes of lathes. 7x16, 8x20, 12x36. Keep it coming!

A good point up earlier on tooling, which I had in my head as likely 100% of what I've got into the lathe, my understanding is that 75% of bars, indicators, etc won't be specific to the lathe, but if I start buying steady rests, etc those will be sunk into the lathe. Is that a reasonable expectation?

 

[ken226]

A new lathe will come with a steady rest and some basic tooling.

Check Craigslist around your area. Used lathes can be a great deal, and can come with a fortune in tooling.

 

[mcfred]

If you want to learn some things on a benchtop lathe then some of the recent fleabay offerings might not be too bad a place to start. I have a friend who picked up one of these: 8" x 16" ~1.5" spindle bore, $905 (or one very similar) and has been decenlty happy with his odds and ends after modifying it to accept a AXA quick change tool post and a serious cleaning after it arrived. I've used it to turn necks on brass and make a couple bolt knobs for fun.

It's got some limitations (metric leade screw) and it may require some minor customizations to expand utility:

Sub $1k lathe including shipping 8x16 with 5” chuck 1.5” pass thru - SilencerTalk

But you get quite a bit more than the Grizzly/Harbor Freight 7x14s but you'll still have to spend more on tooling for whatever you intend to do (collets, QD tool post, live centers etc.)

I don't know if it's capable of chambering a centerfire rifle barrel, but if I wanted to play I don't think it'd hurt to try. I don't know about bolt work that has to be cantelvered out over the bed though. Benchtop lathes are not very rigid. Sharp tools are your friend.

 

[anotherwannabe]

Thats a really interesting thread on silencer talk. The "normal" 8x16 grizzly only has .70x through spindle which doesn't really help for being able to consider barrel work in the profiles I normally shoot. 1.496 is more than sufficient however for doing it at the headstock or further out depending how you want to support it. I wonder if someone is going to figure out how to swap out the grizzly spindle for the one from ebay. Then you wouldn't have to mess with the metric screw or regearing stuff. That would make a 8x16 much more interesting to me since since its not "that" much bigger than a mini lathe but with significantly more capability for at least playing around with doing barrel work if I wanted to

 

[mcfred]

In terms of footprint I find the 8"x16"xø1.5" to be "cute" as it's tiny compared to what I'm used to. Personally, the difference ins size to a 7x14 is trivial, but the fact you can fit someting large through the spindle means you don't have to do work between centers without a steady rest. Doing work close to the chuck/faceplate means greater rigidity, better surface finishes and less tool/part deflection (precision).

You can probably swap out the leade screw. Then it'd be up to having the appropriate gears/ratios to cut imperial threads.
I've used these guys to repair an older lathe with worn cross-feed/compound screws. They're inexpensive, based in the USA and seems to work well enough for my purposes. I'm not sure what you do for a half-nut. If you're handy at fabbing things you can figure something out. You can also make a spreadsheet to calculate the best approximation to imperial threads (as mentioned in the silencertalk thread) so that swapping the leade screw is unnecessary or at least put off until a later date.

FWIW that "#40Fan" has a variety of jütoob videos on his 8x16 including teardown, clean-up and modification/addition of a QC tool post. Might be worth looking into. That species of 8x16 is not perfect, castings quality leave a bit to be desired, but with some attention to detail and a little work it can be made into a pretty capable machine IMO. My depression-era grandfather always said that it was a poor craftsman who blamed his tools for a bad job. If you get to know the tool's limitations you can compensate for the tool's shortcomings.

 

[Clark]

I have rechambered a number Tokarev barrels on a mini lathe from 9x19mm to 9x23mm.
Mostly I used it for 18 years to spin an arbor with a wife wheel. I have now given it to someone who is rebuilding it with sealed spindle bearings, a new spindle, metal shift gears, a new belt, a new belt shim, new spindle nut, and rebuilding the motor. Little Machine Shop sells parts. The sealed bearings were off ebay. I got the ones that This Old Tony recommended