7x10 mini lathe

[1hand]

The Jan./Feb. Home Shop Machinist mag has a coupon for the 7x10 mini lathe for $349.99 at Harbor Freight.

Matt

 

[checkedout]

WOW... that's awesome.

Is the one on ad a good one?

I'm looking for a good lathe and mill.
Don't know what a good one is.

 

[George_Race]

I am not an expert at machining. I purchased the Harbor Freight 7 X 10 a couple of years ago on sale for around $300 at that time.

After a lot of cleaning up and adjustment I find it very suitable for the small precision work that I do as a hobbyist. Being able to reproduce small parts with accuracy down to better than .0005 with no problem.

Thee are a lot of good web sites out there that provide a lot of information on adjusting and setting up the Mini Lathe. Those were very helpful to me, at the time, in getting my little lathe as tight and smooth operating as possible.

I would not hesitate to purchase another one, knowing what I know now.

George

 

[black85vette]

The 7x10 made in China and sold under many different names is a pretty good hobby machine. You can get started pretty cheap. To really work well the lathe needs to be disassembled, deburred, cleaned, reassembled and aligned. All that info is available on this site and others. It is small enough to put on a work bench and stored under it or on a shelf. I bought one years ago and used it a lot until I got a much bigger lathe. It has some limitations but will do satisfactory work if you don't push it beyond its limits. Tooling for it is not too expensive and you can get every part for it at Littlemachineshop.com. Plenty of support from owners all over the web.

The other nice thing is that the resale value is pretty good. Lots of people would like one of these used and you see them on eBay and Craigslist at times. So it is not a big risk to buy one of these.

 

[checkedout]

Thanks for the info guys.

I find I get myself sliding down the slippery slope at times.

I'll find one that's really cool that's for $350.00 and then go "Ah HA!" there's one with one more feature for $410.00.... and of course... it progresses from there.

I'm such a sucker for those ads...

 

[BlakeMcKee]

Awesome, just ordered the issue! Worth every penny.

 

[1hand]

I geuss If someone wants My coupon, I will mail it to you. I'll eat the stamp so someone can get the joy of a new lathe.


Matt

 

[BillH]

I used to have a Mini Lathe. I never liked the fact my tailstock was grossly mis-aligned to the headstock in every axis imaginable. Also did not like the plastic gears inside the headstock. Also did not like the cross feed handle slipping when you turned it.
Much happier with my American made Taig lathe. Although much smaller, its very precise.
I also ended up buying a Lathemaster 8x14 lathe. HF sells the same one, they call it the 8x12. This lathe is 3 times the machine of the mini lathe. I like to think of it of having the same capabilities as my South Bend 9" C model in terms of DOC and chatter.