Small Lathe Wanted

[PAULJAC47]

Hi All,Have been looking for a small lathe for project work .have seen these Unimat lathes and wondered if they are any good? i am looking for one of these or similar W.H.Y or even something a bit larger ? please Pm me with anything you think may be suitable that you have for sale...Cheers Paul J

[nanno]

Unimat is pretty much too small for anything. Get a minilathe, small enough to fit in even the smallest, but big enough to get small jobs done.

(Oh and normally you can sell them, for the same money, you bought them for - or more...)

Cheers,
Greg

[Garry.L]

Paul....

My Son has the small lathe below he no longer has use for if you're interested?..

http://images.mocpages.com/user_thumbna ... SPLASH.jpg

[PAULJAC47]

Just the job Gary what sort of money is he asking?

[jimmock]

Paul....

My Son has the small lathe below he no longer has use for if you're interested?..

http://images.mocpages.com/user_thumbna ... SPLASH.jpg

You Guyz just cannot be serious about anything!!!!

[PAULJAC47]

Unimat is pretty much too small for anything. Get a minilathe, small enough to fit in even the smallest, but big enough to get small jobs done.

(Oh and normally you can sell them, for the same money, you bought them for - or more...)

Cheers,
Greg

Any particular model i should look for Greg?

[jimmock]

Any particular model i should look for Greg?[/quote]

I started a fairly lengthy discussion about lathes in discussion section a few weeks ago.

Read it, it is full of info / advice from lathe owning members.

http://www.z1ownersclub.co.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=23416

[DogsbolloxofZ1B]

After months looking at old Myfords, grotty Boxford's and alike I finally took the plunge and bought a Warco 280VS-D lathe with stand, tools, rotary centre tailstock chuck etc and got a great price at the Model Engineering exhibition (Ally Pally) although I suspect you'd get a good deal any day of the week.

http://www.warco.co.uk/metal-lathes-met ... lathe.html

Better quality than its equivalent Chester unit.

[PAULJAC47]

Good food for thought lads have read Jimmocks thread lots of info there. will do some more research....

[nanno]

Any particular model i should look for Greg?

They're all pretty much the same, among the newer ones only the colour and bed length vary.

If I were you, I'd have a look at www.arceurotrade.co.uk as they have the classic mini-lathe (must be the 7x12) on sale for 380 GBP.
(Don't even think about getting the imperial one... it's useless, because all the leadscrews are metric, so it will never even hardly be as precise as the metric one - which can be finetuned)

Mine (back then) was a rebranded Einhell.

Do yourself a favour and get a quickchange toolpost and some indexable lathe tools and wonder, why everybody said it was difficult to get a nice finish with their lathes.

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue ... Mini-Lathe

Cheers,
Greg

P.S.: Also check out their prepping-manual for the mini-lathe as a) you will have to do it anyway with new mini-lathe and b) it will help you to familiarize yourself with it and understand quite a few of the mods, that are commonly carried out.
P.P.S.: Mine used to be this model with the brushless motor, not sure, if it makes one hell of a difference really, but the bed is longer, i.e. more room to work. But at over 200GBP extra, that's a whole lot of money for 50mm more room and a bit more oomph (which can be retrofitted anyway).

[PAULJAC47]

Thanks Greg will check out..PaulJ