First purchase bench top lathe and mill

[Shinjari]

So I've been on the look out for a decent bench top lathe to fulfill my hobby duties and possibly some wood working.

I've seen the Harbor freight lathe and have heard mixed reviews. The reason I bring it up is because I found a nearly new one with carbide tipped cutters, extra chuck keys, and gears for tapping locally for $325 ($569 new).

While in school I had access and used a full sized lathe and cannot recall the brand and now i want my own for my garage to make parts for my RC's, paintball markers, real steel etc.

Guess my question is will this fit the bill or should I save up for something along the lines of a Little Machine shop brushless setup HiTorque 7x16 Mini Lathe 5100 - LittleMachineShop.com. Or the mini lathe from micro mark MicroLux 7x16 Mini Lathe

I've read that the grizzly/central machine and SEIG are more or less the same. Heck even the LMS seems to be a "better" SEIG with a brushless motor so no need for variable speed changing.

I'd say I'm trying to stay under the $1000 range without tooling and it ideally needs to be 110 as my garage does not have 220 yet, the Tesla 3 may change that since my gf put a deposit down for one and we'd need 220 for that. But this just reaffirms my need for a smaller unit as its not exactly the biggest garage and if she's parking in there thats the last thing I need is to feel her wrath about getting something that prohibited the Tesla purchase :lmao:

As for a mill I'm in a similar boat and have been looking at the LMS 3990 HiTorque Mini Mill, Solid Column with Air Spring 3990 - LittleMachineShop.com or micro mark MicroLux High Precision Heavy Duty R8 Miniature Milling Machine. The big difference I see is the micro mark is tilting whereas the LMS is a solid column.

I'd want to get the lathe first as it seems to provide me with more features I would want now than the mill would. Or maybe I'm wrong.

Thought about Taig for the mill as it can come CNC ready should I ever make that jump.

Thoughts would be appreciated. I tried to search and the sticky for initial machines hasn't been updated since 2012. There is so much info and I don't want my lack knowledge and eagerness to blind me into getting something that ultimately need to be replaced or be wrong.

Briefly looked at the 3-in-1 type machines so maybe thats the way to go if space is a concern? I just don't quite grasp the way the mill function works on one of these.

 

[BigSki]

When I had my little shop up and running, I had the Micro Mark 7x16 lathe and the mini mill. I like that the MM units are spec'd with imperial threads on the lead screws, so if you don't have DRO right away, it's easy to count "50" for each revolution of the hand wheels. I also liked that the mill used the very common R8 taper in the spindle, it made it possible to find great deals on collets and other accessories.

 

[Shinjari]

No more little shop Bigski, did you upgrade to a "big" shop? I do like that feature, I recall our school lathe being the same as it didn't have DRO, but the mills did.

So I'm guessing the micro marks have your seal of approval?

I'm comparing the micro mark and the little machine shop and so far the LMS 5100 has 4" chuck vs 3". Also the LMS does more thread range, 4-80 TPI (0.3 - 8mm) vs MM 12 to 52 TPI. Not sure how this matters as I'm not sure I'd do any M2 threads or 1-64/1-72 threads but I guess having the option is nice.

I also don't see how or why the MM is nearly 7" longer yet 4lbs lighter. They should be the same bed size of 7x16.

 

[BigSki]

Unfortunately, I was forced into a 'downsizing' where I had to sell almost everything I owned. The MM stuff was decent for "soft" materials, neither machine had enough mass to do any heavy steel work, the amount of deflection in the column and tool holder really kept mild steel cuts to around .005 per pass, any more and the cutters would just chatter.

When I get the ability to get a place of my own, I'd like to get another lathe and mill only this time it will be something beefier like the Grizzly stuff.

LMS seems to 'hot rod' the MM tools and squeaks out the last bit of performance out of them. They aren't bad little machines, you just got to know what the limitations are.

 

[Crawling Calvin]

I have the LMS Hi Torque mill with solid column and you have to remember this thing weighs only ~150 LBS but for its weight it is a decent machine! Sure it is an import so there is always SOMETHING to grumble about but compared to some it is actually pretty decent! Mine is custom CNC converted but if your looking for a decent mill it is worth the $$$... in my case even with the high-speed spindle upgrade (so it does 5K vs 2.2K) it still has some decent torque although most of my work is with tiny tools so I need ALL the RPM i can get out of it 8).

In the end these are light machines and will not have the mass or "oomph" of a bigger machine but if you can keep that in mind I think you can do a lot of impressive stuff. I have so much experience on 40 taper CNC milling centers I forget that the little stuff can't do as much but if your creative you can work around some of the limitations!