Lathe for turning wheels

[rkcarguy]

I'm building a house so unfortunately I've got to stay on budget. Still lots of working years left for me as much as I'd love a SB heavy 10.

[Pontiacguy1]

I still say that for what you are wanting to do, the SB heavy 10 is a bit on the small side. For a 9" diameter wheel, you really need a 12" lathe or larger, especially if you are planning on doing a bunch of them. Look around at old equipment sales and for places that are going out of business. Often, an older factory that is going out of business will have a lot of that type of equipment in their auctions, and they do online auctions a lot of the time. You can register and then bid, although I'd go see it before I bid on it. Don't be too afraid of the 3-phase machines. You can build (or buy) a rotary phase converter or use one of those capacitor type converters to power it. A older larger machine may be exactly what you need.

Someone on here said it earlier, but I will re-emphasize this: Don't count on always being able to use machines at your workplace. I used to do that all the time and it was great. But, then that plant announced they were shutting down, and that all came to a halt once I changed jobs. I have upgraded my shop now to the point where it wouldn't matter, but for a while there it did. Just sayin' that things change and situations change and all of a sudden that may no longer be an option for you. By all means, take advantage of it while you can.

[rkcarguy]

One of the reasons is exactly that, we have a long term plan of replacing our saw with a more "production" version with feed and transfer tables which is going to force the removal of the big lathe and probably downsize from three mills to one or two. Also, there is something to be said for being at home in the evening and deciding I want to go turn something up and simply walking out into the garage to do it
I'm just going to keep my eyes open, truck and trailer at the ready and see what I can grab when a deal comes along. The schools here run their stuff into the ground, but I'll stop by and prospect to see if anything is slated to get retired that has some good bones to work with.

[Bill Shields]

in all reality...a smaller lathe to do 99% of your work and the occasional 'shop it out' when you have something too big...is a realistic $$$ option. There are lots of us with bigger lathes that can do that sort of thing. Heck, I even build the occasional boiler for a friend...

[rkcarguy]

So far, not much has surfaced that was within budget and viable for what I want to do. Big and sloppy or too small with in-adequate spindle bore. So I'm building a simple yet very robust benchtop lathe with manual controls and through spindle hole capable of 1-1/2" axles.
Chuck size and diameter over carriage ~10"
Maximum diameter on faceplate 15" x 2-1/2" thick.
Distance between centers ~26".
Cross-slide travel ~8".
MT#3 Tailstock with 4" of travel (I already own a nice chuck plus several large drills and reamers in MT#3).
I will probably test it with an 8HP Honda gas engine, and if it's solid with that kind of power I'll spend the $$$ and mount a 5HP 1800 rpm electric motor on it. Baldor makes them in single phase 220V at 20.3 amp draw @ full load.

[rkcarguy]

Almost all the parts are here and I ended up ordering the LH acme screws, bronze nuts and locknuts from Green Bay Manufacturing.
Most of the parts are all drawn up to be laser cut, with the exception that I'm trying to locate a complete compound rest instead of making one.

[dash9]

Bite the bullet and get a Haas CNC lathe. So easy to use. Got ours on craigslist from the University of Iowa It had .09 hrs on it. They run on single or 3 phase power. it's a TL3

[rkcarguy]

My budget was $2,000 or less lol, I wish!

[Steggy]

I'd love to add a lathe to my shop, but these days, too much of my (mostly-fixed) income is being diverted to the medical profession in various ways (no pun intended). I hate having to depend on others to do what I could do if the necessary machines and tooling were available. However, I'd like to continue breathing as long as possible, which means my priorities are food/clothing/shelter first, medical expenses second, and toys third.

[Steggy]

Bite the bullet and get a Haas CNC lathe.

Bullet? Looks to me as though you ate a battleship round. Nice machine!

[rkcarguy]

I found one of those online for the low price of only $29,000 lol
A couple days ago, after I'd finished ordering the rest of my acme screws of course, a 12" craftsman lathe popped up for sale for $850. Unfortunately the spindle through hole size was still pretty little, and it was an old leather flat belt machine and wouldn't have suited my needs. Staying the course with my build.

[rkcarguy]

So I have the carriage and cross slide parts in the laser cutting "queue" but have been holding off on the compound rest (for a month ugh) hoping I could find a suitable used one instead of machining one. Ebay hadn't produced anything of good value, lots of smaller ones with broken handles, damaged tool post slots, and/or lots of play in the screw that they still wanted $100-$150 for. I got lucky and found a mistitled one listed as a cross slide and nabbed it for $120. Its big...4-1/2" wide and about 12" long, off of a fairly large machine of unknown make. I've finally got most of my major pieces and can move forward with this build.