Reply To: How to tell the spouse

[david pierce]

Ddhix,
Considering all of the lathes in the clock and watch class the Taig is one of the most powerful. With its large motor and ER-16 collets you should be able to turn a clock pivot in two passes (rough and finish). Using a WW lathe for the same task will require many light passes, especially with a graver. When I bought mine I ordered it with the ER-16 headstock only and did not get the conventional headstock. The reason is I also have a 9 inch engine lathe and did not need to use chucks on the Taig, otherwise, I would have gotten both headstocks as the normal Taig headstock is relitavely inexpensive. The ER-16 headstock comes with slightly higher precision bearings that allow you to take advantage of the high precision ER collets. I personally would not get the standard headstock and use a collet adapter. The entire set of ER-16 collets (CTC, MERLIN TOOLS) costs about the same as 3 Starrett WW collets. If you are also interested in gunsmithing check out the gunsmith lathes at Grizzly tools. I would think that you would want a larger lathe for this type of work. I really wanted a 15 inch engine lathe but since my machine shop is in a spare upstairs bedroom I needed a lathe that would not cave the floor in. The 9 inch lathe was 250 pounds and I was afraid to go any heavier. That said, I also have a couple of milling machines up there and the big one weighs 750 pounds. The little engine lathe that Harbor Freight sells is definately cute, however, regardless of its small size it is still an engine lathe and engine lathes work better when they are larger. Their function is to power through metal with heavy cuts and sacrifice feel in order to do this. The 9 inch lathe is as small as I was willing to go with that configuration. You will also find that if you want to start cutting gears there are a lot of accessories available for the Taig that allow you to do this.
david