Reply To: Swiss Dollar Watch

[gerene]

David, I would like to add something about the Nano lathe, which is indeed Chinese (made by Sieg). I might have given the impression that this is not a good lathe but I have to clarify this a little bit.
The lathe in itself is not bad and the price/quality is rather excellent. However, it was advertised as a watchmakers lathe which in my opinion it is not. One cannot replace WW-collets or similar by ER-11 collets since they do not grip at the top of the collet and hence cannot hold a balance staff for instance. Since this was the first lathe I bought and used, I did not have a clue at that time. I also bought it because it was advertised to be convertible to a drilling and milling machine. That is true, but as you all know (and I do too now) different machines for each purpose are better. Converting from one to the other takes about 5-10 minutes and in real life is not that practical.

I mainly use the machine in its micro drill form and sometimes convert it back to have a lathe smaller than my Taig lathe.

The milling option is in my opinion really under standard. That is I was not able to mill even a small workpiece. That is probably my fault because it was the first milling experience I ever had but I know that the milling attachment is not rigid enough to really use it.

I probably should buy a watchmakers lathe sooner or lather and I am looking at the Sincere lathe for that purpose. I am just a little bit concerned about importing it into Europe because customs can be a real pain and import duties sometimes prohibitive.

Jan