Reply To: What Do You All Collect & Why?

[david pierce]

Chris,
Derbyshire no longer produces the 8mm watchmaker lathes, only the 10mm instrument lathes. The way they are set up, they can only be used with a cross slide but are perfectly suited to make extremely small extremely accurate parts. As far as I know the only companies that still produce the traditional watchmaker lathes are STARR, BERGEON (DIXIE), and SINCERE. I never heard of STARR until it was recently brought up on this forum but they make mostly large industrial machines as does DIXIE. Dixie is not owned by BERGEON they simply make the lathes for BERGEON. DIXIE is actually owned by MORI SEKi which is a Japanese company.
I still say the best way starting out with lathe to make watch size parts would be to go with the SINCERE. Even though the price has gone up since I bought mine, they are still fairly affordable; especially when compared with a BERGEON. if you go to OTTO FREI and see what a BERGEON LATHE like mine costs new make sure you are sitting down when you look at the price.
david