Watchmakers Lathe or Micro Lathe

[namonllor1953]

Either Taig or Sherline are great lathes.
For the money, you’ll do no better.
As far as holding tolerances go, I purchased a large, very expensive engine lathe that came to me with about .003″ runout at the headstock. I tightened up on the headstock bearing…BAM… dead nuts on. No Run out at all!!!
In his videos, Bob often states that…”well, I’m not going to go too deep into this right now because you can probably figure it out”…that basically holds true for any machining job. I’ve heard remedies for different ailments that made me say to myself, DUH, now what have I been thinking? That’s simple and it will work.
Taig is a great lathe. I also love Sherline. Go to both websites. It’s been a while since I’ve visited the Taig site but, I recently sent a student of mine to the Sherline site and if you have the time visit the online museum. It’ll give you an idea of what’s possible with these small machines.
BTW make sure to check out the accesories options because tooling and accessories will eat away at your pocketbook.
Hope this helps,

[david pierce]

Ren,
You have a nice shop. Would you mind posting some information about your lathe such as the swing, weight, spindle bore, horsepower and so on.
david

[namonllor1953]

Okay David,
I have three lathes at the moment and one milling machine.

Smithy BZ-239 Lathe
Swing over bed 12″ w/ gap removed 17+”, Weight 970 lbs., Spindle Bore 1.47″, 2 h.p., 220v., 37″ between centers, Head Stock Taper MT5, a little better than .0003″ Spindle accuracy.

Cummins 7 x 12 mini lathe
Brand new from crate it was taken completely apart and rebuilt. New HD Bearings from Boca Bearings, all gibs mirror polished. all movements adjusted for minimum backlash.
More info on minilathes @ minilathe.com

Moseley Watchmakers lathe
Racine motor, foot pedal
aluminum base

Smithy LX 329 Milling Machine
966 lbs, power feed x,y,z, axis, 1.5 hp motor, table size 40″ x 9 1/2″

Craftsman 14″ Bandsaw
Craftsman 12″ table saw
Craftsmans 16″ scroll saw

I’m in the process of resituating my work spaces. Once I get all things in proper order, I’ll post some pictures.

[dulwich2410]

Hi Steve as usual all the advice by the experts is excellent but don’t over look
the Sherline lathes all accessories available,(http://www.sherline.com) hope this helps.

Happy Hunting

John

[arutha]

From my own personal experience I have found it useful to have a 6mm geneva type watchmakers lathe and a Vario-Lux lathe (which can be seen in my shop pictures, you can’t miss it, its orange!). For re-pivoting I wouldnt want to use anything other than a 6 or 8mm watchmakers lathe. It can be done on bigger machines but for me it just feels better doing it on a watchmakers lathe. Now if I need to bore out a clock barrel so I can bush it, it has to go in the Vario-lux as it wont fit in the watchmakers lathe.
Both my lathes were bought used, I paid £250 for my 6mm Wolf Jahn and £350 for the vario-lux. I had no previous experience with lathes and have been happy with both of these machines.
It is very true, you do quite often get what you pay for but do some research and keep your eye out on e-bay etc and you can still find a bargain.
Paul.

[chris mabbott]

Ren, I drooled over the Smithy lathe for a long time 😯 nice machines and they have a good advertising/tutorial on the tube, which I thought was a nice touch.. Just too damn large to ship over the lake…

[bernie weishapl]

Steve don’t let the basic look of the Taig fool you. I have made arbors including winding arbors and as I said before I made a watch staff on it. I drill and use it for a mill with the milling attachment. Yea it is not a full fledged mill but it does what I want in clock work. So as I said don’t let looks fool ya.

[namonllor1953]

Hi Chris,
There’s alot of Smithy bashing on the net but I can’t complain. I’ve been a member of the Smithy group on Yahoo for quite sometime and all it’s members are happy with their machines, creating incredible stuff and holding toerances as tightly as any other machine out there. They’re great machines.

[stevefitzwater]

The video that Chris posted has removed any doubt, I will be getting a TAIG soon, I like the ability to up convert it to a computer controlled machine, being a techno geek, being able to use that when making parts intrigues me. One thing I have not shared here is my vision, the Brain tumor is wrapped around the optic nerves, and sometimes like to mess around with my vision, if fact that is how we found it, I lost my eyesight in the upper left quad of my left eye, the tumor pulled on it till I lost the vision, the vision returned a few days later, but it is constantly changing, I get a new pair of eyeglasses and within a month, my vision will change enough that I can not read, then it goes back to where it is good. Life is…

So far I am able to compensate for this handicap by using technology, like the digital camcorder placed above my work table, I stream it live on the monitor, and even use it to record the disassembly of clocks or watches (just in case I forget, and I do on the odd ball jobs).

[chris mabbott]

😆 Steve, I used the correct bait on that hook 😆

I think you’ll be happy with your choice…. Satisfied is a whole other thing, are we ever truly content? Of course the answer is a walloping….. NO. I’m as guilty as the next person for constantly wanting to add this, modify that, get this…. On and on it goes ARGHHH 😳

Ok, having said that, I say this NOT to change your decision about a taig, but just as general info… You can convert most machines to CNC, pc controlled… Whatever you like to call it, there are gazillions of models of micro to full sized servo motor kits on the market… As are the programs for running them..
Soooo, if you thought choosing a lathe was difficult, wait until you hit this part 😆

With that in mind, if you do intend to eventually go programmable, check out what kits are available for the taig. The chap in the vid has a very nicely setup work area, very neat and efficient.. I’m not sure if his automated kit was just that, a kit for taig, or if it was a modded version from one of the CNC sites dedicated to this type of thing.. Those guys are into just that, modding, the lathe seems to be simply the thing they choose to mod 😆 so these setups can be quite complicated if a person doesn’t have some electronics savvy..

Steve, I admire your outlook and the way you are working to circumvent the effects of the tumor.

[gerene]

Steve,

CNC certainly is interesting and can be a way of allowing you to do more.
I love my Taig lathe and I know it can be converted to CNC, however it is not something really straightforward. The Taig lathe does not have a lead screw and you would probably have to make one yourself or put a stepper motor on the cross-slide carriage.
The Sherline lathe is available complete as a CNC package including stepper motors, driver box and computer with preloaded software.
I have no experience with Sherline but I think that if you would be going the CNC path then you should have a look at what they are offering.
There are also aftermarket places where you can find material to convert Taig lathes to CNC which might be good, I have no experience at all with it, but the Sherline is available factory made with CNC.
Just a thougth. There is also a Taig User forum where you can find more info and I think there might be something similar for Sherline.
Maybe there are other CNC lathes like the Sherline or Taig but I don’t know them.
Hope this helps a bit.

Jan

[stevefitzwater]

as always.. thanks!

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