dream lathe ?

[seanandnik]

I have been doing repairs on a modified shaft spinner on my and a few friends cues and am pretty good at tips and ferrules. I am seriously looking at getting a repair lathe. I am new to the lathe world ( took machine shop in HS was last time on a lathe). I really love the beauty and quality of some of the old and new lathes I am seeing on some machinist sites, as well as bassel and hightowers sites. My post is this though:
If money were no object and you could buy or build any lathe whay would it be ? is there a top of the line lathe ? some holy grail of set ups ? just wondering and figured I would get a good answer here...

 

[mortuarymike-nv]

hi

i have a hightower (taig) lathe for doing tips and ferrules and polish shafts it dose a great job.
never a problem getting parts and taig parts are common.
ps if you are new to operating a lathe. at some time or another you are going to get your hand to close to the chuck.
better to do this on little lathe then full size will eat you alive a big lathe will shirt sleeve hair hands
mike

 

[Trent]

dream lathe

well my dream lathe would be a custom geared heaf lathe with speeds from 70-1250 with a short spindle that would have dual 6 jaw bison chucks 11 inches apart from face to face, power feeds.... and all the other pieces to complete it.

seriously though you could make your own taig lathe from parts found online cheap.

 

[Trent]

http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/tls/2552915332.html

 

[Tommy-D]

You'd be VERY hard pressed to come up with a lathe that would beat a Micro-Kinetics 1340. It starts out as a Birmingham manual machine,but has all the stuff needed to make it a full CNC,but can still be ran manually too.

All you'd need is to put a chuck on the ass end of the spindle and you are set as long as you have all the needed tooling.

If cost were no object at all,I'd be on the phone with Haas. One lathe,one mill
and you can make practically anything. Tommy D.

 

[KJ Cues]

That SouthBend isn't a bad lathe per se but hardly a 'dream machine'.
I've got one almost identical to that and would let it go for less money.
Now, my vision of a dream lathe would be a long-bed Hardinge.
Not really necessary for cue making though.

You did him a good turn in providing the link. It's close to him possibly.
All said & done, he could probably do anything he wants on that machine.
I'm just not a big fan of flat-belt drive.

 

[JoeyInCali]

A TIME MACHINE so I can go back to the 60's and pick up a brand new Clausing 5914 .

 

[conetip]

That SouthBend isn't a bad lathe per se but hardly a 'dream machine'.
I've got one almost identical to that and would let it go for less money.
Now, my vision of a dream lathe would be a long-bed Hardinge.
Not really necessary for cue making though.

You did him a good turn in providing the link. It's close to him possibly.
All said & done, he could probably do anything he wants on that machine.
I'm just not a big fan of flat-belt drive.

A long bed Hardinge with a big bore headstock cnc capable with individual pots for each axis, with a double compound slide.
I just love the ease of threading with a Hardinge .
I once used a Russian lathe with twin compound slides. One was usually set to 30deg for threading and the other was usually set to 45 for chamfers or 1 deg for precision turning.

 

[tsp&b]

To the original poster; You started out talking about a Cue Repair Lathe, to that I offer for your consideration the following....
Basic "beginner"... Good http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=173278
Basic w/4 ft bed... Better http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=190562
Professional Model… http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=196700
Large bore Headstock… http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=220107

As for the ultimate "Money is no object" Lathe... Let me dream a bit and I'll get back to you.

 

[JoeyInCali]

A long bed Hardinge with a big bore headstock cnc capable with individual pots for each axis, with a double compound slide.
I just love the ease of threading with a Hardinge .
I once used a Russian lathe with twin compound slides. One was usually set to 30deg for threading and the other was usually set to 45 for chamfers or 1 deg for precision turning.

Hardinge made a gun lathe sometime ago . I saw one on Ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SWISS-SCHAU...160639858746?pt=BI_Lathes&hash=item2566e1b83a
That for some small stuff ?

 

[Canadian cue]

I don't know why people make such a fuss over Hardinge lathes. Yes they have a nice spindle and are great for working beside the chuck. threading is nice to. The tailstock and trying to do any work with the centre is awful, because of the dovetail bed and carriage design the tailstock was designed as an after thought. For versitility an old monarch ee or older german/swiss lathe are way nicer to work on. That being said the older Hardinge with the split bed was a good design.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/hardinge/page6.html
Here are some of the toys I get to play with all day:thumbup: