Lathe Recommendations

calboy8686 said:

Hey all,

Wondering if someone can recommend me a lathe. I would like to be able to clean my shafts, replace and shape tips, and possibly replace ferules if I absolutely had to.

Only stipulation is, it has to be very easy to use because I have never used a lathe before, and am tired of paying for maintenance of my shafts and tips.

Instructional DVD would be great to have as well. I've looked and found a bunch of them in all different price ranges, just not sure of a model or make of a quality lathe.

Thanks

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If that's truly all you want to do, one of the mini lathes from Harbor Freight would work fine. Of course you'll need some drive pins and misc other stuff but for about $400 one of those lathes will take care of what you mentioned.

calboy8686 said:

Hey all,

Wondering if someone can recommend me a lathe. I would like to be able to clean my shafts, replace and shape tips, and possibly replace ferules if I absolutely had to.

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Any of the CueSmith, Unique Products, Porper, or Brianna lathes will work for you. All of them will come with a DVD on how to use them.
Remember that the lathe is just the down payment toward all the other tooling you are gonna need to do what you want.
Drive pins, collets, sandpaper, glue, cutting tools, measurement devices, dust collector, plus the tips and ferrules themselves.
If the lathe comes with some or all of that ... then all the better.
Then ... sooner or later ... you are gonna want to make a Sneaky Pete from a house cue.

My recommendation would be a used lathe.
Look for something that can do joint work.
It is like money in the bank if you ever decide to sell it.

There are some videos on YouTube showing tip and ferrule replacement with a small lathe.

a midsize cuesmith would be perfect and you could recoup most of your money back if decided to sell

FYI....i have not heard good things about the shaftmaster.

I have a unique products lathe and that has worked very well for me. Take a look at their Travel Tipper, if you want something closer in price to the shaftmaster. Have heard good things about CueSmith and Porper too, probably can't go wrong with either of those either.

Mid Size Hightower all the way. Best lathe for small repairs, period!

BENFICA said:

Mid Size Hightower all the way. Best lathe for small repairs, period!

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I would agree if he were getting into it seriously. From what he said in his original post, I'd think the mini lathe would be a cheaper way to go, that would offer some versatility beyond cue repair. Not knocking Cris' equipment in any way, just thought it would be overkill for personal use of the type he described.

calboy8686 said:

To tell you guys the truth, I'm only wanting to do cleaning, re-tipping, and maybe tenon/ferule replacement. Anything beyond that scope, I really don't want to start to mess with. I was thinking about a midsize lathe at first, but tending to lean towards the smaller sized ones just because of less parts and things to adjust and worry about. Although I'm more concerned with quality, but like everything price does figure in to things.

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LOL ... That is just about the way every cue maker on here started out.

Dont kid yourself, if you enjoy pool and have a aptitude for cue work re-tipping and cleaning shafts is not gonna satisfy you for very long.
All your buddies will want you to do their tips and such.

WilleeCue said:

LOL ... That is just about the way every cue maker on here started out.

Dont kid yourself, if you enjoy pool and have a aptitude for cue work re-tipping and cleaning shafts is not gonna satisfy you for very long.
All your buddies will want you to do their tips and such.

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..........and then ..... and then ... and then and so forth and so on ad infinitum. One day you'll be adding on a room or insulating the garage and backing the car out forever. It NEVER stops. :groucho:

PM sent to you.

Scott