Lathe advice

F

Foster62

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have decided to buy a lathe. I have no experience with a lathe but I am mechanically inclined. For now I only want to do repairs and tips for my own personal cues. I have decided on a Hightower Cuesmith but shoud i get the mid-size or deluxe or micro. My question is how many of you have bought a lathe and wished you had bought a bigger one and how many have bought a repair lathe and are satisfied with it. Any advice
Thanks
Mark
 
Deluxe

I have a Deluxe and am very happy with it .Get Chris's book too... it's great reading, also his support is wonderful....I did not buy my lathe from Chris I bought it used ,but he has ansered all of my questions just the same.....He is a great source for info and tooling......Lots of luck....Ray:grin:
 
Foster62 said:
I have decided to buy a lathe. I have no experience with a lathe but I am mechanically inclined. For now I only want to do repairs and tips for my own personal cues. I have decided on a Hightower Cuesmith but shoud i get the mid-size or deluxe or micro. My question is how many of you have bought a lathe and wished you had bought a bigger one and how many have bought a repair lathe and are satisfied with it. Any advice
Thanks
Mark
Click to expand...

You are a prime candidate to take some machine/shop classes. Once you do, your question will answer itself.
 
Buy the Deluxe. I did and I'm glad I did. I've had mine since 1997 and no problems. Once you get started you will not be satisfied just doing repairs. You'll want to do more. Get the deluxe, all four dvd's and Chris' book. I promise you won't be disappointed.
 
Foster62 said:
I have decided to buy a lathe. I have no experience with a lathe but I am mechanically inclined. For now I only want to do repairs and tips for my own personal cues. I have decided on a Hightower Cuesmith but shoud i get the mid-size or deluxe or micro. My question is how many of you have bought a lathe and wished you had bought a bigger one and how many have bought a repair lathe and are satisfied with it. Any advice
Thanks
Mark
Click to expand...

if you only want to do repairs and mess around with your own stuff the Mid size ould be perfect and you can build a cue on that lathe also just not taper a shaft.
but one thing to look into is buying a original cue smith lathe from chris for 1495 and you would get the long bed and oak cabnet and if you ever wanted to venture out and build some cues you could do that also for around the same price.
http://www.cuesmith.com/index.php?menu1=menu_lathes&page=cue_lathe_deluxe

just my opinion.
 
Starting out with a "repair lathe" is not necessarily a bad thing, even if you think you may want to move into cue building in the future. You can start out doing repairs (which many cuemakers recommend) and find out if you have the patience, ability, true interest - motivation and talent necessary for the work. You have less of an initial investment and less of a loss if you deside not to persue the art. You can usually recover all or at least good portion of the original purchase price doing repairs. Plus if you purchase a good quality piece of equipment, you will always have a use for it even if you purchase a larger machine/machines later. I do not know many cue makers who don't own several lathes for many different tasks (as well as tons of other machines). JMHO.
 
> A cue-specific lathe is 100% SAFER than a full sized machine lathe for you right now. A Hightower is not as likely to hurt you with common sense as a machine lathe,which can KILL you if you do something wrong.

Something as simple as confusing the feed lever with the lever that engages the half-nut for the leadscrew when the spindle is turning at 500RPM can be devastating. If you do that,or have the feed rate set too high,and your cutting tool gets into the chuck,you might as well be holding a grenade,because SHRAPNEL will be the result. God forbid you don't have the chuck secured properly and it comes off at speed.

As was mentioned before,a machinist course will pay off in spades,as well as not getting you hurt. Tommy D.
 
Foster62 said:
I have decided to buy a lathe. I have no experience with a lathe but I am mechanically inclined. For now I only want to do repairs and tips for my own personal cues. I have decided on a Hightower Cuesmith but shoud i get the mid-size or deluxe or micro. My question is how many of you have bought a lathe and wished you had bought a bigger one and how many have bought a repair lathe and are satisfied with it. Any advice
Thanks
Mark
Click to expand...

My recommendation is currently what i am doing now...i bought a repair lathe and Chris' book. the book is definitely more than helpful, i would get it first and see how much is involved. With the full sized repair lathe you can build cues on it but really mostly only sneaky petes. You can order full spliced butts and partially finished shafts from most vendors and you just have to do the final sanding and finishing as well as joint, ferrule, and tip. this is a good start to the hands on work that goes into starting to build cues.

My full size repair lathe has a continuous duty motor with foot control. It has chucks big enough to handle butts and shafts. I just really got into doing this but in the first month of messing around i have done countless tips, just got into ferrule changes and joint pins and drilling new ferrules for cracked repairs.

I am well on my way on making my money back on the repair lathe, as it should only be another 2 month before i am seeing a decent profit from the repairs, and i havent even touched the apa leagues yet, where i can bring my repair lathe straight to the event and make even more money.

I have pictures availble of the set up and any other questions pm me. Thanks and good luck
 
Foster62 said:
I have decided to buy a lathe. I have no experience with a lathe but I am mechanically inclined. For now I only want to do repairs and tips for my own personal cues. I have decided on a Hightower Cuesmith but shoud i get the mid-size or deluxe or micro. My question is how many of you have bought a lathe and wished you had bought a bigger one and how many have bought a repair lathe and are satisfied with it. Any advice
Thanks
Mark
Click to expand...

My recommendation is currently what i am doing now...i bought a repair lathe and Chris' book. the book is definitely more than helpful, i would get it first and see how much is involved. With the full sized repair lathe you can build cues on it but really mostly only sneaky petes. You can order full spliced butts and partially finished shafts from most vendors and you just have to do the final sanding and finishing as well as joint, ferrule, and tip. this is a good start to the hands on work that goes into starting to build cues.

My full size repair lathe has a continuous duty motor with foot control. It has chucks big enough to handle butts and shafts. I just really got into doing this but in the first month of messing around i have done countless tips, just got into ferrule changes and joint pins and drilling new ferrules for cracked repairs.

I am well on my way on making my money back on the repair lathe, as it should only be another 2 month before i am seeing a decent profit from the repairs, and i havent even touched the apa leagues yet, where i can bring my repair lathe straight to the event and make even more money.

I have pictures availble of the set up and any other questions pm me. Thanks and good luck
 
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