Lathe for tips
- Thread starter lockwood
- Start date
I concur with John here. I have a machine like that and it works fine. I had to have a great deal of help getting it to run like I wanted, and it would've taken me twice as long to figure it out unless I had my fellas here on AZ. I actually would suggest doing a significant amount of research before you buy.
Look into Unique.com, and Hightower cuesmith.com before spending money on one of those. A cue companion or a travel tipper IMHO would be money much more wisely invested than on a mini lathe like this.
I believe these are a great machine for doing tips, polishes and such. You do need to make some sort of steady rest to align the rear of the shaft but depending on how clever you are and what tools you have access to this can be easy or a bit tougher. I agree with the others about doing a search on this forum as this was just talked about a week or so ago and many times in the past. There are many pictures and such posted of different set-ups. With a little ingenuity you could also set them up for wrapping cues along with tips, polishing, removing dents and so forth. There are many accessories available for these machines so that if you wanted you can put on quick change tool posts, extra beds for holding longer lengths and numerous other goodies although they aren't really needed. I've got two of these machines and can't believe everybody doesn't have at least one. If you time it right you can catch them on sale and then with one of Horrible/frights 15 or 20% off coupons get one for around 320.00 or so. The last one I bought is a 7X12 for 320.00 plus sales tax. This is about 1/3 the cost of the dedicated machines that are actually worth having.
Dick
Dick
I sure hope they do a good job on installing tips. I've been using the hand drill/crutch tip method for over a year now but today, I bought a used Harbor Freight mini lathe (just like the one you have pictured) plus some tooling for $175. I've been looking over Craigs List for a couple of months and one appeared in my area. Took a lot of negotiating to get it down to $175 but I hope it will worth it. Good luck in your quest.
Now THAT's a find!!!
And should you decide it doesn't work like you want, it will be easy to recoup your money (hint, hint LOL)
I've been watching Craig's list here for a while, but nothing that small has come up yet.
Gary