Frank,
I recently purchased a used Mid America Pool lathe with 4' bed that Todd sells. So far I have used it to retip, replace ferrules, replace tenon (required purchase of drill chuck) and we have cleaned shafts. If will also accomodate a house cue although we have not put a house cue in it, we have used a 2 pc pawn shop $5 cue and it spun full length just fine to do tip work. That cue has been invaluable to practice tipping, ferrules, and tenon replacements.
The lathe is light weight and affordable. Todd's customer service is as good as everyone has indicated. I feel this was the perfect fit for my partner and I to learn and within a week our workmanship is good enough that I would do other players work. The correct tools make the learning curve quite a bit easier.
In order to make 2 pc cues from house cues and to do butt cap work, the large bore headstock would be required, but that could be an expansion later down the road. On thing I would really recommend is some form of DVD for learning. The process is not hard, but overlooking a small step can have big consequences. For instance, my first tip I didn't have completely centered and it took a LONG time to get the tip flush to the ferrule.
Good luck and have fun, it is a pretty cool experience learning how to do repair work.
This is the same lathe I bought when I was in your shoes. Great lathe for doing exactly what you mentioned you were interested in doing.. It is also very portable.. I mainly keep it in my "work shop", but I've taken it over to the place I own from time to time. Problem with that is that EVERYBODY will be all over you watching and wanting something done (lol), especially if there isn't anyone in your local area who's does tips and shafts (like my area). So forget about shooting any pool that night... . I suggest you start out on some junk shafts. Practice with some cheap tips (Buy a box of 50 LePro's. They are like $.50 each, and good to practice with). Then do some cheap layered tips for practice, because 95% of the tips I sell and install are layered tips. What yours will be depends on your areas demographics. My local customer base is mainly in my age bracket (I'm 39) 20-50yrs old, and don't fret spending $15-$30 to get a good tip installed. The older guys generally do, but usually are set in their ways with LePro's, Triangles, Elk Masters, etc.., and either have learned to do them themselves over the years, or have someone they've been using forever to do tips. So I do not do a lot of the single layered tips, but I have them in stock just in case.
Watch as many videos on doing tips as you can, you will get a lot of good pointers from them. Everybody does their tips a little different, so don't worry about doing them to some industry standard. You will find what works for you in time....
But practice practice practice before you start doing work for other people. Make sure you are 100% comfortable at what your doing, because if you screw up someone's ferrule or shaft, your gonna be responsible for it to either fix it, get it fixed, or replace it. That can be a very expensive error, that your responsible for...
My last bit of advice is to NOT do stuff for free (unless it's for kids and stuff). Charge something, anything, but charge a fee for your services. I stress this because in time you will have SOOO many people wanting stuff done for free that you will start to actually HATE doing it. I know your intentions are not profit motivated, and are more of a good will gesture for your area, but that will do a 180 on you if you don't compensate yourself in some small way. You will feel just as good doing things for a few bucks for your friends as you would for free, and the feeling and desire to do so will be there much much longer. Remember, your STILL doing them a really good favor if you charge even $5-$10 labor for a tip install...
Good luck, and I will gladly answer any questions you ever have (and I'm sure most others on here are as well), so don't hesitate to ask if you need something...
Rain-Man
