Microkinetics lathe?

P

pip9ball

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Hi,

I've been doing small cue repair work using the unique's cue companion lathe and am thinking about purchasing a real lathe for building cues. Does anyone have any experience with the following setup:

http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm

I have about $8000 to invest in a lathe and I would prefer something with CNC capabilities.

Thanks in advance!
 
pip9ball said:
Hi,

I've been doing small cue repair work using the unique's cue companion lathe and am thinking about purchasing a real lathe for building cues. Does anyone have any experience with the following setup:

http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm

I have about $8000 to invest in a lathe and I would prefer something with CNC capabilities.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

I have no experience with that, but the distance between centers is 36", and the carriage travel is 30".

The carriage travel is just about as important as the distance between centers. At 30", it is tight, and if you are going to cut many of your own shafts, you likely might have to turn some of the ends down manually. I don't know how much of a pain that is, or if it is tough keeping a smooth cut between the transition of power feed and you doing it by hand.

The distance between centers of 36" is sort of tight as well. When you had a couple of centers in there, that 36" will shrink quickly. Most of the people I have asked who started with a 36" between centers machine regretted not getting the 40" and recommend that to people.

I am not experienced, this is just what I have been told by those who are.
Kelly
 
It looks like it would be great for tapering and parts making, but since there are no manual handwheels (except on compound) it would limit you on work that did not need to be CNC. I think I would rather have digital readout for some parts making and cue assembly. But for tapering 29" pieces and less that lathe is going to be hard to beat.
 
Thanks for the replies! Would you recommend getting a manual lathe with DRO's to start with first as opposed to a full CNC? If so, what mfgr would you suggest I look into.

Thanks,

pip9ball
 
First, are you sure you wanna build cues?
A 40 incher is better if you are going to use the steady rest and stailstock between centers.
Grizzly and Jet sell 40 inchers.
They are both imports. The domestic and Euro made lathes cost so much more.
Most makers I know buy used lathes and fix them. South Bend, Clausing, Atlas and Logan are the most sought lathes I know.
It takes a lot of heart fixing them.
 
30 inch carriage is minimum

but workable. I assume you will use some kind of live tooling? You can make a slide that runs along the bed, so when you are ready to finish off the last couple inches of a longer than normal shaft you just slide the tooling to the right and cut it! there is no taper needed near the ferrule end of a shaft so it is easy to use the same taper bar setting. But live tooling is the only way to go here! ie a trim router that mounts onto the tool post. Your taper bar need not extend further if you have zero taper the first 6-10 inches of your shaft.
I have a 12x36 lathe myself for butts it is essential to have a lathe with at least a spindle hole of 1 7/16 ID. mine is 1.5 inches. Then you can precisely drill for and tap the threads for your screw. You also need to mount a second chuck on the left side of the spindle, it can be a light duty chuck, to keep the butt perfectly concentric for doing the screw. Or you have to rig a steady rest some how back there and keep it aligned!
I have a 9x26 inch Southbend lathe that I use for shafts, as well as a cheap wood lathe that I adapted a 5 inch chuck to for sanding and polishing shafts and butts. Why have so many? Because time is money and when you want to do a specific job it wastes time to reset all the tooling and lathe for a butt rather than shaft, though the 12x36 can handle it all. I bought a cheap chinese 12 inch lathe and so far love it, it is only 1 1/2 horse and that is plenty for our work! One more thing get a cheap quick chnge dovetail toolpost (wedge style best) and holders, way faster than a turret or any other system. I have one on the south bend and will buy another for my new 12 inch. digital is good, but I do not trust it, if it goes out of wack you will ruin a cue before you know it. I like to keep it simple and just use my head and eyes!
 
To answer Joey's question: "Am I sure I want to build cues?"

I definately am interested in this and willing to give it a shot. I don't have any plans to start building cues full time or for profit for that matter. For now I would consider this a part time hobby and would be happy to finish 1-2 cues a year learning as I go. I am fortunate enough to have a good day job and spending dough on machinery is a risk Im willing to take.

Buying a used lathe and fixing is probably out of the question as I don't have any real shop experience. My only real lathe experience has been replacing tips/ferrules, adding collars/pins, cleaning/polishing. etc. I tried tapering a shaft once manually but didn't have much success. I have a computer enginnering degree and thought I could make use of that if I went the CNC route, but then again I don't know if that would help or not.

Perhaps my direction should be a Deluxe cue smith? What do you guys think?

Thanks for all your help!
 
pip9ball said:
To answer Joey's question: "Am I sure I want to build cues?"

I definately am interested in this and willing to give it a shot. I don't have any plans to start building cues full time or for profit for that matter. For now I would consider this a part time hobby and would be happy to finish 1-2 cues a year learning as I go. I am fortunate enough to have a good day job and spending dough on machinery is a risk Im willing to take.

Buying a used lathe and fixing is probably out of the question as I don't have any real shop experience. My only real lathe experience has been replacing tips/ferrules, adding collars/pins, cleaning/polishing. etc. I tried tapering a shaft once manually but didn't have much success. I have a computer enginnering degree and thought I could make use of that if I went the CNC route, but then again I don't know if that would help or not.

Perhaps my direction should be a Deluxe cue smith? What do you guys think?

Thanks for all your help!
Click to expand...
I say get the Cue Smith. .
Metal lathes weigh in the 500 lbs and up area.
 
You could try investing less in a decent (talking import here) metal lathe if you want to go that direction like Joey says. Get down some basics, learn to make some cues, and then later if you are still interested and enjoy it invest in a cnc machine like Unique's cue monster (about $8,000) which has a 4th axis, that way you would have two machines that could be dedicated as another posted said is very valuable to cuemakers, have some cnc, inlay, etc. Overall higher cost, but not initially, and a better setup in my opinion after the fact than the 36" CNC lathe that only has the manual wheel on the compound.

Much of the cost in choosing the metal lathe route is the addons and tooling and such afterwards. If you have $8,000 to invest, and you buy a cnc lathe for $7,500 (I did not see a price on the lathe you gave the link to, so my $7,500 is just for arguements) you might find your required investment for making cues in the end a good bit higher then $8,000.

If you want to hit the ground running and start producing something relatively fast and then evaluate what you want after that if you stick with it, Chris' Deluxe might be a good choice for you. The resell opportunities on the deluxe are attractive, and even an import lathe, but I don't know about recovering your money on an $8,000 cnc lathe just in case...

I am in the same boat you are, but I have less dough to play with upfront!

Kelly
 
pip9ball said:
Hi,

I've been doing small cue repair work using the unique's cue companion lathe and am thinking about purchasing a real lathe for building cues. Does anyone have any experience with the following setup:

http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm

I have about $8000 to invest in a lathe and I would prefer something with CNC capabilities.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Just so that you know, the base lathe in the link above is pretty widely available. Here are a couple of 'buy-it-now' machines very similar to the Birmingham used by Microkinetics, a 12x36 and a 13x40 :

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-BIRMINGHAM-...567691504QQcategoryZ97230QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Birmingham-YCL-...608180033QQcategoryZ97230QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Note that these are simply the manual lathe that Microkinetics converts to CNC. I would guess that you could buy the manual lathe and upgrade it to CNC at at later date.

Just trying to help.

Dave
 
the cue monster from unique will taper and inlay then get a seperate lath to assemble on, for the money the cue monster looks good I'v seen it run, and it is smooth . You could also contact leonard bludworth he could hook you up.... good luck and stay focused ..... Ray
 
pip9ball said:
Hi,

I've been doing small cue repair work using the unique's cue companion lathe and am thinking about purchasing a real lathe for building cues. Does anyone have any experience with the following setup:

http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm

I have about $8000 to invest in a lathe and I would prefer something with CNC capabilities.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Buy Chris Hightower's book first and take it from there. You'll get an idea of what you want and getting into...
 
pip9ball said:
Hi,

I've been doing small cue repair work using the unique's cue companion lathe and am thinking about purchasing a real lathe for building cues. Does anyone have any experience with the following setup:

http://www.microkinetics.com/lathe1236/index.htm

I have about $8000 to invest in a lathe and I would prefer something with CNC capabilities.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Best to learn on manual tool room lathe with 40 inches between centers. CNC requires past experience to do programing. CNC will cost a lot in scrap parts, damaged tooling, lathe repairs, and frustration while you go through the learning process. Resolution may not give as nice a taper as taper bar or tracer. If you do not like this machine it will be hard to get rid of and it ate your whole budgit. Start small and work up slowly. Buy specialty cue lathe from Chris Hightower then trade up. CNC electronics and ball screws may not like wood dust either. Bad way to start that you will regret. They say if you are not sure if something is gold it is not gold. Similarly for CNC, if you are not sure you need CNC you do not want CNC.

Trueheart
 
Thanks for the advice Trueheart....this probably makes the most sense. I will lookinto purchasing a hightower lathe in the next month or so.

Thanks to everyone who replied...your help is appreciated.

-Pip9ball
 
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