What Rashid said.

I have a 13x40 Enco, ca 1992, fairly pimped out by the previous owner. 70
rpm ( a little fast for tapping) to about 2200, 8 speeds.
Love it.
Not a Clausing Colchester (which shall be coming soon!!), but with its
extras (snap handle collet closer, digital readout, Aloris tooling, camlock
chucks), it's a pleasure to use.

I would highly recommend as many of those options as you can afford. A 5C
collet system is fairly essential for small parts, and moreso if any kind of
production is anticipated. Super-essential for thin-walled tubing. The
snap handle is but one system (imo the best) of closing sed collets.

However, in these smaller lathes, you might not be able to fit 5C (which go
from near-zero to 1.125 diam). Thus, to go the 5C route, you *might* have
to bump up the size of the lathe a bit.

Ahm no 'spert, but w/ boring such thin walled tubing in a 3-jaw chuck, I
suspect you will wind up w/ a kind of "lobed" bore, proly not so great for
bearings. You could always machine a split-sleeve for your project (sort of
mimicing a collet!), but collets make this, and oodles of other work, a
slam-dunk.

Can't complain about the accuracy of the Enco, but then I'm not particular.
It can hold .0005--but not over 40", of course.

If weight is an issue because of moving considerations, I think you can
unbolt the gear head from the bed, and sans motor/carriage/tailstock, I
think the bed and gear head will come in at about 250# (each).
Comes w/ a pretty nice sheet metal stand/cabinet ditty.
The 13x40, sans the goodies, I think is between $2 and 3K.
--
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
"rashid111" wrote in message
oups.com...
9x20.

5 or so dift suppliers carry it, incl HF, Grizz, Enco, etc etc.

http://www.bedair.org/9x20.html for what can and in some cases,
should be done to it to improve it (beefing up cross-slide, adding
reverse and may be going variable-speed). It is an incredibly
popular one and there are tons of resources on the Web.

If you go that route, $700 @ HF - 20% off, pick it up @ yer
local store for instant gratification.

Or, if you innted to stay small in worksizes, go with The Lathe:
8x12, www.mini-lathe.com . Again, carried by all the usual
suspects. It is even more popular than the 9x20 and again,
lots of resources on the Web.

Both are perfectly useable outta box, right after removal of
protective grease.