Where are you located? Some areas have decent amounts of used stuff for
sale. Look at the swap sheets, you might get lucky.

I have a buddy with one of the HF 7x10 minis. Its real basic, granted, but
in the hands of someone competent it can turn out decent work. Good if space
is a problem also, although I dont think I would want to do too much
threading with it. Aluminum, plastics, some steel seem fine, just use good
cutting tools and stay within the limits of the machine.

THis guy is flying airplane parts he made with this 7x10 lathe. Not R/C
though, he is in the plane along for the ride.

I found my monarch 10EE locally for only $1200. It was a beast to get home,
and then there was the whole 3-phase thing to deal with but if you've got
the room, its definitely worth the effort to look for some older experienced
iron.

Al

"Harry" wrote in message
news:8b53f$40281dcf$4523d552$27694@allthenewsgroup s.com...
I am going to buy a small lathe for fabricating some R/C parts. This is my
first lathe purchase. I am considering the Central Machinery Precision 7 x
10 mini-lathe. I stopped and looked at one at the local H.F. store and it
seemed, well, just okay....for the price($400), I think it will do what I
want. I then spotted the next model up- a geared head 9 x 20 for $600.
What
is the groups opinion of these machines? Would I be better off to spend
about a grand($1000)? Originally I was going to buy a 3-n-1 but decided
that
I would be better off buying separate machines(lathe,milling machine etc).
I
am on a budget(aren't we all?) and am willing to trade long term
reliability
for a cash savings now. I am only going to be making parts for myself and
a
couple buddies. Any advice will greatly appreciated!