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(Ron Bean) wrote in message ...
Larry Jaques writes:

Why are so many of youse guys so hot for a lathe?
What does a lathe do besides make round things?

This came up a few years ago, when someone asked "Why does
everyone buy a lathe instead of a mill... unless all you want to
make are candlesticks and cannons?"

One observation was that parts that need a high degree of
precision tend to be round (shafts, bushings, etc). So if
you need a mill you can often rig up a substitute using other
tools, but if you need a lathe, you really need a lathe.

Mills are good if you need to make a part that fits some other
existing part, and it doesn't happen to be round. But in many
cases, the parts that are subject to wear are round.

Google probably has the thread, it was from December of 2000 and
the subject line was "How come most people get a lathe?"
The Message ID that started the thread was

You can do some pretty interesting round pieces with an offset boring
head on a mill. You are pretty limited in length, but you can be
very precise.