I would stay away from that combo machine-it has a lot of problems and the
design is way too complicated- cross slide has power feed, but only in 1
direction- you have to reverse the motor to bring it back- lots of flex in
the mill head- Smithy sold that same unit under the name Midas 17-20 and
dropped it from their line after a short time.

"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in message
news
Having run into delays in my plans to build a Gingery lathe & with
other projects in the works that I could use a lathe on I'm
considering wimping out & buying one .

I'm looking at the Craftex unit sold by Busy Bee tools
(http://www.busybeetools.com/), mainly cause they got a local outlet.
Specifically I'm thinking about their 9x19 (CT039) or maybe the 10x18
(B2227L).

I was also looking at thier lathe mill combo ( B2229 ) a year or so
ago. I"m limited for space so this seems like a good idea but I'm
concerned that the milling head might not be sturdy enough to do
reasonably useful work (fill in your own definition of "reasonable"),
it seems like a long way to the table, not to mention the height of
the lathe spindle relative to the bed width.

Now obviously these arn't top quality machines but looking at the
lathes today in person they didn't strike me as being total junk, so,
anyone here have any experience good/bad with these units?

All replies appreaciated .

Thanks,

Howard.