"Pete C." wrote in message
...
snip-

I have both a lathe and a mill, and the mill gets more use by a 5:1
factor or better.

Pete C.

While it's true that I often bid on, and ran, lathe work, my lathe sat idle
roughly 75% of the time when I was actively machining. A great deal of my
work was jig and fixture (tool making) work, the vast majority of which was
mill work. Still, when starting out, a lathe seems so much more natural,
and is an easier way to begin machining, considering you have only two
dimensions over which to worry. Further, it's a lot cheaper to grind
cutting tools for a lathe than to purchase typical milling cutters, most of
which can not be hand sharpened.

I'd suggest that anyone starting out in machining do so on a lathe, if for
no other reason, to help get an understanding of machining concepts, and to
make mistakes that are (hopefully) less expensive. The ultimate goal
would be to own both machines.

Harold
Harold