In article .com,
CAMCOMPCO wrote:
Hi all,
I am considering upgrading my lathe and have gotten a 'wife approved"
budget of 2500 bucks. The most important thing to me is quality and
longevity. I can slowly acquire tooling and such. I want a tool that
will last me my whole life and never be the weak link in my shop (home
hobby).
I am torn between concentrating on South bend or Clausing. I believe
the tooling is more readily available for the southbend but have heard
some good things about Clausing (5903 for example) too
I have a Clausing 5418 (12x24") with which I am quite pleased.
It cost me something like $1700.00 about five years ago -- from eBay.
(Granted, the auction closed on Chirstmas Eve, and I was one of two
bidders. :-)
I would personally avoid the 5900 series for one reason. I
believe that it has a hydraulically-actuated variable speed pulley
assembly, and there are parts of these which can wear out and if not
maintained (relatively low cost parts like Delrin sleeves), can damage
some quite expensive parts.
Your wish for something to work the rest of your life may make
this style a poor choice.
Note that mine came with a bed turret, and *no* tailstock, so I
had to chase down a proper tailstock to fit it.
What should I expect for 2500 bucks?
If 12x24" is sufficient for your work, this is at least one
datapoint for a reasonable price.
Note that I later picked up from eBay a spare headstock (perhaps
from a 5900 series machine) which had an L-00 spindle nose, and I
swapped that into the machine so I could get away from the risk of a
chuck unscrewing when I ran the lathe in reverse while cutting. (This
is nice for internally threading in a blind hole -- using an upside-down
threading tool cutting on the backside of the workpiece.
One place where the SouthBend wins over the Clausing which I
have is the presence of a clutch assembly in the power feed (not in
threading, of course), which can reduce the damage caused by a crash.
One strong benefit for a machine which comes with a bed turret
is that the leadscrew has probably never been used for threading (the
half nuts), and only has driven the worm gear for power feed. (All
threading with a turret is probably done with things like a Geometric
die head, which cuts beautiful threads while hand fed.
The clue that mine had never been used with the leadscrew for
cutting threads is that the threading dial was still in one of the
drawers in the pedestal, instead of bolted onto the side of the apron.
The cross-feed leadscrew, however, was badly worn (along with
the nut) to the point of 0.070" backlash (nearly 3/4 of a turn). So, I
replaced the leadscrew and nut shortly after getting the machine.
And yes -- I have gotten quite a bit of use out of the bed
turret as well.
As for the tailstock -- there are two which will fit it. One,
(the wrong one, but it will work for many things) has an MT-2 taper.
The proper one has a MT-3 taper, is somewhat longer and much heavier. I
used the wrong one until I came across the right one on yet another eBay
auction. (I also got most of a taper attachment from yet another such
auction -- though it took me a bit of puzzle work to figure out what was
missing, and how it fully install it. I later got the manual pages for
both styles from Clausing service center, and the non-telescoping
version showed that I have figured it out properly
[ ... ]
any feedback would be great...I checked the archives but am hoping for
some new insight..never hurts...
Well ... this is one data point, at least.
Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. |
http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---