Pleasant Hills, NSW Australia | Most things have been covered with the wear side of things but i'll give a few pointers on general lathe construction and rigidity,
1. Stay away from flat bed lathes, they require more adjustment and are prone to faster wear than trianglular bed models - the lathes in the photos have triangular beds.
2. The wider the lathe the more stable it will be - and generally speaking the bigger the lathe the wider it will be to but if you have two lathes the same size the wider one will be more stable, thats probably not the one factor that will sway a decision but keep it in mind.
3. I like older colchesters but so do other people so most of them are worn out, Taiwanese lathes are generally better quality than chinese, i've had good experience with ajax lathes. Gosan lathes are really nice to.
3. Always get a lathe with a quick change gear box that goes at least a 1000 rpm - its hard to machine 12mm shaft at 500 rpm
4. quick change chucks are a must to, being able to change between 4 jaw/3 jaw and face plate is very handy without bolts or unsrewing a chuck is really nice - and it means you can buy other chucks and just put them straight on, there is an iso number or name for these but I can't remember what it is.
5. Tooling can and will cost a fortune, and the cheap stuff on ecrap is'nt much good unless your making parts for model trains, an hour with a good machine tool rep (sandvik/seco etc) might cost plenty but save plenty of time and frustration and produce a better job.
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Metal lathe for beginners
