Harbor Freight Mini Lathe

I've had one for a number of years now. It does well for me. I make mostly folders. I have mounted handles on an arbor and turned them between centers but I used all of the 10 inch distance to do it. The biggest drawback is the chuck will only hold stock up to 1 1/2 inches or so. It will only let you put stock 9/16 in. or smaller passed the chuck. The opening behind the chuck is only that big.
 
www.mini-lathe.com has everything you'd ever want to know about
this lathe and it's many variations: 7x12, 7x14.

this lathe was how I started, later upgraded to 7x14 using littlemachineshop's
upgrade kit. The deal can not be beaten for money. Remember about 20%-off-single item and 10%-off-total purchase deals that HF has every week.

And of course, the standard 3-jaw chuck that comes with it will hold much larger OD stock - 2 3/4" - when you put the "outside" jaws in.
 
I got the four jaw chuck so I could turn square, rectangular and larger round stock. Another essential componet is a MT2 drill chuck for horizontal boring. The steady rest has been very useful also for longer and smaller stock. You can get a better bite contact on 1/4" bits if you make a shim to go under the tool holder. Mine is a about .020" but be sure to take it out if you switch over to a 3/8" cutting bit.

I just finished a set of arbors to be able to turn a stack of metal or wood stock at the same time. Just go and buy several 1/4" bolts in stepped lengths and put a dimple on both ends of the bolt for the live center to fit tight into. That way you can flip the stack around and work the distal end without getting too close to the chuck (ie knuckle buster).

My luck with those lathes has not been good. I have allready killed two of them since last June. On the first one the speed control puked out and last weekend the PLASTIC pulley melted and destroyed the belt on the new one.
I swore I would never buy any Chinese crap but there is no other option for small lathes. It does not matter which one you buy they are all made in the same factory in China.

The Baldor speed control on my 2x72 grinder costs almost twice what the lathe did.
 
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