Belt grinder on ebay: Is it worth the money?

[EdCaffreyMS]

Ed, if a guy was looking to buy a decent metal lathe for turning nothing bigger than pens, do you have a recommendation?

I did it for a lot of years with just a Grizzly mini lathe. It's a bit harder creating the tooling needed for that tiny lathe, but doable, and I'd highly encourage replaceable/insert carbide tooling. I also believe that a mini lathe simply won't last as long as a larger one.... in my case, before I upgraded to the larger lathe, I went through 3 circuit boards for the mini lathe. For about that last decade, I've been using this one: https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-9-x-19-bench-lathe/g4000 I like it because I can do other/bigger projects, and oddly, the carbide inserts for the size tooling used on this lathe are significantly less expensive then inserts for mini lathe tooling. I think with either a lathe or milling machine, it's a big bonus to get the largest you can. I can always do small work on bigger machines....but can't do large work on small machines.

 

[J. Doyle]

I did it for a lot of years with just a Grizzly mini lathe. It's a bit harder creating the tooling needed for that tiny lathe, but doable, and I'd highly encourage replaceable/insert carbide tooling. I also believe that a mini lathe simply won't last as long as a larger one.... in my case, before I upgraded to the larger lathe, I went through 3 circuit boards for the mini lathe. For about that last decade, I've been using this one: https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-9-x-19-bench-lathe/g4000 I like it because I can do other/bigger projects, and oddly, the carbide inserts for the size tooling used on this lathe are significantly less expensive then inserts for mini lathe tooling. I think with either a lathe or milling machine, it's a big bonus to get the largest you can. I can always do small work on bigger machines....but can't do large work on small machines.

Thanks Ed. That makes sense. The smaller grizzly is one I was eyeing but with shipping it comes within a few hundred of the bigger one. And the bigger one appears to include more tooling, including a 4 jaw chuck. Not to mention the added capability.

 

[John Wilson]

Thanks Ed. That makes sense. The smaller grizzly is one I was eyeing but with shipping it comes within a few hundred of the bigger one. And the bigger one appears to include more tooling, including a 4 jaw chuck. Not to mention the added capability.

Don’t overlook the spec which shows how thick a piece of stock you can pas through the chuck / spindle. I can’t tell you just how useful that is. You want to be able to do your work right up against the chuck so that your workpiece doesn’t get deflected by the side pressure of the cutting tool pushing against it. On older lathes where you can’t pass the workpiece through the chuck / headstock you have to either use the tailstock with a live center or set up a steady rest.

 

[John Wilson]

... not that you intend to thread rifle barrels, but if you ever wanted to...