MushCreek
Well-known member
My old lathe project, that is. I bought this Summit 11 X 32 lathe a while back, but had to do some work to get it going. The motor appeared to be 440V only (everything is written in Japanese), so I stuck in a 120V single phase I had laying around. There were a couple damaged parts from either a crash or an attempt to remove the chuck, which was severely stuck. I'm slowly cleaning it up, too.
These lathes are accurate, and very heavily built- 1600 lbs. for a small lathe! The entire base is cast iron. There are things I don't like, and if I find something better, I'll sell this one. What don't I like?
Hard (impossible) to get parts
56 X 3 MM threaded spindle. Impossible to get chucks. I would have to modify a backplate to fit. I'm not crazy about threaded spindles in general.
Oddball headstock taper- no known equivalent for a collet adapter.
Oddball change gears, and a number of them are missing, especially for cutting metric threads. They are a standard pitch, but thinner, so I'd have to buy gears, cut them down, and bore the ID. At least I have all of the ones I need for SAE threading.
Really odd compound slide and tool post. The tool post base is built in! No T-slot to mount a quick-change tool post, and not enough meat to cut a T-slot. I hate shimming tool bits to get the height just right. I suppose I could add some plates to create a T-slot, but I'd lose some capacity.
I really jumped on this lathe too fast, but at least the price was right. Pay attention to some of these things if you're shopping for a lathe.
These lathes are accurate, and very heavily built- 1600 lbs. for a small lathe! The entire base is cast iron. There are things I don't like, and if I find something better, I'll sell this one. What don't I like?
Hard (impossible) to get parts
56 X 3 MM threaded spindle. Impossible to get chucks. I would have to modify a backplate to fit. I'm not crazy about threaded spindles in general.
Oddball headstock taper- no known equivalent for a collet adapter.
Oddball change gears, and a number of them are missing, especially for cutting metric threads. They are a standard pitch, but thinner, so I'd have to buy gears, cut them down, and bore the ID. At least I have all of the ones I need for SAE threading.
Really odd compound slide and tool post. The tool post base is built in! No T-slot to mount a quick-change tool post, and not enough meat to cut a T-slot. I hate shimming tool bits to get the height just right. I suppose I could add some plates to create a T-slot, but I'd lose some capacity.
I really jumped on this lathe too fast, but at least the price was right. Pay attention to some of these things if you're shopping for a lathe.