I think it's paraphrasing the celebrated Model Engineering writer "LBSC" who suggested "the best you can afford", or it might have been the largest capacity, because a large lathe can do small jobs, but the converse doesn't necessarily hold true.
Having said that I'm a bit intimidated by those Colchester "Student" lathes which were big old lathes that could probably take your arm off without stopping - used commonly in schools which is why they are available on the second-hand market as making anything that might be remotely "risky" in schools no longer seems to happen - ie metalwork.
I much prefer my Dad's Boxford model A/B (a conversion with a screwcutting gearbox) to the Myford, but the Myford (either Super 7 or ML7) is ubiquitous, reliable and available. Pretty much the "standard" model engineering lathe that you can't go wrong with. Hold their value well as a consequence, but most spares are available in the UK, not to be scoffed at if you pick up a second-hand machine that has seen misuse.
I'd recommend spending a while using other lathes if you can get time on them and make the decision carefully by putting money away for when the opportunity arises rather than buying the first one you see. You can do most operations in a lathe, drilling, milling and turning; screwcutting can come later, I don't profess to understand it now.
I did use one of those "toy" desktop lathes, small in capacity but I managed to make a few fittings, would fit in a bedroom and allow you to practice and graduate to a better lathe later, space/money permitting, it's better than nothing, maybe see what is available second-hand, it's not worth buying one new (in my opinion)
One of my best investments for wagon making was a small sensitive drill - combined with a Dremel it does much of what I need for wagon making - I still haven't got back to making my locomotive whilst I'm busy making a train!
Age doesn't make a difference with lathe buying, only the space you have available to put it! If you want to start locomotive making there is plenty of sheet metalwork you can make a start on and borrow lathe time whenever you can at the local ME club or friend with a lathe. I made a lot of progress on a locomotive with just a vise, marking tools a file and hacksaw and doing all turning when I visited my parents house, by which time I had the bar stock and operations planned out ready to make best use of the time available. A lot of time is wasted on jobs just searching for drills, chuck keys, material and sketching out part dimensions.
Remember lathe tooling can be expensive and a lathe without any can be fairly useless! Buying a second hand lathe can be difficult - try and take along an experienced engineer and check the lathe is true - or can be adjusted to make it so, otherwise everything you make may end up tapered.
tornado60163 wrote:Hi,
Can you suggest a lathe for me to start modeling as i am only 15.
Thanks
Daniel
