You can visit and go through our comparison table to compare prices as well as features.īrand: Popular and reliable brands are always the priority when it comes to choosing Best Atlas Lathes. No matter what product you buy, there’re always affordable ones that deliver great value. Price: The most important thing is that you choose the right product that fits your budget. Here are some features that we recommend you to consider: It seems silly, but it seems to work for me and would result in the lathe getting more use in a hobby setting.There are tons of aspects you should pay attention to so that you can choose the Best Atlas Lathes. I've found that I tend to "get around to it later" when the wrong tool is in a non QCTP, but hop right in if I can just swap the tool and know it's on center. You don't by any means need it, you can count turns of the dial, but it sure is awfully nice.
It's handy, but not required (and learning to grind your own HSS tools is always good). It is worth noting that I don't make parts with long continuous diameters, so those who do deep boring or long shaft work without steps might care a lot more.Ģ. I'd hate to run production on something with a ton of bed wear, but for one offs where I'm creeping up on each dimension and measuring, bed wear really doesn't impact me much if at all. For hobby use bed wear may not be that big of a deal. I agree in general, but with a few thoughts:ġ. At one point there was a member here that supplied many parts. Most of the parts for the Clausing 5914 vari-drive are rebuildable. Neither the LeBlond or the lathe shaped object have that going for them. The Clausing factory still makes many parts and the parts they dont have they often offer the original drawing so you can make your own. In all fairness my Clausing or any other lathe thats used no matter of the age is likely to require repairs. Having said that I did notice the clutch came out of gear today while parting off.Īll 3 lathes you mention are 50 or more years old. As of 10:30 Am march 4th 2019 every thing is in great working condition. In lathe February of 2012 I brought that lathe home.
All 5 items are hard to find together in a garage sized lathe. But its stays with me because of the clutch, brake, 1 3/8" thru hole, hardened bed and the non-threaded spindle. I often call the 1967 vintage Clausing 5914 that resides in my shop a money pit. You will want to mention the model to get a better comparison. Wear or condition can be the biggest factor on the price of any lathe then tooling. There are many varieties of LeBlond lathe, some great, some good and then the others. Sadly now that Im in my mid 60's that nearly 200 pound tailstock was just too heavy for me to slide back and forth as easily as the Clausing. My favorite lathe I have ever operated was a LeBlond dual drive. That said, the tooling with the LSO mentioned above might be junk even if there is a lot of it.Īs a card carrying member of the Clausing 5914 club for some years now I can agree with the others impression of the lathe shaped object. Tooling can easily exceed the cost of a machine over a surprisingly short period of time.
You should consider if included tooling is something you might use, or might have to fill in later. I don't have enough experience with the LeBlond to say anything.
What I don't know is when those quirks pass from "that's a bit odd, but it doesn't slow me down" to "this is an expensive and complicated repair without which it is unusable." Never stopped us from getting a job done on it, but it also couldn't go to the ends of the speed range and a couple other quirks. The varispeed drive needed work the entire 3 years I was there. We had a Clausing (possibly the same model) at a previous employer. My Bridgeport has an issue that prevents it from going into low gear right now and I'd still rather do low speed work on it than on the brand new mill-drill quality machine they had at a previous employer. I'll take a heavily worn and quirky machine of solid build over a flimsy machine in good condition most days of the week. Might have been a yes for light hobby use only at 10% of what they are asking, but that still doesn't make it a good idea. Echoing the above, but with less experience to back it up.