Lathe
One of the main reasons I tend to favor the North American made lathes is that parts and accesories are so much more standard, unfortunately this is not true for most machines made in Europe or Asia. Although many of the Asian imports have a reasonable level of workmanship, the materials they are constructed from are usualy of poor quality, especialy the motor and wiring and soft non heat treated parts.
My old 9" Logan in the picture was made in 1947 and still a work horse, my 7" Myford is just over 30 years old and still like the day it was made. I also had a 9" 40's era South Bend, that is now in my brother's workshop. Both the Logan and the South Bend have the same spindle nose and can share chucks. The Myford has a unique spindle nose, chucks are only readily available from the dealer and rather pricey
, or you have to make your own back plate with a brittish standard thread
This is not to say the Myford is not a good lathe, it's just more expensive tooling wise. The Logan is in my shop at work and often gets used for several days at a time and has proven to be very reliable. It has a few interesting features, for example when the belt guard is opened the belt tension is released. The spindle has Timken bearings and 12 speeds. The stand I made myself at work, the cabinet was made at home, most of the electrics were scrounged from the sparkies at work, and the casters were left overs from a job. This allowed me to keep the expendatures to a reasonable level.
Since you have set yourself a decent budget there should be no problem finding a good machine, just remeber any accesories that come with the machine are a definite plus. A general rule of thumb is the tooling should be worth about 1/3 of the total cost.
Neil
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