The "cheap" lathes at Harbor Freight
Yikes. Well, they're good for a beginniner who doesn't want to invest in a lot of money before they know whether or not they like turning, I suppose. (This is the route I took. Mainly because it was the only way I could convince my wife to let me buy one. )
But there are some things I have learned that you can do to make the performance better.
For instance, don't get the cheap aluminum stand for this thing. You want to put it on a solid, heavy wooden table. For two reasons: First, you need the weight of the heavy table to keep your lathe from bouncing across the floor if you try to turn something that it out of balance. (I learned this the hard way.) Second, you need to have a solid surface that the lathe attaches to so you don't bend your two centers out of alignment if you overtighten them on a piece. I learned this the hard way, too.
I too have the "el-cheapo" from H.F. I have model #38515, what a piece of @#$%! I found that if you shim up the inside of the tailstock where it meets the rails, the centers stay in line when you tighten the nut.
Oh well, I guess if we can learn on these, it will only be better when we upgrade!
Re: The "cheap" lathes at Harbor Freight
Yeah, the next "upgrade" was going to be finding out a way to keep that tailstock true. Some kind of a permanent sihm that would still allow me to advance or pull back the tailstock. There's just too much play betwen the rails on my model (#45276-6VGA) as it is now.
Re: The "cheap" lathes at Harbor Freight
PLease keep me updated. I'm worried about getting it in perfect alignment. Seems like there is some give in those square-tubed rails, such that even if you shimmed up the tailstock, you could still get out of alignment.
)
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