Hi Luker, thanks for the video, really appreciate your time sharing. Would love to see more in detail videos about the upgrades on this particular lathe.
it would be nice if you could do a whole series on the upgades and various projects you have done with the lathe in detail. planning on buying one in few months.
I'm looking at getting one of these as the price is decent for a new machine, as opposed to getting something like a Harrison for 12k on FB marketplace. I don't know enough about lathes to check a 70 year old lathe for irreparable play etc.
Thanks for opening the comments. First of all, it is beautiful models you are building. I am not into train models but can appreciate art. I regularly need something made and then go to one of the local engineering shops. Apart from not taking my small items seriously and big clients with big jobs get priority and it sometimes takes weeks for mine to be done, they charge high tariffs and it is sometimes not worth the money. So, I want to buy a metal lathe for the small items I want to make myself without buying an expensive professional machine. I am keeping an eye on the secondhand marked as well but it seem that people don’t often sell these small lathes. I had a look at the lathes offered by Adendorff but was wondering about the quality and precision and then watched your video. Do you know how the latest offering from Adendorff compare to the model you have? Is it the same? Improved? Or worse? I would love if you make a video on the other things you did to the lathe.
I honestly cannot comment on the quality as I haven't used any of their new machines recently. I can tell you that the price has gone up substantially! From what I've heard, most of the issues are related to guys buying the machines and not using them properly. I was standing at a counter once and one of the customers was complaining about bed run-out and he refused to believe the bed could twist when bolting it down with M10 studs! These machines need to be setup carefully and used within their limits. One thing you would need to do is replace the motor caps, they tend to fail relatively quickly. The industrial ones you get locally are much better quality and will last years. Our power is not kind to the DC boards on the very small lathes, you might have issues there. For SA I would stick to AC until our power is sorted out. I've always found the staff very helpful. Go in and have a chat to the guys and ask them to show you the lathes. I would also make sure you buy a lathe that they have sold for many years. Then you know spares are common and any issues should have been sorted out. BTW here's a link to a video on setting up a lathe I did for training a few years ago: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vDa8P7fM2y0.html There is also a video somewhere on my channel machining some incredibly small and intricate parts, normally way beyond the capability of lathes this size.
