Lathe

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Mar 20, 2017
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Santa uxia de Ribeira Galicia España
hello shipmates, would this Lathe be good for our hobby?or is it not worth buying?
US$54.99 % 150W 12V-24V Mini Beads Machine Miniature Lathe DIY Woodworking Lathe Grinding Polishing Wood Working DIY Lathe Polishing Drill Rotary Tool Power Tools from Tools, Industrial & Scientific on banggood.com
 
Take a look at this small video of the Proxxon - which more expensive, but you can easily compare what is missing at the cheap model you showed......

thanks for the info Uwe, the proxxon is of course much better, and around 140 € is not exactly too expensive a purchase, but yes you can't compare a Mercedes with a skoda from the 70s, my thing is of course how much I use the proxxon, because such a machine is not made to stand in the cupboard, and then we come to the price difference of the Mercedes and the skoda of the 70s
 
Items turned on PROXXON lathe look pretty big. What can a wood ship modeller really do on PROXXON lathe if they work in 1:90 scale?
@Y.T. Items turned on Proxxon (or any other lathe, in fact,) will look exactly the way you will turn them. Using 3 jaw chuck, and miniature chisels you can archive very good results using Proxxon, even for small scale.
 
Here is an example of do-it-yourself lathe; i have build one for myself but i was not able to make it a "precise" machine.. Still using it for a rough shaping... (the picture is from shipmodeling.ca)

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.. but when build tasks are demanding more precise work, then i use a Proxxon mini lathe...


Regards,
 
I also ordered the same mini wood lathe, it's shipped and waiting for delivery. I got it in a full package with a lot of accessories at discounted price during the ALIExpress special offers for about 42US$ full package:
1 * Mini Lathe Beads Machine
1 * Speed Control Power Supply (12-24V)
1 * Fine copper carving knife
1 * Thread fixed needle
3 * Beads fixed needle (1.5/2.0/2.5mm)
1 * Hex shank wrench
1 * Collet Wrench
1 * Metal saw table top
30 x Steel sanding needle
1 x High speed steel saw blade
1 x Emery saw blade
6 x Matte paper
1 x Sanding disc
1 x Flexible shaft
4 x Drill bit
5 x Sandpaper ring
3 x Wire brush
3 x Buddha beads head
2 x Gloves
1 x T-cloth Wheel

As soon as I receive it and test it, I shall put comments here, but at the first sight, it looks as a good price/ performance ratio particularly for what I need it. My primary work on it would be making cannons, barrels, railing columns, bells, belaying pins, deadeyes, and I think it will be quite sufficient for the job. If I find it satisfying, I shall probably upgrade it as DIY job by adding Rotatable Lathe Tool Holder and 4 Jaw Lathe Chuck 63mm, and some jigs to make it a copy machine for very small parts.
 
This is the rotary tools holder which could be obtained for less than 24-30 US$, with some DIY hacks it would turn that mini lathe into the serious modeler's tools..

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I see this tool only moves cutter along one axis. We need two axes to get serious.
 
I see this tool only moves cutter along one axis. We need two axes to get serious.
Yes you are right, there are available 2-axis tools holders that could be applied. Yet for simple work which I intend to do on this one - one axis is enough since I am going to make custom designed knives/ scrapers that would carve cannons or barrels or other items i a single pass just moving it perpendicular to the rotation axis.

Of course for any other work or using standard knives, 2 axes are required
 
.... I am going to make custom designed knives/ scrapers that would carve cannons or barrels or other items i a single pass just moving it perpendicular to the rotation axis.
Yes. This is good approach and probably the most economical one as will not require adding any expensive copier devices. As you say each item will have its own one shape cutter. This sounds very good for wood as I imagine we can just anneal some hard steel blade, shape it and harden it back. But what you plan with cutting copper as cannons?
 
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Yes. This is good approach and probably the most economical one as will not require adding any expensive copier devices. As you say each item will have its own one shape cutter. This sounds very good for wood as I imagine we can just anneal some hard steel blade, shape it and harden it back. But what you plan with cutting copper as cannons?
Sooner or later I will buy mini lathe for metal works, that's for sure...

Yet I found this offer as very good price performance and worth of money since I can make a decent number of parts : barrels, belaying pins, columns,deadeyes, winches, and other stuff on this one with - different shapes cutters.

Even cannons could be done out of wooden rods- I already successfully did them with improvised tools with very good quality. They could be painted and and later applied patina to hardly distinguish them from black metal cannons. Anyway I never put brass cannons in their origina gold color - they must be blackened using chemical blackeners or painted and weathered.
I believe that I could make with appropriate shape-cutters very nice ship cannons as well, at least until I purchase mini lathe for metal like Emco Unimat or Proxon or similar.

Here is one example of making cannons out of wood and it looks really excellent. I tried similar improvisation with excellent results even without custom designed shape-cutters.
 
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DOES ANYONE HAVE THE ALI EXPRESS LINK FOR THIS ONE, IT APPEALS TO ME BECAUSE OF ITS COMPACT SIZE AND WEIGHT, JUST NEED FOR MINOR STUFF GUN BARRELS RAILS, DOES IT HAVE A DUPLICATOR OR IS ONE NEEDED. THANKS Don
Hi Don. Here is the link:

No, there's no duplicator for this one, the price is so low that such a thing cannot be expected, although it is quite easy to make one as DIY project. If I make one, I shall post here how I eventually did it.

Yet I find it easier and faster to make custom shaped tools for barrels, railing columns and guns than to make duplicator. IN addition it is even easier to carve such small items with custom designed tools (like these wood scrapers for moldings available in the market).

For example all the barrels on my recent work - Black Pearl were made using the custom shaped knives/ tools in improvised lathe. Using custom shaped knives you can do the work faster and more accurate for simple and small detail than using - copier tools. Depending on the wood used, you can do a single item in less than a minute.

that is what the mini-lathe I ordered will be used for.
 
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As I promised, I am posting pictures and review of the Chinese made mini wood lathe that I ordered through Aliexpress.
Shipped all from China to Serbia, free of charge within 20 days so to say- extremely fast. Everything received to the specifications and if you keep in mind the pricing of this complete, it is quite high quality and good price/performance ratio. At the first glance it looks really suitable for me to produce small wooden/ plastic parts for my models... one is for sure.. probably I would never more need to order cannons which I expect to make on this tools with the use of the custom shaped wood lathe tools easily, out of wood or even black plastic round rods. Barrels, cannons, deadeyes, carronades, winches, etc... could be easily done on this piece. I think that I could recommend it as a cheaper yet useful solution for some modeler's work .

Below are some pictures of the package items:

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