Which Lathe?

[Jash]

Ok, so it's been 16 years since I worked in my fathers aluminium fabrication shop and it's been 12 years since he sold it so I'm a bit out of the loop.

Here's the deal. I want to start making my own parts and modifications and need a lathe. I'm poor (reasonably at least) and don't have lots of cash to splash about so I want to get it right the first time.

Also I live in Australia and our entire population is about one mega-city spread across an area the size of Europe. What I mean to say is we don't have lots of choices.

Here is where I will be buying my new lathe from and I would like some more educated opinions on the AL-50GA (this one fits my budget rather well) and the AL-335 (would save up for this if it's REALLY better).

Remember I'm just getting started and cash is limited. Is the larger lathe (AL-335) worth saving for or should I just get the smaller one to start with and see how I go?

The smaller lathe I could have by Christmas, the larger would take until the middle of next year, financially speaking.

 

[Th232]

Bought the AL-50GA around the beginning of the year myself, google for 9x20 lathe, that's the general name for those ones.

Some thoughts in no particular order:
* Bigger is always better, more rigid and more power so you can take deeper cuts. That said, with some carbide tooling I've happily gone through stainless at a reasonable rate.
* Good if it fits within your budget.
* Leadscrew is imperial. While you can still use various gears to get metric threading, the thread-chasing dial might as well be non-existent. Not that big a deal since threading is still possible. On a side note, the change gears were rather hard to take off the first time around, but YMMV.
* 105 kg is quite light, good for moving around, but bad in other ways.
* There's lots of info on the 9x20, including some communities. A useful page of improvements is this one.
* If you get the stand that they're selling as an accessory, you'll need to dig up your own nuts and bolts to bolt the lathe to the stand. A couple of mates and I spent half an hour looking for them before I decided to read the parts lists for both the lathe and the stand. *facepalm*
* If you need help on it, most people have already come up against the same issues you have.

That said, the -50 has done everything I've wanted it to so far, and bear in mind that you'll need to factor in tooling costs. Honestly, I'd go with the -50, get good tooling and save the rest, although I'm not sure what your exact budget considerations are.

Oh, and PM inbound.

 

[Anglepoise]

Australia made a very nice lathe a few years ago called a 'Hercus'

As an alternative to Asian assembled lathes, you might want to keep an eye out for a used one.