Machine Recommendations

[nikkor]

How's it going everyone!

What size mill and lathe would you all suggest for building gauge one locomotives? If anyone has any suggestions that would be awesome. Thank you!

I have a mill- but I think my Lagun should stay with the 7 1/2" gauge club at the workshop.

[sstjc]

Hi, I recently acquired a Hobbymat which are plenty man enough for the job and can be picked up on ebay for around £300. Quite often they come with a good range of tools and accessories and if your lucky you may pick up the rare milling attachment as well. They are good machines and are well capable of much larger jobs as well with patience.
Barry...

[GTB]

What size mill and lathe would you all suggest for building gauge one locomotives? If anyone has any suggestions that would be awesome.

Whenever this question is asked, you'll always get someone that rubbishes Chinese machinery and insists you should buy something big, old and very secondhand, but my hobby is building little steam locos, not restoring tired old machinery.

If you've used machinery before, you know you'll spend more on tooling than the machine in any case. Finding accessories that fit out of production machinery can get interesting.......

I've just finished my eighth loco and partway through my ninth. All have at least some parts that were made on a SIEG C2 lathe and an X2 mill, both about 5 years old now. I've had no problems with the results once they were set up properly.

I'd have preferred the longer C3 lathe, not for making longer parts, just so the tailstock wasn't always in the way when making steam fittings. Unfortunately they were out of stock in Aust at the time and the supplier had no idea when they'd get more.

The X2 is adequate as a vertical mill, but the lack of a proper quill irritates me at times and makes drilling fine holes somewhat fraught. For drilling and lighter work I ended up buying an X1 mill when they were on special a couple of years ago.

Chinese made machinery is adequate for the job if set up properly, but the quality is dependent on the importer specification. As always you get what you pay for.

One thing to think about. These smaller lathes aren't the best at parting off, especially in mild steel. I don't even try above 3/16" dia stuff.

I make my own rolling stock wheels and so I invested in a bandsaw for knocking out wheel blanks, cylinder blocks, etc. The saw table that comes with them is distinctly iffy, but I can still use it for roughing out loco. frames.

There are people using Taig and Sherline size machinery for Gauge 1, but in my personal opinion these are a bit undersize. As is my Unimat SL, which I used for HO scale modelling for many years.

Personally I'd also avoid milling heads on lathes, unless extremely squeezed for workshop space. They don't really do anything that you can't do with a vertical slide on the lathe.

To summarize, I wouldn't go much smaller than a 200 x 300 lathe and similar size mill for building G1 and SM32/45 locos, but if I had the space I'd prefer a 250 x 550 lathe and the equivalent mill.

Graeme

[Busted Bricks]

I started with a small Chinese C3 lathe, then a Myford ML7 and now I have a Raglan 5inch. Whilst the Chinese was adequate for making a small loco it was miles apart from both the Myford and Raglan in capability and quality. Parting off brass on a C3 lathe is scary. Ironically, the largest lathe - the Raglan - was also the cheapest when you include tooling as it came "fully loaded". Paid just £600 for it and it came with VFD, 3 and 4 jaw chucks, face plate, QCTP and various turning tools.

If you have the room for it, a big secondhand lathe is a good option IMHO.

My first mill was a X2 and again it was adequate for small jobs. Now I have an old Adcock and Shipley model "0". It is a fixed head mill and is very sturdy. Got a bit of tooling with than and it set me back £350.

I think there are some real bargains to be had in secondhand machinery if you have to time to wait and see what turns up.

[nikkor]

To be totally honest- I am torn between the Sieg X2/C2 and the Taig machines.

The big reason that Taig has some appeal to me (besides being made two hours from where I live here in Arizona- aka Tantooine) is the price and quality.

The reason with the Sieg is I have a lot of the tooling that it would use already, but from what I understand they come with the worst motors ever right from the factory, and that the compound on them is really crappy as well.

It's a debacle and a half.

[GTB]

To be totally honest- I am torn between the Sieg X2/C2 and the Taig machines.

The big reason that Taig has some appeal to me (besides being made two hours from where I live here in Arizona- aka Tantooine) is the price and quality.

The reason with the Sieg is I have a lot of the tooling that it would use already, but from what I understand they come with the worst motors ever right from the factory, and that the compound on them is really crappy as well.

It's a debacle and a half.

If you've come across the name Keith Bucklitch in the context of G1, he builds his steam locos with a Taig, as far as I know.

Taigs aren't common here in Oz. I saw one years ago which didn't impress me particularly, compared to my Unimat. It had a lot of aluminium in it and came without a motor. They may well have improved by now, as that was 30 odd years ago.

I've not seen reports of major motor issues with Seig machines, but there are a lot of reports of issues with the early electronic speed control. They now have an option of a brushless motor drive, which also gets rid of the vulnerable plastic gears inside the headstock.

Small lathes can never be as rigid as a large one, so cuts have to be smaller. I have no trouble parting off 3/4" brass with the C2, but I don't usually attempt anything bigger than 1/8" in mild steel and only if the cut is within a mm or so of the chuck jaws.

The cutting forces are very high when parting off and can easily deflect the tool, which digs in and you get a wreck. Form tools have the same issues and I avoid them for that reason. I use a 1mm cut-off tool for small diameter parts. I only use a 1.5mm tool when parting off larger brass sections over 1/4".

The mini lathe cross slide isn't designed to take a back toolpost and has no T slots. Since the chuck is bolted on, not screwed on, it can be run in reverse, so a parting-off tool can be mounted upside down and the lathe run in reverse, the effect on the tool is the same as a rear toolpost.

The quality of any chinese lathe can be very dependent on the importer/distributor. The big box shifters buy on price, not quality and as the man said, you gets what you pays for.......

If Taig is only a couple of hours down the road, at least you've got somewhere to ask advice, or complain as the case may be.

Regards,
Graeme

[nikkor]

To be totally honest- I am torn between the Sieg X2/C2 and the Taig machines.

The big reason that Taig has some appeal to me (besides being made two hours from where I live here in Arizona- aka Tantooine) is the price and quality.

The reason with the Sieg is I have a lot of the tooling that it would use already, but from what I understand they come with the worst motors ever right from the factory, and that the compound on them is really crappy as well.

It's a debacle and a half.

If you've come across the name Keith Bucklitch in the context of G1, he builds his steam locos with a Taig, as far as I know.

Taigs aren't common here in Oz. I saw one years ago which didn't impress me particularly, compared to my Unimat. It had a lot of aluminium in it and came without a motor. They may well have improved by now, as that was 30 odd years ago.

I've not seen reports of major motor issues with Seig machines, but there are a lot of reports of issues with the early electronic speed control. They now have an option of a brushless motor drive, which also gets rid of the vulnerable plastic gears inside the headstock.

Small lathes can never be as rigid as a large one, so cuts have to be smaller. I have no trouble parting off 3/4" brass with the C2, but I don't usually attempt anything bigger than 1/8" in mild steel and only if the cut is within a mm or so of the chuck jaws.

The cutting forces are very high when parting off and can easily deflect the tool, which digs in and you get a wreck. Form tools have the same issues and I avoid them for that reason.  I use a 1mm cut-off tool for small diameter parts. I only use a 1.5mm tool when parting off larger brass sections over 1/4".

The mini lathe cross slide isn't designed to take a back toolpost and has no T slots. Since the chuck is bolted on, not screwed on, it can be run in reverse, so a parting-off tool can be mounted upside down and the lathe run in reverse, the effect on the tool is the same as a rear toolpost.

The quality of any chinese lathe can be very dependent on the importer/distributor. The big box shifters buy on price, not quality and as the man said, you gets what you pays for.......

If Taig is only a couple of hours down the road, at least you've got somewhere to ask advice, or complain as the case may be.

Regards,
Graeme

Graeme,

The US is a terrible place to buy Sieg machines. Over here most of the offering is either crap or really price-jacked.

The capacity of the X2 and the Taig mill in terms of work area is about the same, except that the cost is less for the Taig. Plus, I still have my big SOB not far from where I live- which weighs more than my car (!) along with the lathe. The way I see it is that if anything does come up that is too big for the Taig mill and lathe, I would be able to just drive down the street and handle it.

I really doubt that though if I am basically building spin-offs of the Mamod design and what not in a small size- especially considering that the majority of the parts that would need to be machined would be fairly small.

-Dean

[GTB]

The US is a terrible place to buy Sieg machines. Over here most of the offering is either crap or really price-jacked.

I'd noticed that while poking around on the net.

Here in Oz the higher spec. Seig machines are about 20% cheaper than US prices in real terms (and about 2/3 the UK price). The US made Taig and Sherline machines are available here, but at a 30% hike over the US list price.

Machine tools of any sort haven't been made in Aust. for 30+ years and good used ones are as rare as hens teeth, so the decision is easy........

If you have easy access to full size equipment when needed, then the limitations of desktop machine tools won't be an issue. I can't think of anything on a Mamod type loco that I couldn't make on my Unimat SL, so a Taig wouldn't have any problems.

Graeme

[nikkor]

Graeme,

I had never really planned on trying to make anything massive on these machines. Even if I did, most of the parts would still be small anyhow. If I had to use the Lagun monster mill, it might be for the frames? Or something large? Otherwise, all the parts would be small.

Besides, it would be fun to dabble in CNC a little