Subject: Mini lathe restoration. Fri Jan 29, 2016 2:04 pm
Hello everyone I have been pretty busy lately with some new projects and a new direction I am taking. I have been refurbishing an old Harbor Freight mini lathe I picked up for a trade for a small taig lathe I had.
This Harbor freight lathe was a basket case when I got it. If anyone is considering purchasing a mini lathe in the future I would advise them to keep watch for a used one to come up on craigslist.
If you buy one new, they need so much work to bring them up to nice tolerances you will spend many hours doing mods and upgrades to achieve high precision work.
So far I have not seen anyone on the net get a fifty thousandths cut from Aluminum let alone getting a fifty thousandths cut in mild steel which I have been able to achieve both with a very good finish.
This is a work in progress that will be moving towards creating my own private label watches. I plan on building the cases, dials, hands, crowns and even the bands.