I have an 1100 Series 3 I've been very happy with for the past 5 years. Considered the Slant-Pro but just can't justify the $$$ relative to the number of turned parts I do right now, so taking a harder look at the RapidTurn and how good it is generally and for my purposes.
The largest part I'd want to make is a 2" flange in 6061 that gets turned down to a 25mm shoulder for a bearing slip fit and a 15/16-20 threaded section. So starting with 2.25" stock and turning about 2" of it down to 1". Right now I make this part on the mill by holding the stock vertically in a three-jaw chuck, it's a few thou out of round this way but good enough for my purposes. I thread-mill the threaded section and it works but it's slow and always fun because of how easy it is to snap a $50 thread mill A lot of other parts I'd make would be 1" or less diameter by 1-3" long, typically 6061/360/acetal.
I also have the ubiquitous Grizzly 10x G0602 lathe which is fine but I regret buying because it uses change gears and belts to adjust speed. I can make good parts on it but the repetitive setups for threading with the change gears are why I make those flanges on the mill. I wish I'd bitten the bullet and gotten one of the 12x lathes, but I didn't feel like dropping twice the money for the small number of turned parts I make.
I have a full Tormach baby QCTP setup from my old 7x lathe, so I wouldn't need much besides the basic RapidTurn kit, so the cost would be easy to swallow. And I have the 10x for those rare times I need to move metal on larger/longer parts. My hesitation comes from two things:
- Setup: I don't love the idea of having to set up and tear down the system to make one turned part. My work is prototyping so there's a lot of onesy-twosy stuff and I've continued to invest in quick-change toolholding and workholding to make setup easier. How long does it take people in the real world to change over and get things dialed in OK?
- Reliability: I've read some grumbling online about the toolpost moving and difficulty making consistent parts. If the story here is that you basically need to treat it like a 7x lathe in terms of rigidity and such, that's fine, I made plenty of good parts on mine. What I don't like is constant tweaking, which is why I decided to not bother trying to CNC my 10x lathe. Though I have considered making a fine feed motor because the worst part of the change gear setup is needing to switch between threading and fine feed to turn a clean shoulder and a threaded section on one part....
Curious to hear experiences from those who have one. I have watched some of Keen's videos which are both impressive for what he's built and a bit off-putting in terms of the amount of work it seems to have taken to get there. In my experience it's tempting to get a shiny new toy that will make a part slightly faster or nicer but take 5x as much time to learn/set up said toy versus doing something with what I already have. Fun but I am trying to stay focused on my existing projects rather than starting new ones....