[Dave Lister]

Good Morning Folks

Does anyone here have any experience with this lathe ?
As a rank amature i was thinking of using this to learn on
also with the hopes of getting more tooling as needed
later when more proficient in its use. Sure its not cnc
but i would like to use it with my modelling hobbies.
Any feed back welcome

Dave

[Lynn Livings]

I've had a Taig Micro Lathe II for about 5yrs now. No doubt, I love this little lathe! I too am an amateur and always will be. But, it has been great learning on this lathe, and I have modified it in several ways that, IMHO, enhance it's capabilities (thanks so much Taig news group! and the folks who contribute there).
Now, you must realize this lathe is more of a "watch makers" or "jewelery makers" lathe than an engine or tool room lathe. I kinda' see it as a hybrid of sorts if you will. It features a rack and pinion saddle drive rather than a lead screw type drive. It will never cut threads in it's native form but I haven't myself needed a lathe to do this much. If thread cutting is anticipated, look at some of the more conventional small lathes available, or plan on modifying the Taig.
Taig makes a whole plethora of add-ons and tooling for this lathe, and the pricing of the lathe and associated tooling is hard to beat for what you get. In addition, there is a fairly healthy aftermarket for extra tooling, plans to build your own tooling, and personal/commercial websites featuring Taig related products and expositions on owner modified equipment and/or development. Check out cartertools.com for the largest of this type of web site. Nick (Carter) is also a dealer and has been the moderator of the Taig Yahoo group since its inception, and is a tireless supporter of these products.
There are several other dealers on the web as well, and their sites are a look.
When I was researching like you, after several weeks I narrowed it down to Taig and Sherline products. I even bought the machining handbook from Sherline, which features their products throughout (great book too) while teaching a newbie the fundamentals. But in the final analysis, for me, the Sherline products where a little too expensive for me and my planned use of the equipment. Even though I greatly admire the Sherline products, I still hold my same views today and I believe I would make the same decision all over again, proving at least I finally made a decision that fit me well.

Lynn Livingston

[Dave Lister]

Morning Folks
Lynn, thank you for that , thats just the sort of feedback i was lookiing for, did you get the very basic one and build up from that or did you go with some accessories to start with. what would you reccomend i should consider getting alongside the basic lathe ?

Thanks in advance

Dave

[Dave Lister]

Hi There
This was the initial lathe that i saw cant remember where i saw it but was wondering , is this bought this way or was it heavily modified to be as it is ?

Dave

[rowbare]

Dave,

Taig has just released a power feed for the Micro Lathe. It would be a nice option to have.

bob

[Dave Lister]

Morning Bob
Thank you for that i take it that release is in the US only so not available “Downunder yet” any idea of the price and will that only
fit specific build types ?

Dave

Merry xmas to one and all !

[rowbare]

It was released pretty recently so I imagine it will work its way through the channels. I don't know a whole lot about it but there are a couple of posts about it here.

http://cartertools.blogspot.com/

and

http://www.taigtools.com/mlathe.html

bob

[Lynn Livings]

Morning Folks
Lynn, thank you for that , thats just the sort of feedback i was lookiing for, did you get the very basic one and build up from that or did you go with some accessories to start with. what would you reccomend i should consider getting alongside the basic lathe ?

Thanks in advance

Dave

I initially purchased a lathe with a few accessories and have been buying and building some since. The prices for accessories from Taig (Nick Carter Tools), The Little Machine Shop, AtoZ CNC and others are really affordable. I've slowed down some on the lathe as I also got a Taig mill and have recently converted it to CNC. I have a list of things to do with, for and to the lathe in the future.
I would recommend getting the book on the Taig lathe by Tony Jefferee (sp?). Tony is a proliferate Taig accessory designer and builder. His book is cheap and has loads of information on the stock lathe and it's uses, plus Tony showcases and provides plans for some great accessories with comments about how you might change them to suit.
I personally have changed my lathe to variable speed by way of DC motor and controller. That was a very nice enhancement IMO. I've also made an indexing plate for the spindle, handle for the tail stock, and purchased a quick change tool post, etc. Its all good.
BTW, the lathe shown above that you were wondering about is not stock. I believe that lathe belongs to John Bentley (aka the "Engine Man"), but it has been awhile since I've seen that picture. His website should be easily found and it would be worth a visit. John has some amazing skills and execution. He has taken a first class lathe and turned it into an ultra first class lathe. I actually used his design and added a leadscrew to my Taig. I was a great project that taught me a lot about measuring and turning accuracy and was a lot of fun to boot.


Lynn Livingston

[2_many_hobbies]

Hey, I have owned my Taig lathe for over a year now and thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

I originally bought the Taig because of its top notch build quality and accuracy. I had been to look at all the 7x10/12's and found their cross/compound slides where not very sturdy. Their was alot of backlash in the system and I had trouble fiddling with the adjusters and was generally unhappy with the lack of accuracy. The Taig was wonderfully easy to adjust and once a week I take it apart and clean off the ways/gibbs and can set everything up to take repeatable cuts to 0.001" without thinking.

Back last year I was wanting a model building lathe and foresaw no need to cut threads so I jumped on the Taig. Nowdays though I have many ideas in which a simple thread is required to be cut and I must always use a die. One project I was going to make a small replacement for my dremel out of metal. Was going to mount the motor and use its collets on the new all aluminum version but the collet thread is proprietary. The TPI is standard but the width of the material is a non standard number. So I have many half finished projects due to this...

Looking back now after spending alot of money on the Taig (~$1000) I have the compound slide, milling slide, fly cutter, slitting saw, a few end mill holders. I would have been better off with a 7x12 or 7x14. Here is my reasons why:

-Tooling, the 7x's use standard spindle threads so you can get new chucks for reasonable prices. (In Taigs defense their chucks are pretty fairly priced)

-Tooling, the 7x's spindle and tail are standard MT-3/2 so you can easily pick up a wide range of tool holding and be able to use them on other equipment down the road. Taigs proprietary collets and spindle thread mean they will only ever work on their machines.

-Motors, While the taigs 1/4HP is quite good the teeney drive belt is a bit of a letdown. I have only broken one due to over tightening and it hurt when it did. (I now have guards over the chuck and drive parts)

-Screw Cutting, while you may think you wont use it that one idea that requires it will piss you off to no ends. I would rather have it and not need it than not have it thats for sure.

-Power feed, This is quite an easy one to do actually. I have a little dc motor i turned an adapter for the handwheel and I just adjust its speed and voila powerfeed! (I used the guts from an old black and decker 9.6V drill $5 at a garage sale)

Well this turned into a long post.. To sum it all up I say take a good look at the future before you buy and figure if you want high tolerance high quality right now and lots of 'mods' you WILL need to do down the road. or if you can handle a more versatile machine that will take you a month or two to learn to get into the tolerances and accuracy as a stock Taig but not need to modify much of anything down the road...

EDIT - I should mention that upon evaluating my goals in this hobby I plan on selling my Taig and getting a 10x22, Its easier to sell a 7x12 on craigslist it seems...

[Dean W]

Hey, I have owned my Taig lathe for over a year now and thought I would throw in my 2 cents.

-Tooling, the 7x's use standard spindle threads so you can get new chucks for reasonable prices. (In Taigs defense their chucks are pretty fairly priced)

-Tooling, the 7x's spindle and tail are standard MT-3/2 so you can easily pick up a wide range of tool holding and be able to use them on other equipment down the road. Taigs proprietary collets and spindle thread mean they will only ever work on their machines.

Just for the record, the Taig spindle thread IS a standard thread, and has been used on various small lathes for about a century. Besides the very good Taig chucks, there are a number of other manufactures that make chucks for this thread.

In any case, most people don't usually buy a machine hoping that the tooling they have will fit something else in future. There are about a dozen standard chuck mounting systems in use, and none of them will work with others of a different spec. I.E. the chuck from a Seig will not fit on a S.B., etc.


Dave;
If what you want to build will fit on a Taig, and you don't need to cut non-standard threads, there are few machines that will do a better job than the Taig, and none anywhere near its price.
You can do all standard threads with tap and die, which is what I've done for years. If you need to cut non-standard threads, then you need a good screw cutting lathe, or you can modify the Taig. There are a number of articles on the web concerning this.

I've done an enormous number of projects on my Taig, and I use it anytime the work fits, even though I have two larger lathes. I can say with all honesty, that if all my lathes were gone tomorrow, (four of them), I would get another Taig first, even before replacing my lovely Atlas.

You mentioned CNC. It is all the rage, but remember, the entire whole of civilization has been built without it up until a few decades ago. Atomic energy was developed without it. Men went into space without it.
Learning machining practices is the way to start, and it's my opinion that you can learn more, faster, if you are not playing computer the same time you are trying to play machinist.

You can learn a lot about machining practices with the Taig lathe. It's not what I started on, but it would have served me well to have had it years ago. There is no messing about trying to figure out if it is you doing something wrong, or if the machine is simply so poorly tuned that it's not your fault at all. The Taig is a properly made machine to start with, and a good machine to learn on.

If you have more questions, feel free to write.

Dean

[2_many_hobbies]

In any case, most people don't usually buy a machine hoping that the tooling they have will fit something else in future.

If you take into account that the vast majority of hobby machines are the chinese made ones from recent years then you have quite standard tapers and portable tooling. MT-2/3 JT-33 and R8 are pretty much the standards on these machines so the tooling selection, prices and resale ability are much better. If your into buying the old school stuff then you can easily run into machines that require their own brand of tooling and tapers but the majority of hobbyists just buy a sieg.

I didn't mean to sound so hard on the little lathe I think its a wonderful little machine even with its shortcomings. Because it is small and have little stock options you learn proper procedures for turning and how to take proper cuts. The best thing this little guy has done is made me think of so many accessories or little tweeks that it gave me the cnc milling bug!

Im making a cnc kit for my Taig now and because the machine is all #10-32 screws and 1/4-20 SS Threaded Rod you can goto a loacal hardware store for the conversion materials.