There's a real learning curve to freehand cutting like that.
Lathes. It took me 20 years to work up to getting a real lathe I’m
happy with, because of the cost/value ratio. They are machinery and
they aren’t cheap or if they are they’re not worth buying,
generally. I’llsay that I’ve never used a watchmaker’s lathe, but in
this case that doesn’t mean much.
As others have said, watchmaker’s lathes are of a style that most
call wood lathes - there is a tool rest and you use chisels and your
hands to cut tiny parts. They are made to cut ~tiny~ parts, like
1/2mm shafts and 2 mm blanks for watch gears. Much bigger than that
is going to exceed it’s capacity. It’s easy enough to find the item
listed on Ebay - right now it’s $227.50 and $17.95 shipping. That’s
hard to beat but is it really going to be useful to you at any
price? Aside from the pulley it only has one small collet and no
chucks, so you’ll need to buy those to get any larger work done. My
suggestion would be to try to find a small metal lathe and then you
can do what you want and there will be room to do other work in the
future, too. A metal lathe has a carriage that holds the tool that
moves XY - horizontally and longitudinally. The tool is held by the
machine and it’s 100 times stronger and more precise. They also cost
more both new and used, but again, buying something that isn’t useful
is foolish to begin with unless you are a collector.
OK, small lathes. Brian listed some good ones but the real point is
that the website he used is really fascinating if you go to the home
page and start fresh. The problem withwhat he posted - I speak from
great experience - is that everybody in the whole world is looking
for used Atlas lathes and many of the others. They aren’t impossible
to find but close to it - somebody else always seems toget there
first, it seems.
Looking at Ebay just now there are none. There are a couple of
smaller lathes for local pick up only.
I ended up with the Chinese lathe which I’m happy with for the money
and for what I use it for. I went with the 7" for a couple of years
until the electrics blew out (and it had other issues) and now I have
the 9 x 20 - 9×20 Class Lathes – Mini-lathe.com It’s a well known
secret that there is only one maker of this lathe - I forget the name
and a quick search didn’t come up with it. Grizzly, Enco, Jet and a
halfdozen others all sell it with a proprietary paint job, but it’s
the same machine. There are other makers of other small lathes but
this one is thesame with white paint or green paint. Taigs are good
but they are, again, small.
Bottom line - Metal lathes aren’t cheap. Even the small ones. Plus
mine is tiny and it weighs 375 pounds or 170 kilos. They hit ahalf
ton real quick - 500 kilos.
I’ll also recommend the age-old handbook for beginners on what is
actually a complex piece of machinery - How to Run a Lathe,
published by South Bend since the 50’s or something. It’sout there,
cheap, if you look for it… John D.