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Sherline is great as a jewlers lathe, but I am not sure they have enough rigidity for what you would use it for. If I were in the market for a bench lathe I would go with the HiTorque line from Little Machine Shop

https://littlemachineshop.com/products/ ... 1271799306

I’m not so sure about lathes actually being made in the USA versus badged made in the USA. However this company make a small lathe that’s popular for small and simple tasks and attachments for more complicated work are available (to buy or make).
Definitely USA made, TAIG: https://taigtools.com/

BRS wrote: ↑Thu Jan 11, 2024 10:37 am Electronics .The full manual versions of stuff are always more attractive to me.

Here I am thinking about converting my small lathe to CNC as a project.

DROs are essential equipment for me now. No more thinking about backlash correction (especially on small lathes where the pressure exerted on the cross slide through the toolpost from your workpiece is proportionally higher than on a larger more rigid lathe) or stupid math errors when doing blind I.D. measurements with a dial indicator. Just makes life so much easier.

I should add... If you can go for 3 axis DRO over 2.. This way you always know exactly where your tool tip is even if you rotate your compound mid part. No more screwing around with trig calculations or pulling out the dial indicator mid part. Makes setup for taper turning with the compound a breeze.

Sherlines are light, and even a mouthpiece rim will push beyond their boundaries if you make a heavy enough cut to leave a nice finish. And it will stall the motor. Plus, it lacks a powered carriage, near as I can tell, let alone a precision leadscrew for cutting threads.

The 7x16 Hi-Torque from Little Machine Shop is much heavier and more rigid. It also has a rotatable compound making it possible to cut tapers (such as you'd need adjusting a mouthpiece shank). And though you have to use change gears to set up the leadscrew speed, they will cut threads at both inch and metric pitches. It's about the same price as the Sherline.

But bigger lathes will do smaller work, whereas smaller lathes will not do bigger work.

My choice would be another step up to a 10" lathe, such as the Precision Matthews PM1022. Precision Matthews, like Little Machine Shop, sells import lathes for the simple reason that nobody makes manual lathes in the U.S. anymore once you are bigger than a Sherline. But both Little Machine Shop and (especially) Precision Matthews have good reputations among (at least) hobbyist machinists. Not that many professional machinists are left who use manual lathes for much of anything. But this is an expensive step up--the PM1022 with DRO and quick-change toolpost is $3500.

The PM1022 has a feature the Hi-Torque does not besides being bigger, and that's a quick-change gearbox. That means thread pitches can be changed without messing with change gears. It will do both inch and metric threading. The 1022 also has power crossfeed for facing operations, which the Hi-Torque does not. And it has a 1" spindle bore, which is nearly as big as my South Bend 14-1/2 (which is in a whole other category of massivity).

You can sort-of tell all this by the weight: The Sherline 3.5x22 weighs 31 pounds shipped. The Hi-Torque 7x16 machine only is 91 pounds plus shipping crate, the Precision Matthews 10x22 is 360 pounds just the machine, and my South Bend 14-1/2x36 is about 3000 pounds as it sits with the chucks, motor, and steady. And by power: The motor in the Sherline draws 60 watts. The Hi-Torque motor draws 1000 watts, as does the PM motor (both of these use variable-speed DC motors, but unlike the Sherline, these have 100% duty-cycle ratings). My South Bend has a 2-horsepower motor from back when that meant net output not merely power draw.

Whatever you buy, setting it up is critical for both rigidity and accuracy. It must be rigidly bolted down to a strong and stiff bench (500 of the 2500 pounds of my South Bend is the cast-iron legs and head bell), and the two ends must be adjusted to be perfectly planar or it will cut tapers when it shouldn't. Don't take shortcuts with setup.

(Edit: On DRO's--note that the LMS Hi-Torque has DRO's, but they are independent for each axis. You have three separate single-axis DRO's mounted on the crossfeed, the compound, and the tailstock quill. There is no DRO for carriage travel. The two-axis DRO for the Precision Matthews 1022 is a combined unit with optical tracks on the carriage and crossfeed. It will therefore measure things like diameters of workpieces being turned and will have memories that will allow both relative and absolute measurements in either metric or SAE. These are features the separate single-axis DRO's lack.)

Rick "go one size up from the biggest you imagine needing" Denney