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New lathe choices in Canada

@ShawnR - part of me just wants to go buy that lathe and clean it up and have it on hand for guys like yourself- @Chicken lights is an amazing delivery guy for sure! I think I will be in T-Bay in a couple weeks on the ship If harbour break out is the deal
 
Yep - no issue there, can even have my people load it for me. I have a Perkins 3/144 in rebuild in the cargo hold - LOL. Need a small diesel?
 
@YYCHobbyMachinist, the story:

once upon a time there was a tug boat that hit a piece of rebar while coming into the dock. Slowly overnight water came in and the poor tug settled to the bottom with just enough water level to flood the front engine room area. The water wrecked the 10kw generator end but the wee Perkins was lifted to safety- or so it thought. For many years it sat at the local boat yard, the original tarp destroyed in the winds. As I had repaired the tug boat several times for various things, the owner gave me the engine. I brought it to the ship and loaded it as a method to help train some of the new folks on small diesel repair.... should be about $300 in parts and perhaps it will live on in a tractor or another small boat!
 
Very first post here, but oddly it doesn't seem many Canadians know of Garant Machinery in Quebec. Just do a Google search on the name since I don't think the forum will allow me to post any links yet. I'm in B.C. and at the time I was looking for my 11" x 27" lathe they were the only dealer within Canada who carried them. Yes there mostly an industrial machine tool dealer, but also sell some models at the more average hobbyist level. Even with the distance involved they were great to deal with and as long as I was willing to wait the 4 months it took I could special order my lathe with a few options there in stock lathes didn't come with at the time. An MT 3 tail stock for one example. I think Garant are at least worth knowing about anyway. Something else worth considering and even more so at the hobby level for any new or used machine. That it has at least a proper tee slotted cross slide. It's something rarely considered, but is imo a non optional part of the lathes design. Some jobs are just easier to do using the lathe like a mini HBM or horizontal mill. And between centers through hole boring can be an essential but over looked method.

My shop's pretty small and limited on actual weight or I would have bought something in the 12" -14" swing size. Most manufacturer's today have a fairly large jump in weight and rigidity once you hit that 13"-14" swing for not a whole lot more considering what your then getting. Budget for most of us is of course one of our big limitations. But if it were me, I think I'd list out every important design detail you want before even starting to look for something that matches as close as you can to what's on that list and what your not willing to do without. Your requirements might be a lot different than mine, but to be honest I think most would want something with a built in back gear, a decent QCGB with a double check to be sure just what threading pitches it actually has. Some off shore machines aren't capable of cutting a few fairly common thread pitches. I'd also want a threading dial, a spindle with a minimum of two front taper roller bearings and at least one in the rear. A large spindle through hole would be important to most. And if you ever see adding a collet set up then 5C is the obvious choice. So that means having at least a MT 5 taper in the head stock. And today I wouldn't even consider any lathe with a reversible motor that came with a threaded spindle nose. Yes they work and have proved themselves for a few centuries, but there's simply much better spindle nose designs today. A D1-3-D1-6 spindle nose would be my first choice.I'd also want something that at least allows an exact and not approximate gear ratio with an additional 127 tooth gear that gives you the option of Imperial or metric thread cutting. From what I saw for the difference with my 3 ph BP clone mill I'd also want that lathe to have a proper 3 ph motor and then just drive it with a VFD. Other that the fairly small extra cost for that VFD there's every reason to go that route and none not to do so. Even a simple search turns up ample issues with any of the off shore variable speed single ph electronics. It's not if the boards are going to fail, it's only how long until they do. And those replacement components aren't that cheap and may take awhile to even get.

I don't recall seeing the brand mentioned in this thread yet. There not exactly cheap compared to what Busy Bee or King Canada are selling, but there definitely a large step above those anyway. Eisen is one that's also worth checking out if your budget will go that high. For used machines one I'd recommend putting on the list is the Emco (not Enco) Super 11's or even better there Maximate V13. Hard to find in decent shape now since there no longer made, but they were built as a true light duty tool room class of lathe.

Pete
 
Brent H said:
@ShawnR - part of me just wants to go buy that lathe and clean it up and have it on hand for guys like yourself- l
Click to expand...

That would be fun, although it would be like fostering puppies. Once it is done, you won't want to give them up! It might become Brent's lathe museum. :D
 
Dirt Machinist said:
Very first post here, but oddly it doesn't seem many Canadians know of Garant Machinery in Quebec. Just do a Google search on the name since I don't think the forum will allow me to post any links yet. I'm in B.C. and at the time I was looking for my 11" x 27" lathe they were the only dealer within Canada who carried them. Yes there mostly an industrial machine tool dealer, but also sell some models at the more average hobbyist level. Even with the distance involved they were great to deal with and as long as I was willing to wait the 4 months it took I could special order my lathe with a few options there in stock lathes didn't come with at the time. An MT 3 tail stock for one example. I think Garant are at least worth knowing about anyway. Something else worth considering and even more so at the hobby level for any new or used machine. That it has at least a proper tee slotted cross slide. It's something rarely considered, but is imo a non optional part of the lathes design. Some jobs are just easier to do using the lathe like a mini HBM or horizontal mill. And between centers through hole boring can be an essential but over looked method.

My shop's pretty small and limited on actual weight or I would have bought something in the 12" -14" swing size. Most manufacturer's today have a fairly large jump in weight and rigidity once you hit that 13"-14" swing for not a whole lot more considering what your then getting. Budget for most of us is of course one of our big limitations. But if it were me, I think I'd list out every important design detail you want before even starting to look for something that matches as close as you can to what's on that list and what your not willing to do without. Your requirements might be a lot different than mine, but to be honest I think most would want something with a built in back gear, a decent QCGB with a double check to be sure just what threading pitches it actually has. Some off shore machines aren't capable of cutting a few fairly common thread pitches. I'd also want a threading dial, a spindle with a minimum of two front taper roller bearings and at least one in the rear. A large spindle through hole would be important to most. And if you ever see adding a collet set up then 5C is the obvious choice. So that means having at least a MT 5 taper in the head stock. And today I wouldn't even consider any lathe with a reversible motor that came with a threaded spindle nose. Yes they work and have proved themselves for a few centuries, but there's simply much better spindle nose designs today. A D1-3-D1-6 spindle nose would be my first choice.I'd also want something that at least allows an exact and not approximate gear ratio with an additional 127 tooth gear that gives you the option of Imperial or metric thread cutting. From what I saw for the difference with my 3 ph BP clone mill I'd also want that lathe to have a proper 3 ph motor and then just drive it with a VFD. Other that the fairly small extra cost for that VFD there's every reason to go that route and none not to do so. Even a simple search turns up ample issues with any of the off shore variable speed single ph electronics. It's not if the boards are going to fail, it's only how long until they do. And those replacement components aren't that cheap and may take awhile to even get.

I don't recall seeing the brand mentioned in this thread yet. There not exactly cheap compared to what Busy Bee or King Canada are selling, but there definitely a large step above those anyway. Eisen is one that's also worth checking out if your budget will go that high. For used machines one I'd recommend putting on the list is the Emco (not Enco) Super 11's or even better there Maximate V13. Hard to find in decent shape now since there no longer made, but they were built as a true light duty tool room class of lathe.

Pete
Click to expand...
Good comments Pete welcome on board.
 
Hmmm, I may have just done a real stupid error Shawn. I double checked there website through your link and also did a Google search for Garant Machinery Conventional lathes. You appear to be correct and to me it looks like my previous information about them might now be worthless. They've been sending me an email every 6 months or so since I bought my lathe, but even though there fully bilingual those emails are always in French so I've just deleted them. Any one of those might have been to inform me they were moving away from selling the more conventional machine tools. My sincere apology's for what was a bogus lead I guess. :-(
 
Absolutely no problem Pete! Thanks for trying! I think some of these companies change their supply line time to time depending on options available to them.

Cheers,
Shawno
 
Thanks Shawn, but my OCD good/bad personality defect depending on point of view hates making dumb mistakes like that. I obviously should have checked it was valid information before even mentioning the company.
 
@Dirt Machinist - the web site does say they offer metal lathes - however, there is no follow up anywhere about “lathes” - bummer
So you were not misleading - the company seems to be the one needing a tune up.
 
ShawnR said:
So, the only reason I have been upselling myself on lathe size is to get away from the manual change gears and maybe be able to cut left threads (why? I don't know, sounds cool)...

It would be cool to have a 1440 sitting in my shop, but 1 inch pieces on it does sound like over kill....but still cool ...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

1" bar in a 14" lathe - not really over kill. I can assure you it works great. 1/8" bar is a bit of a pain as the chuck jaws don't close down that far. Of course for smaller items there are some other options (using collets, put the drill chuck into the head stock, . . . .). If you never work material larger than 1" in diameter, then it would make sense to look at a smaller machine so as not to tie up so much cash in capabilities that are not being used. Often the medium size machines will have nice features that are not present on small hobby lathes (hence the quest for small quality industrial machines).
 
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