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Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!
What size lathe do you have?
- Thread starter Susquatch
- Start date
This would be ideal except......
I don't always have a regular chuck on my lathe. I quite often have one of the custom chucks I made for my lathe or a front spider on it. Sometimes I even use the MT5 taper without a chuck. Almost always, this is precision work so leaving the gap out or even replacing it without a full blown alignment simply wouldn't work for me.
Ya, my gap is NEVER coming out.
You are in good company with @mbond and a group of personal friends of mine who also have combo machines.
Currently I've got a Standard Modern 2000 series with 13" swing. Been a great machine, rebuilt it a few years back. Was a high-school machine that must have had an issue very early on with the electrics that they never bothered to fix, as the bed is almost perfect, but to motor was smoked.
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So where in S Ontarrible are you?
Have you seen the notifications about our April 6 meetup hosted by Modern Tool? Hope you can come. While at the meetup you’d be interested to have a look at the 6 used Standard Modern (14x40) lathes that Modern Tool just acquired from a northern college. They plan to demo one of them at the meetup. I’ll be getting more info on them and posting it soon on the Forum Here’s a pic
canadianhobbymetalworkers.com
Have you seen the notifications about our April 6 meetup hosted by Modern Tool? Hope you can come. While at the meetup you’d be interested to have a look at the 6 used Standard Modern (14x40) lathes that Modern Tool just acquired from a northern college. They plan to demo one of them at the meetup. I’ll be getting more info on them and posting it soon on the Forum Here’s a pic
Ontario meetup, April 6
Meetup announcement for Southern Ontario (GTHA and The Golden Horseshoe) on Saturday April 6, 2024 at 10AM. MARCH 21st UPDATE. NOTICE - THE VENUE HAS CHANGED. PLEASE SEE THIS POST: Post in thread 'Ontario meetup, April 6'...
canadianhobbymetalworkers.com
ChazzC
Ultra Member
Started out with an 8x20 (or maybe 8-1/2?) Taiwanese back in the 90's, but needed space so sold that and my Mill-Drill around 2003. Once I was able to reclaim the space, I got a MicroMark/Microlux 7/16, and have since added a number of "improvements." Would like to get a 10" Bench Lathe, but money is always a constraint.
I'm in the Niagara/Haldimand area. I will try and make it to the meet up, but quite honestly, I cant seem to plan anything more than 12 hours out without someone/something changing those plans without my consent....
Nice lathe. What am I seeing on top of the nearest part of the ways, just in front of the tailstock? Is it way protection?
Martin w
Ultra Member
Hi Colin, thanks.
yes they are aluminum flanges bolted to the carriage and way wipers. Keeps the chips away.
The one on the back, I had to tig weld back on. I was turning a 20-1/2” piece on my faceplate. I had clearance but not enough once I started taking a cut. It caught and broke it off..
Martin
Downwindtracker2
Ultra Member
A BusyBee DF1224g, 12x24,one of the belt drive generic Taiwanese. I haven't found out what machine shop DF is, so I'll just call it generic. I bought a Rong Fu 45 mill/drill and it for $1750. I valued the RF-45 at $1500. At the time new they were $5,500 USD. By my math I paid $250 . A fair bit more in the rebuild.
@Susquatch
I purchased a new Busy Bee Craftex CX708 on April 09, 2025 that is a 10" x 18". So far it seems to be good.
I choose this one as I was looking for a lathe that had:
1) a 1" pass through.
2) was a gearhead machine. Don't like equipment with electronic controls / control boards. I prefer simple equipment.
3) a 5" chuck as minium
4) cost and it was / is on sale for $600 off list price.
5) as heavy as possible within this class of machine. I figure the heavier the machine the better. According to their online spec sheet, online manual and the spec sheet that their floor model had attached to it the lathe supposedly weight in at 283kg ( 623.9 lbs ). Not
According to the labelling on the wooden crate it came in it has a N.W.: 120kg and G.W.: 140kg. That relates to a N.W. of 264.5 lbs. and a G.W. of 308.6 lbs. That is a far cry from the 623.9 lbs, as advertised. This was borne out when two old geezers and my son could lift it into place.
Just not happy with Busy Bee and their lack of response to my email outlining some minor and some major concerns.
I purchased a new Busy Bee Craftex CX708 on April 09, 2025 that is a 10" x 18". So far it seems to be good.
I choose this one as I was looking for a lathe that had:
1) a 1" pass through.
2) was a gearhead machine. Don't like equipment with electronic controls / control boards. I prefer simple equipment.
3) a 5" chuck as minium
4) cost and it was / is on sale for $600 off list price.
5) as heavy as possible within this class of machine. I figure the heavier the machine the better. According to their online spec sheet, online manual and the spec sheet that their floor model had attached to it the lathe supposedly weight in at 283kg ( 623.9 lbs ). Not
According to the labelling on the wooden crate it came in it has a N.W.: 120kg and G.W.: 140kg. That relates to a N.W. of 264.5 lbs. and a G.W. of 308.6 lbs. That is a far cry from the 623.9 lbs, as advertised. This was borne out when two old geezers and my son could lift it into place.
Just not happy with Busy Bee and their lack of response to my email outlining some minor and some major concerns.
I'd say that is a majority opinion around here. There are quite a few members that like their Busy Bee Machines. But there are also lots of members who are not happy with Busy Bee Service or Support.
CX708/B2227L is the same as the BVB25 sold by a zillion Chinese suppliers. Realistic weight is 150 kgs, see https://ia601004.us.archive.org/34/items/lathe-manuals/BV20- BVB25 manuel.pdf for a weight chart for the various versions.
Busy Bee customer service is abysmal. Don’t expect a response. Takes BB months to respond to a request for a potential sale, my guess is complaints get filed in the oval file cabinet. If it’s worth fussing with, I’d be talking to the federal Competition Bureau, it’s illegal to advertise products with false claims.
However, I am very happy with my B2227L lathe, I’ve had it for about 15 years and it does what I want. My selection criteria was almost exactly the same as yours, only thing I would have liked is if it had a quick-change gear box for cutting threads.
Busy Bee customer service is abysmal. Don’t expect a response. Takes BB months to respond to a request for a potential sale, my guess is complaints get filed in the oval file cabinet. If it’s worth fussing with, I’d be talking to the federal Competition Bureau, it’s illegal to advertise products with false claims.
However, I am very happy with my B2227L lathe, I’ve had it for about 15 years and it does what I want. My selection criteria was almost exactly the same as yours, only thing I would have liked is if it had a quick-change gear box for cutting threads.
I hate being ignored by vendors but did put them on notice that if I don't hear back by Monday at noon I will be complaining to the government agencies. A simple email response or phone call would have probably been enough but now it is a matter of principal and maybe preventing some other person from maybe making a decision based on their specs.
Thank you for the link even though it is in French it is a good resource.