Ever tried home shop machining before?

The gear wasn`t too bad in price.

The tooling about broke me.

Strange how that works.

Grizzly Industrial....................Have purchased from them a few times in the past.

Good service. That was important to me.

Precision Matthews has a good reputation.  I just purchased about $400 worth of lathe tooling for my son.  I don't think he has had an opportunity to use it yet.  It was just delivered yesterday.

We have a whole forum on this topic.  However, since this is here I will play.  I have a Millrite milling machine (think 3/4 size Bridgeport) and a Grizzly mid-size lathe.  They work well enough for my needs.

I got an old Atlas 12" lathe this year with tons of tooling from an older guy. It was just sitting in a basement for decades.

I can't complain one way or the other for the price because it's just for me to goof around on and make custom bushings or whatever as needed.

I'm still learning, it's not a trade I'm very familiar with at all, so I went in pretty much blind and dumb.

I bought one of the Sieg mini lathes and absolutely fucking hate it.

It wasn't bought as a machine to learn on.  It was bought to have a lathe in my reloading area.

I picked up a used Jet mill-drill


Not great, but I only paid about $300 and it does most of what I want--just takes more time and more finagling that I like.
Don't have room for a lathe, but soon.

I first started out with one of those 3-in-1 machines from Harbor Freight.  Limitations on that thing was a deal breaker.  Didn’t have it very long before I sold it.

Ended up buying a Harbor Freight 6x26 mill.  These things are sold under different brands but they are all the same.  Just bought the cheapest and used a 20% off coupon.  Rewired the whole thing, added a DRO and powerfeed.

Lathe is a Grizzly G4000 9x19.  Same thing with this, same Chinese factory makes all the brands.  Thing really sucked, under powered and a nuisance clutch.  Rewired that too. Put on a 1hp motor off a VFD and I got loads of power and precise speed control.  Can easily cut threads now.  

Tooling slowly acquired over the years.  Little Machine Shop, Harbor Freight, Shars, and Enco.  God I miss Enco.  Those “Hot Deals” catalogs were magical to me.

Auctions are your friend.  You'll end up with more chaff than wheat, but unless you go crazy youll be money ahead.

And then some oddball task pops up and you randomly have just the right tool for it from that auction lot.

I started with a little HF Lathe and Mini Mill that I bought 2nd hand for cheap.  Both had issues with the speed control and power.

I lucked into a late 70s Boxford 10" lathe that was in pretty good condition from a friend.  I then spent 2x what the lathe cost me on tooling and am now looking to get a DRO for it because I'm tired of setting up dial indicators.

I rarely need the mill so I'm still struggling using the mini mill but if something else reasonably sized and priced pops up I'd be interested.

I have a Bridgeport Series 1 Heavy Duty mill. It's almost twice the size of a standard series 1 but uses J heads like a series 1. Weighs 3500lbs. Standard series 1 is about 2000 lbs.

I also have an early 2 digit serial number Hardinge HLV lathe.

I'm looking for a good band saw.

It's an addiction.

I have an old Sheldon 10" Lathe and a matching Sheldon No-0 Horizontal mill with a vertical attachment. Both made around 1960 or so I am guessing.


I love them!

Are those the 12x54 units with air assisted knee?  I think box ways as well.

This is always the hope but in reality it rarely works out.  For every one piece of usable tooling you end up with 87 pieces of uselessness.  Wrong size collets, some obscure, proprietary QC tooling, attachments missing key components, clapped out antiquated tooling and dull & broken mills.  

A) Don't bid on round tools.  They're cheap and easy enough to be buy new.  Same with collets.
A1) Except large drills.  Those are worth regrinding.

B) Don't just buy random lots, be able to have positively identify enough items in the lots to know what it's worth.

C) Do NOT get sucked into the competitive auction mentality.

I love threading with the HLV lathes we have at work.

I'm kinda jealous of the Hardinge.

I’ve had a mini lathe w/14” bed and a mini mill for 20 years. I’ve done a lot of things on them that would seem near impossible, but I’ve also hated every minute of it because they are crude frustrating machines. The one good thing I’ll say about the mini-mill is it makes a good precision drilling machine.

I’m on a mission to elevate my home machining game.

A few days ago I brought home a completely rebuilt 12” Clausing. Next up will be a Bridgeport or equivalent milling machine. I have a surface grinder and various other fabrication tools but I’ve been seriously lacking on the foundation of lathe/mill.

When I went to school for machining, one of my instructors told us that if we opened our own shops, the cost of tooling would dwarf the cost of the machines themselves, and if we decided to sell it all off, the tooling would be sold for pennies.

My mini lathe is probably about equal in cost to the parts and tooling I've bought for it. My 3D printer is only about halfway there.

Your instructor was spot on. I've spent several million on machines and probably twice as much on tooling over the years. It's an expensive business to get up and running and costly to get out of too.

Addiction is right.

You have some very nice gear my friend!

Bought all my stuff used.
Lathe, Shaper, Mill.
This is my one expensive (also bought used) piece of tooling.
Attached File

I have an Atrump 13-40 gearhead, awesome lathe. I had a ‘64 vintage Bridgeport J head- I let it go after we moved and I just dont have the room for it.
I miss my mill

FANUC Robodrill.  $15k for the machine. I'm about $3k in workholding, $7k in air and electric upgrades, and $5k in cutters.

You can save some money on tooling by not going crazy on the cuts and standardizing your cutting tools.  I buy a lot of YG1 and program jobs to reuse cutters.  Helical interpolation, a 3/8" endmill, and a single point thread mill can do a lot of things!

How much time do you have? Lol!

I just finished getting a 1936 Carroll Jamieson 16x40 lathe running and I'm using the trashed 3 jaw it came with to make the chuck adapter for the 4 jaw I bought to replace it.

Attached File


I have a Precision Matthew's 1030v, which is pretty crappy, and a 835S mill which is really excellent. I've got a 30 year old Taiwanese HF mill drill and a surface grinder.

I'm lucky to have two companies that sell surplus tooling, and a good flea market.

Now that I've got a lathe with a MT3 tailstock, I'm planning on loading up on MT3 shank drills for $8 lb. I'll spend an hour digging through the bins, building as complete a set as my budget will allow. Almost all will be brand new USA or European quality.

I've been doing that for years.....

I shop Ebay but I never buy lots. I decide on a specific tool I'm shopping for and put several versions in my list to compare and then I'll make offers, often buying stuff dirt cheap. Occasionally you'll get screwed but I'm miles ahead of retail.

I run mostly Chinese inserts but I keep certain quality inserts on hand too. I turned 15 lbs of steel into chips today on one corner of one Chinese insert.

Make an inventory on your phone. I use color note. If I'm cruising the flea market and I see something interesting I can check my drill inventory or my reamer inventory or my bolt buy list or tap and die inventory.

Never pass on ridiculously cheap quality drill bits.