What a Lathe is
Ask any sawmill worker or a carpenter and he’ll tell you what a lathe is. A lathe is a machine tool used in the wood, metal or pottery industry to perform various operations on work pieces such as deformation, drilling, knurling, sanding and cutting. The mini lathe then, in this regard, is simply a small version of the standard lathe, the kind frequently seen in large-scale workshops.
Here are some basic facts about mini lathes:
Common sizes for mini lathes are 7 x 10 and 7 x 12 mini lathes. These sizes are great for both amateurs and professionals. A bigger lathe would require additional fine tuning and, sad to say, this doesn’t go well with inexperienced users or beginners.
Recommended retail prices vary at around $300 to $500. Anything higher than that is too expensive, and anything cheaper would be too risky in terms of the quality of the machine itself.
You can find lots of mini lathe tools and add-ons for sale on the Internet. These include dial indicators, chucks, gibs, backlaches, saddles, motor belts, headstocks, and other accessories.
Mini lathes are useful and inexpensive machines. You can cut, sand, knurl, drill or deform hard materials without the expense and space inconvenience of an industry size lathe. In fact, these machines are so essential that it’s almost sacrilege to call a work shed a work shed if it doesn’t have a mini lathe under its roof.
The late Steven Irwin once said that every boy’s got to have a work shed. Honest and down-to-earth words of a great man. It’s true, what he said, but we’d like to something else: every boy deserves to have a mini lathe in his work shed.