Really IMPORTANT is that when bolting down the lathe, an indicator clock should be used as to check that you don't actually bend the lathebed when tightening the bolts. Because this is actually very easy to do! The forces you apply with the fastening bolts to lathe bed are considerable. And it is done at the far end corners of the lathe, so giving the bed a twist is really, really easy. (Do some readin up on the procedure.) The other side of the matter is of course that bolting down the lathe adds a lot of rigidity, as pointed out in the video. Also adding a big HEAVY steel base as suggested in the video, is a really good idea. Any added mass reduces vibrations. And then bolt that stell base to the bench "lightly" for safety and things like sawing etc, just not to have the whole thing "skating" around on the workbench. These mini lathes are really way to lightweight and flimsily designed, but it comes with the economy side of things, so doing the above alleviates a lot of the compromise inherrent in the "mini/micro" aspect of these lathes. Always buy the heaviest and biggest lathe you can possibly accomodate! It makes a huge difference! Even distance between centres is a lot more important than one might realize at first, because once chucks and tooling like drills are mounted, there is so little space left on a mini lathe, that just changing for another drill size is often a really annoying hassle. I'd say length of bed is more important than a quick change toolpost, when it comes to make work easyier

I've been machining over 32 years. You need to slow down your spindle speed and start using some coolant or cutting oil. The blue chip is a giveaway to using too fast a spindle speed. It will destroy your insert tooling much faster than it would normally last. The steel you're cutting will work harden as you cut it, and that will contribute to poor finishes. And the carbide inserts you're using have the wrong geometry for turning or facing. Get to know the cutting speed of the materials you cut in FPM (feet per minute). A quick and dirty calculation for a practical spindle speed when turning is RPM = (4 x FPM)/D, where D is the diameter of the work in inches. When drilling or milling a hole, D is the diameter of the cutter. But I cut the calculated spindle speed in half . Saves drill bits and mills, especially when drilling or milling deep holes.

Great video , I have been a machinist all my life and built pool cues for 30 years. I have been using the mini lathe since it first came out for putting pool cue tips on. I think I pretty much did all them mods at one point. For me my fav was my rear chuck to hold the pool cue shaft. Through the years I’ve made tens of thousands of dollars on the mini lathe . I used to have a portable one that I would set up at pool tournaments and do tips. the whole thing was mounted to a small butcher block cart that I had on caster wheels . the front was framed in with a Plexiglass window and fluorescent light overhead . I also made an extension so I can put the whole cue or shaft in between centers , it was a simple Bolt on with no flex , the carriage never needed go back there just the tail stock. I had some of the best pool players in the world walk up and have me put their tip on .. I wish I could post pics on here. Anyways awesome vid , keep up the good work.

Thank you for spending the time doing this video, i will be doing a few of your mods to make it more rigid for my Milling attachment .

The cutting finish says it all. Impressive machining.

Thanks! Just ordered the 8.7" x 29.5" w/1.5 hp brushless motor and a 1.5" spindle bore. I was eyeballing the full-size lathes, but being a newbie, I thought I'd drop $1300 first before I drop $13,000...we'll see how things go. Thanks again, some very good ideas!

Great video, I’ve been a maintenance machinist for forty years and you learn how to make due with some pretty junky machinery. I own a couple of mini lathes and a mill and have been running then for five or six years as bought. After watching your video on up grades I think I’ll try a few and make my retirement a little mor ergonomic. Thanks for sharing.

This is one of those videos I keep coming back to whenever I'm looking to upgrade my machine a bit. On the topic of the gib strips, I made a couple out of brass but instead of a mill, I used a surface grinder. If anyone is looking to do this, all you need is a tilting vise and a surface grinder. I started by tilting the vise to 60 degrees, which I verified with a comparator (there are plenty other ways to verify this without a $10,000 piece of inspection equipment haha, just what I had available at our shop). With the vise at 60 degrees, I mounted the square stock in it, and brought it to the surface grinder. I simply ground one side down until I had taken the flat off and I was left with a sharp edge. You'll then need to take the part out of the vise, as you can't grip it anymore, and use the maglock to directly fix it to the surface grinder, sitting on the edge you just grinded. Now when you grind the other side, since the part is already laying at a 60 degree angle, you're already going to get a correct angle on the other side. I took material off until I had a general shape of the gib strip, then switched to a higher grit white wheel. I cleaned up all surfaces and simply went back and forth, taking off small amount of material, test fitting it, and repeat until I got a nice fit. Overall it took a while, quite a bit of surfacing but the end result was worth it and I didn't need a dovetail cutter, and didn't have to use our mill. (I mostly did this because I'm an idiot when it comes to milling and I wasn't confident that I could get a good part with the small amount of stock I had available)

You've been doing some great lathe mod videos lately. We shared this video in our homemade tools forum this week :)

I hope you're proud of your channel, It's really good. If there's anywhere near you that cuts stone for worktops and things like that. Ask them if you can buy a cut off slab of granite or marble, they'll probably be happy to drill a few holes in it, and bolt your lathe to that. From the mass and rigidity you'll see a massive difference in several ways, stability, surface finish, vibration, chatter. Keep up the great work!

It would be AWESOME if somehow some of your mods were to get to the manufacturers of these lathes. they could do some of them without much additional costs. and the manufactures who did this would sell more of them.

Great mods, makes me wish I didn't sell my mini lathe in expectation of buying a better lathe. I have still not bought a new lathe and I miss having the old one.

You might consider putting felt into the oil holes. Doing this controls the flow of the oil to the surfaces requiring lubrication. An advantage is that the oil does not “run out” reducing oil collecting crap from your work and helping to generally keep the tool a little cleaner.

Man you rebuild the entire Lathe. Very useful video thank you very much, I just purchase mine.

I don't have a lathe or a mill, and I've never done any machining. For some reason I just find this video very soothing.

Ton of good ideas. Mini lathe is high on my list as a near term purchase, so this is great information.

I cut a dovetail into a right angle plate to mount to the cross slide, then mounted a t-slot plate to the vertical face of the right angle plate in order to use it as a horizontal mill. It worked out perfect to cut the new gib strips and carriage retainers. The next thing that I'm looking for is a good way to be able to adjust the angle of the top slide faster

The casting in my seigX2 mini mill came pre bent as well as had a musical feature from the column's casting core shifting, leaving a blade thin section to support the dovetails, oh the joyous clanging tones of vibrating zed axis.

Great improvements, some of them I will definitely do for mine mini lathe.

I’ve been following your mods. Very good work. I’ve got a Southbend FOURTEEN. A much bigger lathe. But even so, I’ve made upgrades that help. Amongst the most major were also a cam lever for the tailstock. Like with yours, it was a pain to constantly need to get the wrench and have to reposition it twice to lock or unlock. Drilling or boring deep holes, for example, means moving it in and out to clear chips and lube a number of times. The cam makes that fast, and (almost) fun.

Thanks, I have a Crenex mini lathe arriving soon and will no doubt incorporate many of your ideas into it.

Wow! No grass growing under your feet! Well done 👍👍👍👍

Thank you. I am encouraged.

Well done video , info’s easily understood and your voice over is pretty relaxing. Great job!🍺👍🏻🇺🇸

I recognize some of the same issues in my Sieg machine, but a few seem to have been fixed in newer models: lever-locking tailstock, carriage gear protector, and okay-ish gibs. Favorite (purchased) upgrade: a rotary encoder for the tail stock so I can exactly drill to depth.

I just saw this in person at harbor freight. Omg. I never understood how tiny she is. How cool. Young made some amazing things on this size lathe!

That was simply super. Just loved those upgrades, and that's a lesson for me, and things that I should try. Would really love to be able to make a half nut, but my space is too tight.

I found this helpful as I am considering buying my first lathe and like all first-timers the mini-lathe seems like the place to start. I have heard a lot of complaints about mini-lathes however and this video confirmed basically all of them. The consensus I have seen is that you will quickly become frustrated with the limitations of a mini-lathe. It would seem from this video that you have had to replace many of the key components such as the fixtures, motor, bearings etc. because they weren't up to the task. Many have advised that it is better to buy a larger lathe that is used. There is greater precision, build quality, and more features over a brand new mini-lathe. Thanks.

Lots of great mods that you've done! Two other mods to consider: an ER30 headstock collet chuck, and a lever-action tailstock (you would need a spare tailstock to convert to lever-action). Drilling and reaming is so much easier with a lever-action tailstock!

I don’t even own a mill or a lathe but your camera work and video editing skills are awesome.. the machining too 👍🏻

Thanks for the video and insights. From what I can tell from using these mini lathes and watching people do upgrades, the best path would be to buy something else

Essential watching for someone setting up a lathe!

I'm new to lathe work and just bought a mini mill. I'm an automation engineer and will CNC it soon. Your videos are awesome and I'm learning well. As for your motor upgrade, a $30 20k rpm 500w or greater with static gearing, being a DC version can easily be turned into a variable speed 50-2500rpm full load using a micro controller, an igbt or MOSFET, a hall effect rpm meter and 10mins of novice programming for

Very impressive work mate, well done.

Subbed 😁 A no bs mini lathe video showing an upgrade path? Wonderful 👍

Ball-bearing mount for the cross slide screw, great mod and can add a bit more travel.

Simply outstanding!👏👏👍👍👍👍👍

I have never ever seen anyone going down the road of improving a chinese mini lathe without first having an almost full metal workshop setup, most often including a milling machine :) I've just finished watching a German youtuber going that road. He casually dishes out things like chucks he received for free... In Poland you'd pay 1/4 of the price of the entire chinese lathe just for that welded L-shaped steel plate :)

lots and lots of helping info thanks for taking your time doing this video thanks from me any any one watching this video

All these mods are cool ! I liked the power feed being an old chi=uck chucked into a drill!!!

I have a cheap mini lathe and love it! I've done a few small upgrades, but after watching your video I may just buy something nicer after you account for all the time spent upgrading it! haha. Thank you for sharing all the upgrades tho.

I did mention this in your mill upgrades video, but I'll mention it here too, as it's more on-topic. Adding an Electronic Lead Screw [ELS] is a great upgrade, especially of you do a lot of thread cutting, but also handy for controlling feedrate for better surface finish. As a bonus you get away from having to constantly swap the change gears in and out. Speaking of change gears, the quality of the factory ones is pretty terrible, and the plastic ones tend to crack and break pretty quickly, I recommend getting an after-market metal set.

Great ideas my friend! Stay healthy.

thank you for your video, i got my lathe, same model as you have a good few years ago on the advice of a friend who was a very good engineer, ( retired rolls royce ) unfortunatly he passed away earlier this year so now i'm having to rely on people like yourself to provide me with info to make the lathe as good as it can be, as i'm a retired mechanic i have some basic skills with lathes but i keep finding small problems with it as you have found though it's knowing what is wrong and how to fix it is where the problems are for me and this video has gone a long way to show me where to look, i have fitted a quick change tool post and made a carrige lock and done my best with the ways and gibbs, i still have the tailstock to sort but with your help i'm getting there bit by bit, as i only use the lathe now and again to make spacers and other small bits i don't suppose it needs to be that accurate but i'm a bit anal i suppose you call it when it comes to doing things right, i would like to use it for threading and other stuff but my confidence is not there yet, one of my main gripes is parting off even with alloy bar it's so slow and jams up now and then, i would like to have a miller but with my use and lack of experience and of course the extra cost i don't think that would be an option, for now at least, i'll use the link and see what happens, thank you.

An easier fix for the top slide leadscrew is a washer. Find a flat washer with a hole that fits closely over the screw and has an outside diameter at least as big as the bushing. If it's larger, put it on a bolt with a nut to hold it against the head, then chuck the bolt and turn the OD down. Drill two holes through the washer where the bushing mounting holes are. Counterbore the slide face of the bushing so the collar on the screw sits barely below the surface. Replace the two screws with slightly longer ones when putting that back together. This mod loses zero travel forward and only as much rearward as the thickness of the washer. The best mods cost nothing at all. The easiest is to take the cross slide bushing off and remove the paint off the end that fits against the carriage. Instant backlash reduction. I further improved it by facing that end of the bushing until there was next to nil clearance for the collar on the screw. Another no cost mod is removing everything from the bed, mounting it upside down on a mill, then cutting the feet bottoms so they're flat and at the same height. That greatly simplifies shimming when mounting to a bench so there's no twist or bow. There are two factories that make these 7" lathes, SIEG and the better one. The better one's saddle is rectangular instead of "H" shaped so it's very easy to add a carriage lock, just drill a hole where you added that piece of steel bar. The better one has a slightly thicker apron and dual ball bearings on the carriage crank VS a plain hole on SIEG's. SIEG uses (or used to) three bolts to mount the headstock to the bed. The better one uses four. SIEG doesn't have oiling holes in the leadscrew bushings. The better one has oil holes with countersunk openings. One more thing the better one has over SIEG's is on the right end of the lead screw there's a special nut with a threaded insert to take up any endways slop. Put a thin brass washer on each side of the bushing and that can be tightened to zero slop. This company also offers hardened and ground way surfaces if the importer wants that. Lathes with that get a label put on the right end of the bed. The company that's not SIEG uses a nice Pulse Width Modulation motor controller. SIEG tends to not do a good job finishing the bottoms of the bed feet where the other company at least does a cutting pass, likely with a big fly cutter. This video is an unboxing of one of those better lathes. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eMuYoJSgstvGqqc.html One thing to watch out for is many companies selling 7x lathes *start out* buying from the better factory then later switch to getting lathes from SIEG. Harbor Freight and Grizzly have always bought their from SIEG. My first metal lathe happened to be one of these better versions, bought from a company called Homier Mobile Merchants. They ran a fleet of semi trucks around the USA, setting up shop here and there to sell all kinds of imported stuff from China. Where places like Harbor Freight sell a SIEG 7x10 but that 10" is between plain centers, the one I got was advertised as a 7x12 and that 12" was between a center in the tailstock and the face of the stock 3 jaw chuck. SIEG has somewhat improved the quality of their 7" mini lathes. My second lathe was a 7x10 from Grizzly with their serial number 346. It was likely from the very first batch they imported. Previous owners had abused the poor thing in many ways, most likely due to its many 'built in' faults. The underside of the ways weren't parallel to the top side, not even in the center. I was able to correct the outer part on my mill but I didn't have the tools to fix the inner part, but since nothing but the tailstock clamp used that it wasn't critical. The motor controller was a very primitive SCR chopper style and one of the main power resistors had gotten so hot it unsoldered itself at one end. A quick hit with a soldering iron had it going. By the time I was done correcting all its problems I almost liked it more than the longer one from the other factory. I thought about getting a PWM controller for it but never got around to it.

Thanks for your great ideas, I have two of these lathes, but I think the bearings on my oldest will need replacing one day. My first one has a brushless motor and it has been very good except for the circuit board blowing up one day, but I fixed that by buying another board (these are not cheap or plentiful) so I am hoping it will not happen again as I like the variable speed and the board are hard to replace. I use those aluminium tool holders, but steel would be better. I have had a lot of problems with the cross slide lifting while cutting and currently I just keep the tool close to the holder and push down on the cross slide while cutting.

Thank you for these tips. Although I must say here that I have already made most of these mods two years ago. And also some that are not listed here. My goal was greater rigidity and accuracy of the machine. I'm just lazy about making a summary video. Maybe I'll do it again someday. : D

fantastic video cheers mate will be doing some of these to my mini dave lol

You can at a pinch use your lathe as a milling device. Buy a small milling machine vice and fabricate a bracket to mount it on its side to your toolpost. Mount the mill cutting tools (non tapered ) into the lathe chuck. Your biggest challenge will be to ensure that the toolpost mounted vice is perfectly perpendicular to the lathe . Crude but does work..

I also highly recommend a waycover. i´ve made mine from a piece of sheetsteel which sits just in front of the main carriage and is long enough to only reduce travel by about 5mm and still catches most of the chips produced by turning and drilling. It saves a lot of time in cleaning and probably reduces wear on the machine bed

Vote up, nice video, thanks for sharing :)

Definitely make me wanna buy a mini lathe as a base unit and mod it to my style, Great Video!

5:39 If I had only one wish for a superpower... I'd ask for ability to grab the right hex tool size right away )))

Outstanding!

thanks for sharing you up grades

great and helped me a lot.

Superbe mon ami, j'attend mon Tour neuf la semaine prochaine et tellement hate de travailler avec. Je vait faire les améliorations que tu dit de faire surtout fermé l'engrenage avec une tole. En tout cas merci beaucoup pour ces infos, je te suis maintenant! 👌👍

This was awesome

Thanks for the video.

Awesome videos, friend Im getting my first metal lathe soon. I hope to use some of your vids as references!

Thats my favorite "Lathenight" Show....

Thanks for that

As a machinist I thank you!

In a video by this old tony about mini lathes he suggested leveling the lathe also I love your content

Thank you for sharing your tips. As a retired former Rolls Royce aero engine apprentice, I’m impressed. You may have been asked this before, but where is your accent from? You appear to add micro sounds to the ends of some words, which I haven’t heard before. Is this peculiar to one part of Australia? When I lived in the Romsdal region of Norway, some people said Jeg (pronounced Yah, meaning Yes) by just quickly breathing in! They don’t do that in Oslo or Bergen etc. But in the north east of England, some people there do the same. As a mongrel with English parents who grew up in North Wales, I have unique ways of pronouncing some words too. And the way I play words in my head is different! This makes me fascinated by accents. Now I need to find a decent lathe to start modifying.

Nice stuff! I'd suggest some way wipers.

Very nice! I like watching your upgrade vids! Keep em coming!!!!

Nice lathe

Any thoughts of a right angle plate instead of the solid steel tool post for the solid steel cross slide? Then add a vertical slide with a vise or plate to the right angle plate, possiblely just using the compound with a vice or plate. I've invested in, though haven't had the time to work on the mini-lathe. Thanks for sharing all the details with links. That's super helpful.

Great video, I have a Vevor 7x14 and got it for really cheap on eBay but ways and lands have a big gap (maybe 1/16 or 3/32) between the land which angles down from the ways to the lands, should I try to machine the ways groove deeper to lesson the angle. I would have to do that on the headstock, carriage, and tailstock.

A cheap lathe can do accurate work with a few adjustments and modifications.

You are talented. What is your machining background?

What make and model is this lathe? You give very good information.

On the channel "Aussie Shed" the creator takes a mini-lathe with a very poorly ground bed. After much tedious lapping, he gets both sides of the bed lapped down to equal thicknesses from end to end. It's not a scraped surface but, it serves very well. My guess is that you would be very pleased to have the same thing done to your lathe.

I think that the way to go with the carriage is tapered gibs that can be externally adjusted. I have found this to make improvement in rigidity, as you can tighten them down as needed.

I LIKE IT

Now a Mini Lathe… that could be interesting and in my investment range

Where do you get your stock in australia? Blocks of steel/ali etc?

Great video. very helpful. may I know what angle of cutter you use for the cross slide? thank you in advance.

Good lathe for the price

hey, great video the "cross slide rebuild" link in the the description is wrong :) it links to "lever locking tailstock" video

Love it Keep it up Thank you

Hi, and thanks for making all the videos. I have a Bernardo Profi 400 V with issues in the spindel bearings. Something is uneven, even when all gears and pulleys were removed. So I had to replace the 30206 P5 bearings with new from SKF. I have managed to get the spindle out. But the outer parts of the bearings are still in the headstock. Shall I replace them as well or can I keep them as they are? (I suppose I shall replace them...) I'm a bit worried that I will not get the new in the same location. It looks like there is no flange to mount the bearing against. (Just a continuous hole trough the headstock where the bearings + covers are pressed in the correct place.) But I could do some measurements before I take it apart...

Graphite is also a good for lapping. Kerosene can also be used.

Machining parts for your lathe using that lathe is like a chicken building a deep fryer with chicken parts. I love it lol.

Man, I love your account! Not sure if it’s because of the darn great quality of your videos or because of your accent 😅😍 I don’t know if you know him already, but check out Phil Vandelay‘s channel. He‘s a nice and pretty impressive hobby machinist from Hamburg and he‘s got great ideas for his lathe and mill. Maybe you‘ll find something useful on his channel... Cheers mate!

Very useful video!! I mean you don't have to do all 20, but modify as you see fit for what you use your lathe for. As most of the modifications you showed us are cheap and do not require much tooling, OR effort it is strange that the manufacturer does not put just a little more into this mini lathes. If you do all 20 it reminds me of a joke about a guy who had the soles replaced on his shoes and while he was at it he also got new leather.. 🙂

Great videos for aussies! My Sieg SC2 is getting too sloppy so I'm doing the bearings soon, would you make gib strips and sell them?

you mentioned little machine shop in another video, do you have an experience or knowledge about how good the Hi Torque version of this lathe is?

Maybe its time to add grease lines to those tapered bearings and change the low/high plastic gears! Great content BTW.

very useful upgrade :) waiting for your next projects. BR, YOO PROJECTS

what about sticking stock thru head thru 3 jaw?? mine will take 3/4" thru head but then it bumps 3 jaw. Could bore it out?

I plan on doing a couple of upgrades to my Vevor 7x14. But at some point it would be better to just buy a better lathe.😅😅😂 Im happy I only need mine to do 2 simple small operations, but out of the crate to have the tool holder so far off and not provide shims to help line up center to stock does suck and yea im looking at buyin an adjustable quck tool head. I just feel like that was done on purpose to get you to buy an upgrade out of the box.

is there anywhere online that i can buy most of these upgrades for the harbor freight lathe

Super

The QCTP I got was a bit too tall so I had to take a bit off the cross-slide casting to get the tools down to center height.

Did the aluminum riser block for the tool post work out ok, as far as rigitity? Was not sure if aluminum would be as good as steel.

I would like to have a mini lathe to make threaded torch parts that are no longer available. Would it take long to learn how to do this? I don't have the time to become an expert machinist especially at my age. Thanks for any responses!

Please tell: Who offers the highest spec versions of those Sieg Cx, money aside? Optimum, Paulimot? I wanna get a precise pretuned deluxe version (almost all mods shown in this video done) with measurement protocol/report

The link to "Cross Slide Rebuild" actually links to "Lever Locking Tailstock"