c4 lathe

[davidcurtis021]

what are members thoughts on this machine. i have seen this advertised by chester axminster, and a little company in leicestershire there seems an enormous price difference between companies for what at first glance seems to be the same macine
what are your thoughts.

[Stilldrillin]

Hi David,

Is this the cheaper one? Looks ok to me....... But I know nowt about C4`s....... 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250530157680&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

David D

[jim]

i think the C4 is a great machine, i've done a lot of work on mine, no problems!!

I've got a C3 too, no where near as good as the C4!

i got mine from the leicestershire company, TMTT, a very good chap to deal with!

[andyf]

Hi David,
For the same money, you might also consider the third one down on this page:
http://www.amadeal.co.uk/acatalog/Bench_Lathe.html
which is a somewhat larger machine.

The first one on the page seems good value, too - same centre height as C4, but 2" shorter between centres.

I have no connection with Amadeal, and have never bought anything from them (wish I had; they sell the same machine I bought for much less than I paid) but I have read good reports of their after-sales service, ability to supply spares etc, and they have a London showroom you can visit, rather than being just an Ebay advertiser.

Andy

[Shepherduke]

Amadeal are a very good firm to deal with. Always helpful when approached. 

[75Plus]

I don't think the lathe listed by Amadeal Co. will cut left hand threads. It also has no power cross feed. The C4 has both capabilities. Here is a review on the C4. Appears to be a lot for the money.

http://www.mini-lathe.com/m4/C4/c4.htm

Joe

[Shepherduke]

Maybe 75, but the C4 is double the price. " You pays your money, and you takes your choice"

[Shepherduke]

Apologies, not twice the price, but still quite a bit more.

[Barty]

I am only a beginner at machining and have not had a lot of experience with many lathes so I am not in a position to say what is better. I have had my C4 for about 6 months now and I am very pleased with it and do not regret purchasing it. It has plenty of power for everything that I have done with it to date. If I was starting out again I would buy the same machine without any hesitation.

As I was just getting into machining I ordered it with almost all of the accessories that were listed in the local dealers brochure. I wouldn't do that again. I do not recommend the stand, it is not very well built and is not stable. I ended up building my own bench for it. The QCTP that comes with it as an option is not very good. It cost me about GBP 40 and that would have been better spent towards the C4 QCTP from Little Machine Shop. I also got the DRO's as they got a good review from mini-lathe.com. In my case they didn't work out so well. I live in Thailand and the humidity is very high and I think that the DRO's were affected by moisture. First the cross slide DRO acted up and finally died. The day that the dealer came out to take a look at it the compound slide DRO start to fade and lock up. The dealer removed both of them and refunded my money. I guess that the DROs probably would not have the same issue in the UK though.

By chance, last January I was at a construction equipment auction and saw an Emco Maximat Super 11. I wasn't looking for another lathe but I knew that the Super 11 was well regarded by home shop machinists so I figured that if it was cheap enough I would buy it. (Luckily my wife was with me and encouraged me to buy it). I got it for less than the cost of the C4. The C4 with all of the accessories cost me 78,800 Thai Baht (GBP 1,590). The Super 11 cost me 52,000 Thai Baht (GBP1,060) and it came with a lot of tooling and most of the optional accessories except the fixed and traveling steadies.

I haven't had a chance to do much with the Maximat as the one I got is 3 phase and I have had to set it up at my office's workshop. Once I get 3 phase into my home workshop I will start using it. As much as I like the C4 there really isn't much of a comparison, the Maximat is much better built. I know that I am comparing an Austrian built late that cost ten times as much as the Chinese lathe so it isn't a fair comparison.

So, what are my thoughts? If you want to buy a brand new machine on a budget I would recommend the C4, for me it is a very good lathe. However, I would consider looking at used western machines such as the Super 11 or a Harrison M250 or similar if they could be found at a comparable price as the C4, especially if the used machine came with tooling and accessories.

If you have any specific questions about the C4 let me know I will try my best to answer them.

Barty

[Mike K]

I have a question about this...Does it have both half nuts?  From the pictures I've seen of the C4 it looks like the leadscrew chip shield would prevent having a top half nut.

Mike

[jim]

it only has one half nut!

i think its a very poor design and the only thing that isn't very good (on mine atleast!)

due to having to share one shaft to do feed and screw cutting, the feed uses the key way on the lead screw to drive it, the single half nut uses the the lead screw thread.

when i bought mine, screw cutting was great! you can power feed and screw cut without having to constantly change gears, simple!

mine soon packed up!!! the half nut engages and the lead screw is held in by some "guide things", the half nut started to slip, i spent a long time trying to fix this, but have now given up, if the half nut just slips once, thread is a gonner!

the power feed is unaffected by this so i'm still happy with the lathe

its a real shame, but the lathe is still a good one (unless you need to screw cut!)

this is what i've decided to get next,

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/New_Machines__Coming_Soon_.html

[rog8811]

I have the axminster Sieg C6, which is of similar design, I have found it very good except for one thing....
After around a years use it became obvious to me that the brushes in the motor were shot. I ordered some replacements, which arrived promptly enough, but after struggling to remove the old ones I discovered that they were the wrong size.

Contacted Axminster who appologised for the mistake and sent replacements.... which were the same as the first ones.
Much phoning and e-mailed photos later it transpires that they have no clue as to what part number my lathe requires.

The only upside was that the replacements were bigger than the originals so I just filed them to size. I live in hope of finding the correct ones some time in the future.

Regards rog8811

[maybecnc]

For motor brushes, ask on a good tool store. If they don't sell it, ask where on the neighborhoods you can try to find it. If they don't sell, they usually know who does.

The harder about this may be to find a good tool store, where every employee really knows a lot of what they sell. I was lucky finding such a store nearby and have replaced motor brushes on many different motors. The last ones I remember of are two angle grinders I have of different brands.

[rog8811]

I sent the above photo and other details to a number of brush specialists I found on the web, not one of them could match it.
I have another pair that I can modify, filthy job though it is, after that I will try again at getting the correct size.

Regards rog8811