A new lathe in mind

Seems that I've been too busy to write updates in here, as I've been in work and tried to do a lot of lock related stuff in the past months. Sorry about that, I'll try to change that :)

Oh well, xmas is coming up and I have outgrown from my mini lathe a while ago already, so I've been searching for a new and bigger (mini) lathe for my workshop. Around the time I got my mini mill, SIEG Industries updated their lathes and mills to have a brushless motor instead of the brushed DC motors like in my C2 mini lathe and X2 mini mill. Now it seems they have many of their products offered with this new motor design and that makes everyone happy, as the new motor type offers a lot of torque in the low RPM range and is more silent than the previous type.

As I have loved the C2 from SIEG, the obvious choice is to look from SIEG again. I pondered this for quite a while already and decided on the new C4 lathe that has the updated motor version and fulfills my needs more than enough. My list of functions was more torque, more power, more versatile cross slide and bigger swing.

Comparison of specifications for C2 vs. C4



A search for a distributor lead me to Axminster Tool Centre website. Their offer is very good and tempting and I have heard all kinds of good from them. I got a quote for the shipment to Finland and it is a little under 150 EUR, which to me seems cheap. The total for the lathe and shipment would be about 1250 EUR (VAT included), so I'm only missing about 1000 EUR from the price.

I already ordered a Multifix 40 position quick change tool post from ebay.de with 5 holders for the price of 290 EUR plus 20 EUR shipping. A very good and rigid tool post that I have used at my friends workshop and in school we had one and I love it that you can position the tool in so many positions without turning the holder itself.

I will make a new update when I get the lathe, in the mean time I'll post something else and also try to think of a way to lift the lathe on my workbench...