Don't have the space I'd like,

General CNC CNC Routers
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1

Don’t have the space I’d like, but interested in building a small CNC lathe as opposed to the router table I definitely don’t have space for.

I’d like a wood lathe, but also would like a metal one (obviously separate)

Of the 2 which is an easier, and/or less expensive build.

For now I only want about a 10 stock, with maximum of 6 inch swing. When I get more $ and real estate space, I’d love to use experience on a smaller one to aid on building a substantially larger one.

2

Probably the wrong comment for this forum but why? I would buy a second hand manual lathe instead. I have done heaps of stuff on mine and had loads of fun. You want rigidity and weight in a lathe. Save the CNC for a router

3

CNC lathes need much more rigidity than CNC routers. I recently tried using CNC router slides for a CNC lathe; it didn’t work. If you do a lathe, you’ll need to spend a lot more money on the slides than I did.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/101442607030198502072/posts/Veb93ckULW1

4

@Peter_Fouche
CNC works well on lathes too.

5

Agreed @Paul_Frederick ​ but a lathe will do a lot without it.

6

@Michael_Austin Before you completely rule out a CNC router table, have you considered a vertical CNC router table? Takes up a lot less space… I am thinking about converting my 4x8 regular table to a vertical one to free up some shop space…

7

11 weeks ago, +Peter van der Walt​​ and some Hakam (my appologies if I butcher the name) fellow were talking about incorporating a rotary encoder into Laserweb. I thought that around that time Peter had tried to buy a hand lathe and add CNC controls to it, but I could be wrong. I suppose it could have been some other very talented person with a collection of cool toys/tools that makes me jealous, but my first guess is that it was Peter.

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@Peter_Fouche
routers do a lot not CNCed too. I do have 4 routers in my shop that I use by hand. OK I don’t use two of them very much. But the other two when I need to route something I use.

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@Paul_Frederick ​ on an x/y table or conventional hand held? For me a router is the hand held tool (i forget about the table mounted ones). In the cnc context it is another name for the cutting bit. The terms are a bit confusing as different people mean different things.

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@Peter_Fouche
I have both. Well technically the spindle of my CNC machine is a laminate trimmer. It is a quarter inch router to me though. I have 4 hand held routers too. Two plunge, and two fixed base.