Mini Lathe Mini Review

If we’re talking about serious sabersmithing, one of the most important tools in the ‘shop will be a lathe. Lightsaber hilts are usually cylindrical, so if you’re working with metals, perfect cylindrical shapes would be extremely difficult to produce with other tools than a lathe. A good lathe is also an extremely versatile gadget, with the right accessories it can do some drilling and milling too. Not to mention, working with a lathe is fun, and extremely rewarding!

Although, taking the first step into turning can be steep, because many of the more serious machinists online aren’t very helpful, when you’re trying to search information about lathes. Tool elitism is common, as is hostility against newbies. You may get a feeling that machining is some kind of dark sorcery, and the masters are not willing to share their knowledge.

But fortunately, the so-called 7x12” ‘mini lathe’ concept has paved the way for a lot of aspiring hobbyists. This designation refers to a specific machine, made by SIEG in China, but the same machine body has been ‘adapted’ to many different labels. The machines come from the same factory all right, but you may have seen them sport a more familiar western world brand, or at least different colours. And thanks to the machine size, versatility and low-cost accessories, it has become one of the most popular entry level lathes, especially for sabersmiths.

My current metal lathe, the fourth one I’ve owned (plus one wood lathe), is also this type of SIEG. Mine is actually 7x16”, with a slightly longer bed, and even though I don’t need the extra capacity (400mm between centres) often, the extra weight adds stability. And that’s always welcome with these small lathes. I’ve had this machine for over a year now, and for the price, it’s been quite solid for the hilt machining jobs I’ve needed it for. It’s not perfect, but certainly more than adequate. There's a nice amount of weight, the machine comes with generous accessories and further kit is relatively cheap too. For saber work the precision is just fine, but if you’re after obsessive, ‘no one will notice but I can’t sleep knowing’ accuracy, you may want to look at other options, though. The machine is good for aluminium, brass and some plastics, steel is workable too if you’re doing light cuts and take care of stock cooling. Copper can be painfully gummy to machine, and it will require some experimenting with the right tools and feed rates, but it’s not impossible.

The price argument is hard to beat, but interestingly, these 7x12 lathes used to be even cheaper about 10, maybe 15 years ago. I remember seeing some lathes with a 500€ price tag on them, but nowadays here in my country you can easily double that figure. If you live in a free market country, like Germany, France or the UK, you can grab a good package for around 700€. In the US, the prices generally are even cheaper.

Just remember the price of the machine is just one expense, you’ll need some basic accessories to get started! A good set of lathe tools/blades is essential, I’d advise against those cheap sets with brazed tips, get a set of indexable tipped carbide tools instead and then supplement the tool selection with cheaper HSS sets. HSS works great with aluminium and brass, but for basic turning and facing tasks a good carbide tip is hard to beat. Other vital accessories are tailstock chuck which can hold drill or endmill bits, and a live centre with possibly a pipe/bullnose profile. Because if you’re making saber hilts, you’ll most likely work with tube stock too. An extra 200€ will easily vanish for these accessories, but you don’t want to skimp with those either.

Let’s take a look at some weak points of these machines then. And the most obvious is electronics.They’re super dodgy. I’ve had four SIEG machines in total in my ‘shop now, and three of them had flimsy electronics. Well actually, even the fourth, the big CNC lathe needed an electronic repair, when the tool turret switchboard had to be swapped into a stronger one. But with the manual machines, every single one of them have had problems with speed controlling circuits. In my first C1 lathe, the speed control PCB broke about 5 or 6 months after buying the machine, in my SIEG-originated X-2 mini mill the speed control gave up a week after unboxing. My current 7x16 lathe has been acting up from day one, it’s still working, to my surprise, but the speed control behaviour is far from ‘reassuring’. You can have these PCBs fixed and improved via 3rd party, though, at extra cost. But still, and extra 100€ expense is an extra 100€ expense.

In general, the online support is awesome for fixing the other little foibles in these machines. These are made in China, so they’ll have some wobbly screws and less than ideal fit & finish in some areas. But they’re not overwhelming to fix, and once you have disassembled the machine a couple of times, you also get a good idea how it works, and fixing it the next time is much easier. The carriage in my lathe developed a lot of wobble over the months, and eventually I had to fix it. It took me several hours of trial & error, but I managed to fix the wobble with shims in the guide rails, and in the end the machine was more rigid than the day I got it from the store.

If we take a look at the alternatives in the market, you surely can pick up better quality machine (for example German Wabecos) if you’re able to shell out substantially more cash for the investment. Another option would be an older, vintage lathe, but in this case you’d have to live in a country where such machines were produced back at the time. Like the Americans have those South Bends, the Brits have their Myfords and Drummonds, and the Germans have so many to pick from. But in my country, bench lathes in this size class were rare, and finding smaller vintage lathes is nearly impossible. Vintage lathes also need more TLC, more commitment to the hobby, even though many of them are actually brilliant for sabersmithing work. Vintage lathes usually are overengineered when built, so they’ll last a long time and the number of electronic components is low.

Another way to go could be downsizing, with Taig or Sherline lathes. They are small, but not to be judged by their size. They’re amazingly versatile, and super reliable machines, and capable of producing saber hilt parts easily. Sure, you need to take into account the limitations in them, but still, the productivity and amount of fun these small machines offer is staggering. However, accessorising these Taigs or Sherlines spend a lot of your hard earned pocket money surprisingly fast too. With the Taig, you’re not getting thread cutting ability, or decent power feed either. But there are ways to work around those limitations too.