Re: Critique our lathe choice
 

Don't forget tooling. This can be a big portion of the total cost to usefulness.

Quick change tool holders, bits, live center, chucks...

Often some cheap versions come with new lathes, and you can get slightly better quality, but vastly easier to use stuff for a couple hundred dollars.

Re: Critique our lathe choice
 

Seconded. 456 bought one last summer and it is well made and perfect for our needs. I have no reservations recommending it if you are looking for a lathe in this class and price range.

Re: Critique our lathe choice
 

I have had the PM-1127-VF lathe in my home shop as well since Jan 2015. I haven't had a huge amount of time to play with it, but so far have been pleased with the quality and features for the price.

Re: Critique our lathe choice
 

Thank you everyone for your input.

To summarize so far:

Some people think the very inexpensive 120v lathe is OK. Others don't like it.

Some people think a moderately priced Chinese 220v lathe is OK. Others don't like it.

It was suggested that I look for a used older high quality American/German/Japanese/Korean made lathe. I saw an acquaintance last night who is in the machine tools business, and asked him about this. His statement was that high quality used lathes are very difficult to find in Minnesota, because no one is getting rid of them. The machine shop owners are keeping their old lathes and putting them in the corner, in case they need to use them. Unlike other parts of the country that had large numbers of machine shops that have failed, that wasn't the case here.

He of course would be happy to sell me a $15k Taiwanese lathe, one of which he sold into our sister high school last year. It looks quite nice, but is beyond our budget currently.

Re: Critique our lathe choice
 

One key item is what type of power you have in your build space. You will need at least a 220V 20amp receptacle for this lathe. Depending on the building/panel situation this may or may not be a significant issue.

While a massive industrial size lathe is nicer; for machining aluminum shafts and plastics you don't need a really powerful lathe. Most decent Bench Top models would be adequate.