CNC Lathes

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by MICHAELABICK

I've been charged with the job of writing a proposal to our school's board of directors(private school) for new tools for our robotics programs. Because our robotics program both significantly lacks funding and space, I have been putting together different "plans" on ways our school could help sponsor our team. I was thinking of including a Haas CNC lathe in one of these plans but I'm not sure how much we would use it. I would love if people could tell me how useful they have found them to be, because if they aren't used a lot, I think the money and space could be better used on other machines. In addition could you please reccomend models. Thanks.

If you can't think of how you will use it, it is probably a pointless investment.

You would be much better off buying an old South Bend (or other) lathe on Craigslist and fixing it up. Don't know how? No worries ask around to find a retired machinist in your community and I guarantee you'll make that guy's year. Not to mention you get to preserve (and use!) a piece of American history.

(And it'll be like two orders of magnitude cheaper, especially if it comes with tooling)