Littlemachineshop Hitorque 4100 Lathe

[Chthulhu]

Does anyone here own and/or use the HiTorque 4100 mini lathe from LittleMachineShop.com? If so, would you be kind enough to review (or mini-review?) it for us? I'm seriously considering purchase of this machine, but have found no information outside the LMS site about it. It seems to be a nicely-upgraded machine based on the ubiquitous SIEG 7x lathes.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Chthulhu

[Chthulhu]

No one, eh? I guess I'll be the first kid on the block to buy one, then: I just placed the order, and will pick it up in Pasadena next Wednesday. :-)

[richardandtracy]

Good luck with it - it's bound to take a while before you're used to it, but I hope you learn the way to work with it quickly.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Chthulhu]

Thanks, Richard; *any* of the mini lathes would be considerably smaller than what I'm used to. :-)

[jsonewald]

Please report on the lathe once you have tried it out. I have been lusting after a mini lithe for some time.

[Chthulhu]

I will. Probably a long list of nitpicks, judging from my prior experiences with Chinese machinery. :-)

[Chthulhu]

The bench is finished (about half an hour ago), rough and ready but solid!

 

 

 

The two little blocks sitting in the spotlight are my only scrap, and all that remains of twelve 2"x4"x8' studs. I have a half-sheet of 15/32" oriented strand board, and three-fourths of a sheet of 1/8" Masonite left. I found and added leveling feet for the bottom, necessary because the floor isn't level *or* flat. Underneath is my little air compressor and the case for my cordless tool set.

 

All the 2x4 lumber for the top and the legs is glued as well as screwed; everything else is just screwed together. The back board sits in a slot and is held with one screw at top center for easy removal.

 

All done with a circular saw, a cordless drill, and lots of coffee. <G>

[richardandtracy]

That should do it..

I made my lathe bench from bits of 2mm scrap steel sheet rescued fron the skip at work, and the steel sheet cut out from a window aperture on my van to form the top tray. Two evenings later, and about 20 welding rods, I had a stand for my lathe. Doesn't look half so smart as yours though.

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Chthulhu]

I have about $70 into this bench for materials. I would have preferred steel, but have neither the equipment nor the experience to weld anything.

 

And "smart?" Just don't look too closely: lots of rough edges, and the top ended up nearly 1/2 inch out of square. <G>

[richardandtracy]

Very smart compared to my workshop here: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/43626-our-workshops/page__st__33

If nothing else, the wood is planed in places...

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Chthulhu]

Ah, but you at least have more than one machine tool; that bench and toolbox are the entirety of my workshop. <G>

[Chthulhu]

Ahhhh ... :-)

 

[richardandtracy]

Looks nice. I hope it's big enough for you. It's obviously OK for pens, but those other little jobs you find when you have a lathe tend to always be slightly bigger than the lathe can cope with easily..

 

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Chthulhu]

So far all the other little jobs I've anticipated will fit this machine. :-)

[jsonewald]

Looks filled with creative potential.

[Chthulhu]

Looks filled with creative potential.

 

Hopefully not more so than the operator, eh? <G>

 

What amazes me is how tiny everything is in comparison to what I'm used to; I should have no problem remembering to treat it gently. :-)

[richardandtracy]

From what you say, are you used to something like an 18ft between centres & 5 ft swing?

[mutter, mutter]

Could do with something like that at the moment, need to thread the ends of some 3" pipe to make a couple of acro props for when I dig out my porch foundations to under pin it. And 4ft's to long for the flippin lathe, gotta take off the tailstock & use a fixed stready. And it's going to be cold & muddy & wet & I hate working under walls that are trying to fall in on me.

Regards,

 

Richard.

[Chthulhu]

From what you say, are you used to something like an 18ft between centres & 5 ft swing?

[mutter, mutter]

Could do with something like that at the moment, need to thread the ends of some 3" pipe to make a couple of acro props for when I dig out my porch foundations to under pin it. And 4ft's to long for the flippin lathe, gotta take off the tailstock & use a fixed stready. And it's going to be cold & muddy & wet & I hate working under walls that are trying to fall in on me.

Regards,

 

Richard.

 

Heh. Not *quite* that big; it was an old 11"x18" Hardinge HLV. :-)

 

[Kaspar]

A very interesting thread. I look forward to any future replies. I have a Micromark 7 x 14 and with some tweaking it has proven to be a sturdy and accurate lathe. The nice thing about this one from LMS is the brushless motor (which I'm sure is very nice) and - supposedly - the torque at low speed for thread cutting. I'll be interested to know if it lives up to that latter billing.

 

I have done business with LMS and I have been eminently satisfied with their other products so far. If that's any indicator, it should be, at the very least, serviceable and possibly a terrific machine.

 

I am very interested in their new mini-mill as well.

[Chthulhu]

It's been two weeks since I acquired my HiTorque 4100 mini-lathe from LittleMachineShop.com in Pasadena, California.

 

To begin with, the lathe came in a wooden crate, secured by two screws and fender washers through the bottom of the crate and into the base of the lathe. I discovered AFTER the two-hour drive home that one of those screws and washers had torn through the bottom of the crate at some point in its journey from Shanghai to Pasadena, and the lathe had been moving around in the crate, causing minor damage to the bottom pan and some rub marks on the paint of the change gear cover. Nothing to be overly concerned about, but had I been aware of it while still at the LMS shop I would have asked for a different machine (they had quite a few of them in stock).

 

I started up with the lathe sitting on its rubber feet and spreader bars. The bars aren't drilled symmetrically, and the manual makes no mention of which way they should be installed.

 

Once I was happy with the placement of the lathe on my bench, I removed the rubber feet, flipped the spreader bars over and reinstalled them on the bottom of the lathe, then bolted the spreader bars to my bench with 1/4" lag screws since the underside of the bench is not conveniently accessible (that required dismounting the control box and the motor in order to reach the lag screws, but it was easier than getting to the underside of the bench!). This is working nicely so far, but I have suitable bolts on hand for the next time I CAN get to the underside of the bench. The spreader bars add enough height to make cleaning under the machine considerably easier.

 

The machine came oiled rather than coated with protective grease as stated in the manual. There were also dribbles of paint just about everywhere there should only have been bare metal and oil.

 

The manual stated also that the cross slide handle needed to be reversed, but it already was. The manual did not state that the spinner knobs for the carriage and tailstock would need to be installed, but they were loose in the box. After installing them and playing a bit, I found that the carriage and cross slide handles are much too close together for my large hands; I worked around this by removing the spinner handle from the carriage handwheel and paying close attention to where my knuckles are. I've considered extending the handwheel an inch or so out from the apron, but there's not much support there and I'll need to fabricate a bracket and an extension for the pinion shaft. The handwheel could also use some reference marks; again, later.

 

The gears in the apron were not lubricated; I corrected this. I also rotated the handwheel to put its set screw in a different position on the pinion shaft, away from the little dimple in the shaft; this let me take up most of the slop and end play. I put some grease on the back of the handwheel's hub as well.

 

I removed the bottom pan and slotted it to fit around the lathe's feet so I can pull it out and dump it easily. I also slotted the three mounting holes and added flat washers under the screw heads for the back guard for easier removal. I'm considering cutting the back guard at its corner behind the headstock, bending the longer back part out maybe 30 degrees, and extending it up and to the right. It will be more effective at catching chips, and allow more room for the cross slide, for my knuckles on the tailstock handhweel and lockdown lever, and for using a hack saw for rough parting. As it is it's just too small and often in the way. Extending it to the right will make clearing the chips out if it a lot easier as well.

 

The electrically-interlocked polycarbonate shield over the chuck was useless and was removed. I'm using it as a pan to catch chips brushed out of the back guard.

 

The chuck was stiff, so I disassembled, cleaned, and lubricated it. The chuck had 0.005" runout, but I rearranged the jaws and got it down to 0.001" runout.

 

Each of the chuck jaws in the second set was very tight; careful polishing corrected this. I don't think SIEG gets the concept of deburring; lots of sharp edges on this little machine!

 

All six carriage strap screws were loose; I adjusted the straps and tightened the screws.

 

There are two set screws on the top of the left ends of the carriage, presumably lubrication points, but unmentioned in the manual. Oil put in the forward hole does end up atop the prism, but oil put in the rear hole doesn't seem to go anywhere. I'll have to take a closer look when next I have the carriage off.

 

The tailstock was off by several thousandths away from the operator. The tailstock base and body were "glued" together with paint, and both locking screws were overtightened, damaging the base casting. The screw on the bottom needed a flat washer to distribute its pressure, and the set screw needed a larger diameter dog point to prevent it from digging into the base casting. I added the flat washer and replaced the set screw with a much-more-convenient socket head cap screw with just the threads turned off for the 0.100" at the end and the end faced. I also found that the right rear corner of the base casting wasn't touching the ways when the other three corners were. A bit of work with a stone and a diamond file got it sitting flat. Afterward I was able to align the tailstock to within about five ten-thousandths.

 

The tailstock quill lock lever "parks" when tightened in a position that interferes with the tailstock lockdown lever. I added a flat washer under the quill lock lever's hub to change its position.

 

The cross slide was loose. I disassembled it; deburred the gib; lubricated the lead screw, gib, and ways; reassembled; and adjusted the gib.

 

The compound was also loose, and its handle harder to turn at the retracted end of its travel. I disassembled it; found that the bracket was mounted off-center (too high), causing the lead screw to bind. I reamed the bracket's mounting holes a bit at a time until the binding stopped. I cleaned, lubricated, and reassembled the compound, and adjusted the gib.

 

The two screws that lock the compound in position atop the cross slide are located beneath the compound, which must be retracted to the end of its lead screw in order to expose them fully, causing the lead screw to come out of its nut. Would it have hurt to make the lead screw an inch longer?

 

The manual states that the two end bushings for the power feed lead screw have oilers. They do not have oilers, or even oil holes; the right-hand bushing was not lubricated, and the left-hand bushing had some white lithium grease in it. I oiled them up well, and will see about drilling some oil holes later on.

 

Why is the power feed selector lever on the back of the headstock instead of the front?

 

The tooling package I bought along with the lathe included a quick-change tool post and tool holders made my A2Z CNC; these had their own problems:

 

The quick-change tool post is nice, but the mounting bushing is made from aluminum. It's made from a SOFT aluminum that's already beginning to mushroom. I'll be making a mild steel replacement (the whole shebang is aluminum except for the bolt, but this is a high-stress part and should be more durable).

 

The tool holders are a very sloppy fit onto the tool post's dovetails, making center adjustment awkward. The tool holders have knurled brass thumb nuts for height adjustment and steel hex nuts to lock them. Very little of the thumb nuts projects over the top of the tool post, and on the part-off tool holder it barely touches the tool post because the adjusting stud (a long 10-32 set screw) is further from the dovetail for some unknown reason. I'm making much larger diameter thumb nuts, and may convert to 1/4"-28 adjusting studs for greater rigidity if there's enough room.

 

Along with the QCTP and its tool holders were some Chinese-made indexable-insert turning tools, of which one (AR) was poorly made: its insert location is rotated clockwise by nearly 10 degrees so that the left face of the insert has its heel further to the left than the point. I'm compensating by turning the tool post for the time being, but will be requesting a replacement from LMS.

 

Okay, I think that does it for problems and complaints and confusions. All in all I'm quite satisfied with the machine based on my expectations and experiences with other Chinese-made machine tools, particularly the low-end torque available from the 500 Watt brushless DC motor. I still plan on buying a four-inch, four-independent-jaw chuck, and eventually an ER-32 collet system, but I can do what I want with what I have. Well, almost: I still need some more tooling, mainly single-point threading bits.

 

I won't be turning any more wood on this machine until I have a dust collection system set up, but I played with turning a couple of blanks I was sent by Snyiper (thanks again!), turning between centers (I turned a small dead center from some scrap steel rod in the three-jaw chuck and left it there while I was playing), and made lots of sawdust with the chipbreaking carbide inserts. I cobbled together a rough Oland tool using my E ("neutral") insert tool holder and found a piece of stainless steel angle (salvaged from an old flatbed scanner) that would clamp onto the compound for a tool rest. This told me that I would be better off with either a round carbide insert tool, or a high-speed steel bit ground with a radius: the 1/64" radius on my inserts is just too small.

 

I need a LOT more practice, but will wait for some better freehand turning tools. In the meantime it will be metals and plastics only. When I decide to do wood again, I'll pull the entire carriage off the machine and make a tool rest to clamp onto the ways; that will keep the sawdust out of the slides and gibs. :-)

 

Addendum:

 

Planning ahead a bit, I thought about obtaining a spare drive belt and possibly some spare spindle bearings. The bearings are pretty straightforward as the listed 80206 is a common 6206-2Z bearing available from many sources. The belt has no number listed in the parts table, but is stamped "1.5X100" which didn't get me anywhere with interchanges. As it turns out it's a JIS metric specification of "module 1.5 X 100 teeth" which is more commonly applied to gears. No luck so far finding an aftermarket equivalent, so if I want a spare I'll need to order it from LMS.

 

In the process of getting TO the belt, I found that the two socket-head cap screws that hold the mount for the power feed selector, tumbler gears, etc. were loose; I'll be spending some time with the entire geartrain very soon.

 

Addendum:

 

It's amazing how much quieter the power feed geartrain is with just a wee bit of lithium grease on all the gears.

Edited December 2, 2010 by Chthulhu