About 5 years ago, I bought a Harbor Freight 7x10 lathe to do some simple machining for car and home projects. It soon proved to be too small, as it's really only capable of holding pieces about 8 inches long. Additionally, the 3" chuck won't grab anything large. So, last week, I got an upgrade kit for about $200 from LittleMachineShop.com which included a 16" cast iron bed, new rack and lead screw, chip tray, and other pieces. I also bought a 5", 3-jaw chuck with an adapter plate.
I had to completely disassemble the lathe, drill and tap a bunch of holes in the new bed, mount and align the new lead screw, and remount the drive motor. While their printed instructions are pretty good, they claimed it could be done in 2 to 4 hours. I made some mistakes along the way, and alignment was more tedious than they suggested, so it took me two days to get the job done. Swapping the chucks only took 10 minutes. It still fits on my bench top in my basement, and I can lift it, if needed.
It did go together and now runs well. I can mount longer and larger diameter pieces, though it's not going to be turning driveshafts or the like. A limitation is still that the carriage can only go out just so far from the bed, so real working diameters are much less than the nominal 7" bed clearance or even 5" chuck. Also, the horsepower is limited, but sufficient if you are patient enough to take small cuts. I'm happy with the result. Maybe someday I'll spring for a much bigger lathe, but that would require a lot more space and serious work to put it in place. Fortunately, there are shops near me that will do the heavy-duty work.
LittleMachineShop.com has all the parts and accessories for HF and similar Chinese lathes (Grizzly, Sieg, Micro-Mark, etc.) and milling machines at fair prices. Here is a "before" picture from the 7x10 manual and an "after" photo of my lathe.
I had to completely disassemble the lathe, drill and tap a bunch of holes in the new bed, mount and align the new lead screw, and remount the drive motor. While their printed instructions are pretty good, they claimed it could be done in 2 to 4 hours. I made some mistakes along the way, and alignment was more tedious than they suggested, so it took me two days to get the job done. Swapping the chucks only took 10 minutes. It still fits on my bench top in my basement, and I can lift it, if needed.
It did go together and now runs well. I can mount longer and larger diameter pieces, though it's not going to be turning driveshafts or the like. A limitation is still that the carriage can only go out just so far from the bed, so real working diameters are much less than the nominal 7" bed clearance or even 5" chuck. Also, the horsepower is limited, but sufficient if you are patient enough to take small cuts. I'm happy with the result. Maybe someday I'll spring for a much bigger lathe, but that would require a lot more space and serious work to put it in place. Fortunately, there are shops near me that will do the heavy-duty work.
LittleMachineShop.com has all the parts and accessories for HF and similar Chinese lathes (Grizzly, Sieg, Micro-Mark, etc.) and milling machines at fair prices. Here is a "before" picture from the 7x10 manual and an "after" photo of my lathe.
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