Serious Bidness

[pigeonfarmboy]

Think it's time to get serious. I don't have any experience in CNC so it'll be manual machines for now. Time to commence the search for a "Toolroom" lathe and a J Head Bridgeport.

Lathes I'm considering:
Grizzly - G4003G
Jet - 321357A
Kent - KLS-1440
Knuth - Basic Plus
Precision Matthews - 1127VF
Hardinge - HLV-H (haha)
Monarch - EE
South Bend - Heavy 10

My limitations:
Nothing much wider than a 40" centers lathe. I only have 220v 1phase in the garage. I plan to run a VFD and step-up transformer if needed for both the lathe and mill.

Expectations: My Taig setup is fine for very small stuff, when it comes to modifying/making full-scale car parts, and larger RC stuff, it just doesn't have the ability. The taig takes way too long or is obviously too small for most work. My free time is stretched among 100 different hobbies so time savings is a very huge deal in my garage. I want my first project to be making a 657G Scraper from the ground up. I believe these machines will allow such an undertaking.

Budgeting: 10k+/- for both machines and tooling. Would like DRO on mill, not a deal breaker on the lathe for now.

This guy is down by Ed in Illinois but I can't get him to return an email or phone call: http://www.jchandlermachine.com

This place is 3 hours north of me, still waiting on a quote for the Monarch they have listed: http://www.libertymachinery.com

This Clausing is close-by. I was told the Colchester versions are quite sought-after: http://www.ebay.com/itm/140967219888...84.m1423.l2649

Any experience, suggestions, leads, or name-calling is welcome. Am I a dumb@ss for thinking I need such "overkill" machinery? 10k buys alot of yellow toys.....but these things also produce new toys