I'm not sure this is the best sport for this question so Mods, if there's a better forum where it will get more attention, please feel free to move it.

I've had a couple of occasions where I need to turn the diameter of an ARP bolt flange down to fit my application. I've been lucky and found someone selling customized bolts, but I've run into another need, and no one is going to be selling this one.

What is the least expensive (Harbor Freight, etc.) Lathe that can turn a stainless-steel ARP bolt accurately?

 

I have a WEN mini lathe that I use for little items, mainly to resize or modify. It does a pretty good job with hard material, you just have to use really sharp carbide cutters and take small amounts and feed slow. The hardest thing I've cut is a Muller power ramp. They are hard. I wasn't to concerned about a super smooth finish as there's a thrust washer that goes in the opening that I enlarged.

I bought this five years ago, and don't use it that much. So I really couldn't justify a good used heavy duty lather. But these do an ok job with small parts.

 

Man that's a loaded question. I say that because there's an old saying that goes something like "an experienced machinist can do more accurate work on an old worn out lathe than an inexperienced one can on a brand new one". Point being that experience plays just as big a role, if not more so, than any particular brand of lathe. That said I have a harbor Freight 9x20 lathe that I bought close to 20 years ago and it works just fine. I've never used the smaller 7x10 benchtop model but lot's of guys have used them to turn out accurate work and would likely work fine for turning down bolts like you're wanting. Here's a little secret that at this point isn't very secret; the Harbor Freight, Grizzly, Enco, Wen, etc. lathes are all basically built by the same factory in China, they just paint them a different color and put a different name on them so personally I'd just pick whichever one is cheapest at the time (very likely to be HF). One more tid bit to think about considering how big of a lathe to buy - you can easily do small jobs on a big lathe, but you can't do big jobs on a small lathe. I thought a 9x20 would be more than big enough to do almost everything I'd ever want to do but there's been many times when it was too small, the smaller 7x10 will be even more limited.

Last but not least, a warning. If you're a mechanic, builder, tinkerer, fabricator, kind of guy like me you'll quickly wonder how the hell you ever survived without a lathe once you start using it and then want different tooling to do even more with it (tooling can very quickly exceed the cost of the lathe itself) then you'll think to yourself "Gee, if I only had a milling machine I could do even more cool work".......... you've been warned.

 

My Indy shop has a metal lathe in their shop and will do machine work for it customers.

 

I'm in the same boat Following

 

In flange, you talking about the bolt head Flare and how accurate does it really need to be? Under 1/2 if they aren't long, before my lathe I chucked them in a drill in a vise and good file or diamond wheel and dremel, worked if it wasn't an internal critical item

 

one of the best home lathe went belly up when the berlin wall fell and that was a hobbymat made in germany. very accurate and rigid and came with cert papers.
china makes the majority of the home lathes under various names, anyone can have one made with their brand.
the issue is, most do not come with cert papers and you have to make sure the head/tail line up. the second issue is the headstock uses composite gearing which will fail if pushed hard, but you can get a metal set but the issue of lubrication now arises. the third issue is the slide adjustment, there is a fine line between easy and hard and movement.
if you know what you are doing and set them up, they can be good, just do not push them.

 

this is a hf unit, same as a sig, made in the same plant but remember each vendor can spec what they want.
took awhile to setup but does good fro what it is. i replaced the composite head gear set with metal and you will see two white plug heads that i open and add oil to gearing when needed. the composite will break and keep belts in stock as if you over load with the metal set, it will strip the belt. buy a adjustable post set, WAY easier than having to shim tooling.





i make guitars and some times use the mini for parts that the big boy lathe startup torque would destroy.

 

Yes, that's what I'm talking about and you're right it doesn't need to be accurate down to .00001. What I meant was clean and not totally out of an acceptable tolerance.

 

A drill press and a file would probably work for what you need it to do