I rang Chester Uk up today to order a new lathe, set my heart on a DB8 except they dont have any metric versions and wont have any for a couple of months and its a the same story for the rest their range.

looks like all the snazy bits i was gonna turn out will have to wait, oh well at least it'll give me time to perfect the designs in solidworks

What's wrong with imperial??

You'll do better to the nearest 0.001" than .01mm (4 thou - too rough) or .001mm (0.0004 thou - too fine).

Verniers will auto-convert between systems and you might screw a deal out of them to get rid of an excess of imperial machines.

Being only a relativley young chap i feel more at home working with metric dimensions.

however im sure i could adjust for a discount

I was going to suggest the same. Working in inches isnt too bad, it slows you down a bit when you have to do the conversions though. But I tend to measure parts on the lathe rather than entirely trust the dials anyway.

Most of the lathes i have ever worked on have been imperial, you soon get used to it though

David

There's a company (the name of which escapes me at the moment) that does geared conversion dials for the cross slide and compound slide for most lathes. That way you end up with the best of both worlds. Just had a look at our Harrison thats got them fitted. The company is called GMT.
I have no idea of price though.

Maybe a bit more expensive, but they have a Lathe+Mill on ebay that looks metric.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Chester-UK-Metal-Working-Lathe-Mill-Model-B_W0QQitemZ7595673779QQcategoryZ112399QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

oh well too late, arrives wednesday

Any way, what's wrong with imperial? I'm only 23, but am much happier measuring in inches than i am millimetres. I can tell fairly accurately what's what in old stuff and have to convert in my head to modern. And I was tought to do it all in metric, but still can't!

The main problem for me is its what im used to, all the machines when i did my apprenticeship were in metric, still im outta the pan and into the fire now

Maybe stick a DRO on it with the money you saved?





Originally posted by Gav
The main problem for me is its what im used to, all the machines when i did my apprenticeship were in metric, still im outta the pan and into the fire now

That's what I was going to suggest! A proper DRO or if a cheapskate a couple of £15 digital verniers fixed to the bed and cross slide. conversion tables are available you might find some in the manual these are required if you intend screwcutting

Caber

My ancient Colchester master is imperial, no probs! I just keep a calculator blu-tacked to the top of the gearbox, takes no time at all and for most finishing cuts I think in Imperial anyway.