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Combo 3 in 1 Mill Drill Lathe

9K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  cal1320 
#1 ·
Has anyone ever had any experience with a Combo 3 in 1 Mill Drill Lathe?
I am bidding on a Smithy AT 300 on eBay but cannot find any information on it. I am getting cold feet on this model. I will not be increasing my bid. I believe that it might be an older and discontinued model. What I am looking for is accessories for it just in case I get it.
Any suggestions will be appreciated?
 
#6 ·
I would STRONGLY advise avoiding any of the 3-in-one machines unless you are working primarily with plastics! They are so compromised in design in the attempt to do everything that they do nothing very well, they flex waaay to much and are a royal PITA to set up and use the different features. Look at the tall tailstock on those things, the Smithy is better thn most but still bad, that tall light weight tailstock and tall light tool post to accommodate the otherwise impressive swing on these machines leads to flex, loss of accuracy and just plain frustration to use. For what those things cost you would be far better to just buy a 12x36 stand-alone lathe and a small mill. The 12x36 and larger Chinese lathes are surprisingly good quality and a real bargain but anything smaller is not so good, the very popular 9x20 sold under several different brand names is just plain junk.

Also I agree that Enco is THE place for tooling and machine shop supplies, I buy almost everything I use from them.
 
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