Gentlemen,
As discussed in an earlier post, I purchased an Acra Machinery 1440V lathe some time ago and after some trials and tribulations, have now got it up and running. As such, I thought I would post a report and some thoughts on the machine for any future lathe purchasers out there.
First off, I went with Acra based on the recommendations of numerous dealers I spoke with out here in California. All of these dealers carried and sold others lines of lathes as well, but to the dealer, Acra was the first name out of their mouths. Reasons sited were reliability, product support, and the fact that Acra has been around for a long time. If you pay much attention to the import manual lathe market, you'll notice new brand names popping up quite frequently. Most, if not all Taiwan machines are produced by 2-3 manufacturers to various spec's for the distributors...some of which come and go rather quickly. Most of these machines look almost identical from brand to brand, but the distributors specify certain details and spec's for their machines. This, according to the dealers I spoke with.
The physical appearance of the lathe is pretty good, with the paint being where it's suppossed to be and not where it shouldn't. I didn't have to scrape paint off of the ways or anything like that. While not show car quality, the paint and finish are appropriate for a lathe.
Everything seems to function as it should, and work smoothly. There is moderate gear noise...louder in some settings than in others, but I imagine the gear noise will diminish a bit with some use...take the edges off. I haven't changed the headstock oil yet and checked for metal shavings, but I will report on that when I do. The feeds all work smoothly and well.
I have yet to do any threading yet as for some unknown reason, there is no index mark next to the tread dial...go figure. So I have to come up with a little something for that. That is just silly.
The dials are decent...I wish they were a bit sharper, but for any gnats a$$ work, I'll use indicators. As they are, I can usually get within a couple of tenths +/- of where I want to be...but ya got to sneak up on it. I'm used to a DRO, so I'm not the best with the dials. Somebody used to dials could probably do better.
The manual, as seems typical with Taiwanese machines, isn't too shiny. The wiring schematic did not jibe with the machine...which had my electrician scratching his head. However, Acra was very helpful in figuring the wiring out (a bit hard to understand though, accents being what they are).
Once leveled, the machine cut a .0011 taper over 8" on a piece of 2" aluminum. That is with a freshly ground and stoned piece of HSS. I think for a machine this size, the max standard is .0015 over 12". So I had a bit of work to do, which was not a problem as the lathe has a slick set-up for adjusting the headstock to the ways. A bit of trial and error later, it is now cutting at about .0001 over 8"...which I can live with.
I was quickly able to get it cutting between centers at about .0003 over 12". And the tailstock seems to be repeating well to boot. Additionally, when I put a tenth indicator on the spindle and lock/unlock the spindle, I only get about .0002 movement. As is, the tailstock is about .0025 high.
One thing I am not happy about is the runout in the taper spindle. It runs about .00035. Runout on the spindle OD is less than a tenth, and the machine turns almost dead nuts round so it appears something went amiss whilst cutting the taper. Not sure how or if I'm going to deal with this just yet, or what to make of it. I may just use a sacrificial dead center in the chuck when I need to do center work...which isn't that often. I don't know...any thoughts?
The lathe produces beautiful surface finishes...with a slow feed and the correct tool, they almost look ground. I even got a nice finish on some 1018 cold roll (gooey crap!) that I was playing around with the other day.
The supplied 3 jaw runs out about .0015 on a piece of chucked up ground round.
The variable frequency drive is pretty cool to have...just a twist of the dial to raise/lower rpm's. I was playing around the other day turning a long piece of something down without the follower rest and getting some chatter. Just turned down the rpm's a bit and the chatter went away. Pretty cool.
The spindle is about 18" from outboard end to the inboard spindle face/chuck mount. With the supplied 3 jaw, it's 22" with the jaws, 20" without. Haven't had the 4 jaw on to measure it yet, but it appears that chambering through the headstock, in some form, should not be a problem.
So far, I'm pretty happy with the machine, but I do need to spend some more time with it, do some threading, chamber a barrel, etc., before I give it the final blessing. If this goes well, I will probably sell my other lathe as the Acra will do all that I need it to do.
Justin
As discussed in an earlier post, I purchased an Acra Machinery 1440V lathe some time ago and after some trials and tribulations, have now got it up and running. As such, I thought I would post a report and some thoughts on the machine for any future lathe purchasers out there.
First off, I went with Acra based on the recommendations of numerous dealers I spoke with out here in California. All of these dealers carried and sold others lines of lathes as well, but to the dealer, Acra was the first name out of their mouths. Reasons sited were reliability, product support, and the fact that Acra has been around for a long time. If you pay much attention to the import manual lathe market, you'll notice new brand names popping up quite frequently. Most, if not all Taiwan machines are produced by 2-3 manufacturers to various spec's for the distributors...some of which come and go rather quickly. Most of these machines look almost identical from brand to brand, but the distributors specify certain details and spec's for their machines. This, according to the dealers I spoke with.
The physical appearance of the lathe is pretty good, with the paint being where it's suppossed to be and not where it shouldn't. I didn't have to scrape paint off of the ways or anything like that. While not show car quality, the paint and finish are appropriate for a lathe.
Everything seems to function as it should, and work smoothly. There is moderate gear noise...louder in some settings than in others, but I imagine the gear noise will diminish a bit with some use...take the edges off. I haven't changed the headstock oil yet and checked for metal shavings, but I will report on that when I do. The feeds all work smoothly and well.
I have yet to do any threading yet as for some unknown reason, there is no index mark next to the tread dial...go figure. So I have to come up with a little something for that. That is just silly.
The dials are decent...I wish they were a bit sharper, but for any gnats a$$ work, I'll use indicators. As they are, I can usually get within a couple of tenths +/- of where I want to be...but ya got to sneak up on it. I'm used to a DRO, so I'm not the best with the dials. Somebody used to dials could probably do better.
The manual, as seems typical with Taiwanese machines, isn't too shiny. The wiring schematic did not jibe with the machine...which had my electrician scratching his head. However, Acra was very helpful in figuring the wiring out (a bit hard to understand though, accents being what they are).
Once leveled, the machine cut a .0011 taper over 8" on a piece of 2" aluminum. That is with a freshly ground and stoned piece of HSS. I think for a machine this size, the max standard is .0015 over 12". So I had a bit of work to do, which was not a problem as the lathe has a slick set-up for adjusting the headstock to the ways. A bit of trial and error later, it is now cutting at about .0001 over 8"...which I can live with.
I was quickly able to get it cutting between centers at about .0003 over 12". And the tailstock seems to be repeating well to boot. Additionally, when I put a tenth indicator on the spindle and lock/unlock the spindle, I only get about .0002 movement. As is, the tailstock is about .0025 high.
One thing I am not happy about is the runout in the taper spindle. It runs about .00035. Runout on the spindle OD is less than a tenth, and the machine turns almost dead nuts round so it appears something went amiss whilst cutting the taper. Not sure how or if I'm going to deal with this just yet, or what to make of it. I may just use a sacrificial dead center in the chuck when I need to do center work...which isn't that often. I don't know...any thoughts?
The lathe produces beautiful surface finishes...with a slow feed and the correct tool, they almost look ground. I even got a nice finish on some 1018 cold roll (gooey crap!) that I was playing around with the other day.
The supplied 3 jaw runs out about .0015 on a piece of chucked up ground round.
The variable frequency drive is pretty cool to have...just a twist of the dial to raise/lower rpm's. I was playing around the other day turning a long piece of something down without the follower rest and getting some chatter. Just turned down the rpm's a bit and the chatter went away. Pretty cool.
The spindle is about 18" from outboard end to the inboard spindle face/chuck mount. With the supplied 3 jaw, it's 22" with the jaws, 20" without. Haven't had the 4 jaw on to measure it yet, but it appears that chambering through the headstock, in some form, should not be a problem.
So far, I'm pretty happy with the machine, but I do need to spend some more time with it, do some threading, chamber a barrel, etc., before I give it the final blessing. If this goes well, I will probably sell my other lathe as the Acra will do all that I need it to do.
Justin
