Trying to understand what are the advantages of having more than one lathe in the shop. I know a lot of gunsmiths do this; and I have a convenient opportunity to do it myself at the moment. I'm just reluctant to give up the shop space unless there's more benefit than I see right now.

I have an 11" Logan, with very large through the headstock capability, power cross feed, and fully tooled. With a 5C closer and a set of collets that I own, it will easily handle small stuff as well as doing barrel work.

I also have at the moment, a smaller 10 inch Logan (Powercraft) lathe. It is small headstock, #3MT. I have full tooling for it available, including an erickson collet setup for the #3MT. And have a Palmgren mill slide that will work on it.

Both lathes have quick change gearboxes.

What are the reasons a person might maintain these two lathes, for gunsmithing purposes? Would you do so, or would you just concentrate on the 11" lathe and buy more tooling if needed to do stuff that would normally be more convenient on the smaller lathe?

The only thing that I can think of that might be better on the small lathe is using the Erickson collet setup and the mill slide to cut extractor slots on barrels. That's an awkward job to do on the tabletop mill I have. But, the 5C collets would do the same, just have to rig up a vise to hold the work, and could probably adapt the Palmgren easily by making a different mounting block.

I have a 10" x 18" Southbend with a large hole in the headstock. It has collets and two chucks. It is great for small precise jobs like cutting a chamber or making a screw. I use it constantly. Being very familiar with it, I get the most out of it.

I have a 15 x 48 Clausing. It is the machine for large cuts. Big machines are more rigid and will give a better finish. It is also the machine for turning outside contours on barrels. If I want to turn a small black powder cannon, I can. I rarely use the big lathe. I am less familiar with it so I do not use it to it's full potential.

I like old machine tools the way some people like old cars. I can never have to many nice ones.

I inherited two lathes. a Monarch 10EE tool room lathe and a Monarch CK 14x54. I am only a hobbyist, but regularly use both. I can setup one for one operation, and the other for a different one. Also the CK is much better for large or long work, while the 10EE is better for precise work. I could make do with one or the other alone, but since I have both, I use whichever is better suited to the task at hand.

I am not a gunsmith. Just a hack hobbiest trying my best to not screw things up. That said I have always believed in having the right tool for the job at hand. This is really important in a commercial setting where time is money. Set up time does not make you any money. If you are routinely doing a certain operation on a lathe then having a lathe dedicated to that will save you time which equates to making more money.

For example if you do a lot of barrel work then having a lathe dedicated to working on barrels would be a good idea. Another scenario is where you are in the middle of some project and something comes up that requires you to dismantle the current setup to do the new task. This gets back to the time is money concept. Only you can answer this question.

If you have the space then keep the second lathe even if you won't use it very often. If you don't have the space make room for it. You will use that second lathe.

Where I work is a small shop, two people, but we have 5 lathes.
Two for barrel making, gun drill and reamer.
One set up with a tracer for contouring, pretty much useless for anything else.
Two others for threading, chambers and general lathe work.

M

Six.
A chucker in corner not hooked up and never used.

I have two lathes and I can tell you that I would love to have a third. I would keep it set up foe collet work only

If you have the room and can afford it why not.

Got 6, its not enough. As others have said, it can be a big time saver.

John

i started with a lesser brand .. got better, got a better one... repeat .. sometimes i could sell the prior, sometimes not ...

having a rough lathe, to do heavy rough cuts on, is NOT a bad thing --

Some how I end up with 5

My second lathe is a quarter mile away at my brothers!