With the Artisan’s Asylum closed for a relocation, I’ve been without access to a manual lathe for a while. Fortunately, import mini-lathes aren’t that hard to come by!

This is a Sieg C4 derivative from Little Machine Shop, which was about the largest machine I could reasonably move into my basement.

It isn’t as rigid as the Colchester at AA was, but it does have power feed and power cross feed which both work just fine. I’ve run into a few minor quality issues, and the spindle runout isn’t great, but it should do for my needs.

Here’s a draft of the first “useful” part made on it — a Dremel mandrel to hold wheels with a 1/4″ center.

I know, probably not the safest thing to make, but I’ll be careful, honest!