Yes.? While the 7x12 and 7x14 were initially mentioned, there are, and have been, 7x10 and 7x16 models.? So 7x10, 7x12, 7x14 and 7x16 are out there.

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To amplify what was said below, it is true that the mini-lathes don’t measure length in a conventional manner (“conventional” being “between centers”).? But I think they are measured the same way relative to each other.? And when you mount a chuck, workpiece in the chuck, drill chuck in the tailstock, and a drill mounted in the drill chuck, you want all the real estate in length you can get.? That said, some folks seem happy, based on what they do, with shorter models.? But I advise getting the longest which is a 7x16.? It is also handy to be able to slide the tailstock to a position further away when not being used to help keep it out of your way.

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Speaking of tailstocks, there are two styles, standard and offset.? Offset helps give even more distance between centers.? Tailstocks also come in bolt tighten versus cam lock versions.? Cam lock is vastly better and some lathes come with that.? Others have modified their tailstocks to have this feature.

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I seriously doubt there is any vast difference in quality between them.? Most are made by the same company (Sieg) and branded differently, with different features (besides just length such as motor size) different included accessories, and perhaps pre-cleaned to get the gunky shipping grease off.? I don’t know if the mention of properly aged castings is true or not, but I seriously doubt that.? And given the many accuracy issues of these lathes, and their small stout size, I feel that would be relatively unimportant anyway.? Like some alcoholic beverages, I suspect the castings are “aged in the truck”.

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If you haven’t seen it already, the site has a vast amount of information on these things.? Although some of it may be slightly dated.

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There is another issue very important to some, but not to others, regarding the markings of the handwheels.? Most of these mini-lathes are natively metric with metric lead screws.? However, many have handwheels marked in English even though the lead screws are metric.? This doesn’t work out quite exactly.? For example, a metric marked handwheel might be 1 mm per turn and have 100 markings got the metric version for 0.001 mm resolution.? That same lathe sold in an English version would have 40 equal markings for 0.040 inch per turn.? But it is actually 0.03937 inches per turn so is a little off. There have even been some marked with 39 correctly spaced markings, and the last marking a little less so it 39 markings for 0.039 inches and one last one just before coming around to zero again representing the 0.00037 inches.? Micro-Mark sells “true inch” versions which have English lead screws so the markings in English are correct.? All that said, this finagling done to make a natively metric lathe have English markings doesn’t seem to bother many as for many purposes the error is small enough, or they are making one-off parts and measuring to final sizes anyway otherwise.

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At the end of the day, there is no single correct model to buy. ?It depends on what you want to do with it.? And you might decide at some point to upgrade to a better mini-lathe version, or perhaps upgrade to a larger lathe entirely.? Whatever you buy, you can sell if you want to upgrade.? Lots of people want little lathes.? But in general, I always suggest getting the best you can possibly afford.? The tooling you buy (not only for the lathe, but for other machining needs such as measuring devices) is going to cost the same whether you got the machine you really wanted or got a machine you wish you hadn’t.

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Chuck K. ?

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