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?I wouldn't advise being too quick to just dismiss being able to cut left hand threads, or to power feed away from the chuck, or bore out a workpiece where you'd have the chuck going in reverse and the tool feeding into the far side of the hole where you can see it, etc. - In short, being able to reverse the direction of the leadscrew (independently of the spindle direction) is not necessarily some minor little detail to carelessly toss away, so to speak.

?A little bit of reading background might be in order:

?Here, the guys at Fignoggle did a .

?And perhaps most importantly, here shows some 8x12/14 owners discussing their not insignificant efforts to , so they can do all that reversible leadscrew stuff mentioned above. Pictures included. Clearly, at least some percentage of 8x12/14 owners do not find a reversible leadscrew to be an unnecessary "frill."

?If that 7x, 8x, 9x or whatever size lathe is going to be the only lathe you own, I highly recommend doing your homework on this stuff for yourself. For example, a number of the members here own more than one lathe. That can definitely color perceptions. An "only lathe" is not at all the same as a small manual lathe that is an addition to go along with other bigger lathe(s) and CNC machines and such. An "only lathe" has do do everything lathe related that you might ever run across, with no hopping about to other machines you do not have. :-)

?More info & understanding is always better: The 7x already has the variable speed and tumbler gears and whatnot, but it is a small light duty machine, incapable of taking deeper cuts like the bigger machines can do, so some operations can take a fair bit longer to get done. Then again, I remember seeing a video from somebody right here on on this list taking 1/4" deep cuts into steel with a carefully prepared HSS turning tool in a well tuned 7x. Hopefully somebody here will remember that video and re-post a link - it just shows what is possible with these things, just as those 8x photos linked to above do - in that case of course adding tumbler gears in order to have a reversible leadscrew.

?Taking the 8x12/14 and adding a variable speed control and lever operated tumbler gears for a reversible leadscrew would make for quite a machine! Until, that is, somebody else notes how nice it would be to have a quick change gearbox so you can just shift a few levers around to select a desired feed rate or thread pitch, and, of course, a powered cross slide. :-)

?I personally can live with the more "primitive" method of manually swapping change gears around as needed for threading operations and such, but not having a reversible leadscrew is just going a bit too "primitive" for me, heavier mass lathe bed and deeper cut capability right out of the box or no. But thats just me with my one (1) 7x12 mini-lathe and my one (1) X2 mini-mill with which I have to do everything.

?I should note again, though, how so many members and group owners/moderators on these various metalworking lists, seem to eventually end up getting 12x or larger lathes and much bigger mills and such. Running into jobs too big to fit little benchtop machines can be really bothersome and may lead to major purchases for some folks. This "hobby" can sure be heck on the wallet. :-)

?In any case, best of luck!
?John Z.

On 10/16/2011 11:08 AM, nissan.370z wrote: