damascus,
If I gave you the erroneous impression that I'm trying to score points against you, I'm sorry. Within your text, you more or less seem to support my point. If you go back to my first post in this thread, I started out giving support to the idea of a beginner using one of the 7x12s until something more is needed or desired. I mentioned, in this, a website that is dedicated to the 7x12,including very many improvements/modifications. Our backgrounds could hardly be more different. You spent your working career with machine tools, and I spent mine longing for machine tools to use. My main interest is guns, and yours is clocks( although you must be interested in guns, you are on this forum). Yet both of us have chosen machines that fit best, our particular circumstances and neither of us own one of the little lathes we are discussing( in the interest of full disclosure, I admit I did own one for half a day once, but traded it off before even setting it up).Some of the publications I read have articles on guns and on clocks. I have no interest in clocks, yet I often find things in the clock making articles that may help me in the work I am interested in. By the same token, the many improvements/modifications shown in the website about the 7x12s, can be very useful as ideas for my work as well. At the same time making the improvements serve to teach the new owner of a 7x12 how to use a lathe, how to "set it up" and how to know what the limitations are. This is why I can recommend using a 7x12 as a first lathe. Working the problems out will teach more about using it, than any book will. For those of us that didn't have a chance to be schooled in the use of machines, other than making our own mistakes and "chips", the best way to learn is to make friends with a retired machinist/gunsmith that is willing to help. I'm sorry I don't live close enough to you, that I could "pick your brain". I suggest you check the cited website out, I think you will find helpful ideas that can be adapted to your 9x20.
Mike
