Large vertical lathes available at reasonable prices

Look in a couple of nooks in the machine tool market and you’ll find what appear to be bargains for those buying big.

Take machines that produce large turned parts. Firms can have trouble outsourcing such parts because job shops can’t find affordable turning centers to do the work, according to Jerry McCarty, COO of SMTCL USA Inc., City of Industry, Calif.

“There really never was a job shop machine that would do large turning,” McCarty said, adding that large turning machines typically cost $400,000 or more. His company offers two new horizontal turning centers priced under $300,000—”30 percent cheaper than what people normally pay for this kind of machine,” he said.

Essential parts of the MVL-16 VTL. According to Momentum, all MVL models offer oversize rams and other components, as well as more horsepower and machine mass than more expensive competitors. Image courtesy of Momentum Machine Tool.

An even less affordable option has been to shell out $1 million or more for machines that can also mill, McCarty noted. “Our products are filling a niche for job shops doing just one operation—turning—on very large products.”

Priced at $269,000, SMTCL’s EHC125300 is a CNC horizontal lathe that can turn out parts up
to 3m (118″) long. Standard features of the 44,000-lb. (19,958kg) machine include a 1,000mm (39.4″) chuck, 8-position turret, steady rest, hydraulic tailstock and chip conveyor.

SMTCL’s other new machine, the EHC125500, costs $20,000 more than the EHC125300 but can produce parts up to 5m (197″) long and weighing as much as 11,000 lbs. (4,990kg).

Though the parts are big, McCarty said, the new turning centers offer accuracy that is often measured in microns.

But tolerance stackup can occur if the parts must be moved to a different machine for drilling or other secondary operations that require milling. This is the Achilles’ heel of the new machines compared with more expensive milling-capable offerings, McCarty said.