Mine would be neither, so surely the answer to your question is only one that you can answer?

Without knowing your budget, what you want to achieve with it etc, I can't see anyone can give you an objective answer

As they say,depends on what you want to do,rather than what you can afford.

If you need to do work of a certain size but cannot afford a machine big enough,that answers the question.!

Horses for courses !!

Stop agonising and buy something, anything would be my guidance. Do it today!

I fear the question pre-supposes that some Models and Sellers are markedly better than others; that this state of affairs never changes; and that Members know what the best deal is at the moment! Not sure any of this holds good.

The SC4 has been getting good reviews: it's an interesting new machine. Neil W is running a series on it in MEW at the moment, and people who have them like them. The alternatives are credible too. For your purposes any of them would do. (The problems start when you find a job can't be done because you're 'restricted to whatever the aforementioned equipment can handle'. Best bit of single advice I got off the forum was 'buy the biggest machine you can'. )

None of the UK sellers have a positively bad reputation. Some are 'unknown'. All the major players have (I think) at one time or another dropped the ball in terms of service. On the other hand most issues get resolved, even it's a refund rather than a nicely working machine.

Very few of us have experience of all the vendors, I can speak positively of Arc Euro and Warco, but I've never dealt with most of their competitors. The machines they sell are 'similar'. You have to look carefully to detect differences, which can and do vary over time.

• Bed hardened
• Motor power output
• Speed range
• Type of Motor. In order of desirability – Brushless, 3-phase, DC, single phase. In practice may not make a big difference.
• Tools provided, eg. does it come with a 4-jaw as well as a 3-jaw.
• Stand
• Imperial vs Metric & does it cut the thread sizes you need.
• Saddle grooves
• Saddle Lock
• Power traverse for facing
• Spindle size
• DRO
• Offers / sales?
• Is it in stock?

For general work, most of these are 'nice to have' rather than essential. Most lathes will do what any other lathe does, the difference is how quickly and conveniently it will do it. This is why it's best (if you can) to have a clear idea about what the lathe is for. For example, I prefer working in metric and therefore bought a metric lathe with metric dials. However in practice, measuring with a micrometer, and having a pocket calculator, I could just as well have bought an Imperial lathe. Fitting a DRO makes the two lathe types pretty much interchangeable apart from some threading. Sometimes, probably due to overstocking in one measurement system, exactly same lathe can be on offer. This makes it possible to save money if Imperial vs Metric doesn't matter to you. But don't do it if Metric vs Imperial does matter continually in the work you do – having to keep an eye on conversions wastes time and causes mistakes! Too me a clutch is an unnecessary luxury, to others a clutch is essential.

Axminister are somewhat expensive but they offer an extended warranty. At extra cost they also do a well received training course.

After sales support might be a problem if you're thinking of spare parts in the distant future. Apart from the major components – Bearings, belts, motors, switches, contactors etc – the machines are not highly standardised. Arc Euro have a good range of spares, but I doubt they have a warehouse full of replacement tail-stocks for 1985 mini-lathes! Even so, for spares the larger well established vendors are probably a better bet than smaller operations.

Hope that helps – have a quick look at what's available at the moment and buy the kit that ticks most boxes within your budget. I don't think you'll go far wrong whatever you buy.

Dave

If you go to the front page of this website, not just the forum, and use the search option there you can find lots of 'which lathe' type threads to get a much larger set of views. Or use the 'latest Posts' link on any thread and then go back in time to the beginning of the year and just read everything. There must be 50 threads this year on lathe buying advice but often hidden under weird titles.

Good choice.

My WeissMachinery 250 is almost the same and I am modifing/improving it

VFD plus WM250