whirlwynds
New Member
Thank you all for the replies. I ended up finding a Busy Bee CX704 lathe and CX612 mill at an estate sale and got both. I had been comparing to the Emco Compact 5 and the LMS 5100. I am really only looking for a 7x lathe, not anything bigger. I like the quality of the Austrian-made Emco, but am a little worried about finding replacement parts and like the large ecosystem of parts for the 7x Chinese lathes. The CX704 is probably OK for my needs as a first lathe - I was close to a deal on a LMS 5100 but the seller and I couldn't reach an agreement on price. Too bad, as it seems a nicer machine. For now the plan is to just learn on what I have and upgrade if the need arises.