AV8TOR,
I considered the small lathes at HF until a machinist buddy convinced me to go with the 9x20 from HF. Glad I did. I actually wish I'd gone the next sized up but you can get carried away with that kind of thinking. They ARE cheap quality and I had to do some readjusting on the carriage to get it to work right. But once all that was done its been producing very nicely. The instructions are typical worthless chinese crap. I modified the tool post on my lathe from the junk that is used on the small ones with a quick change (series 100) and love it. I also bought the big mill from HF, used, from my machinist buddy. He went grizzely and CNC. Using the mill takes more patience than the lathe. Its the learning how to make the cuts at what speed and adjusting the gibbs just right. Just plan on sacrificing some metal and dive in. I know that the poor quality is strictly me when working on the mill cause I've seen the beautifull work produced from my buddy on the same machine. It always looked like he just clamped it down and just did it when in reality he new a ton of tricks of the trade on how to quickly align the work piece just right. If you're gonna do a lot of work like production stuff, I agree with the others about going to the auctions and getting better equipment. But for once in awhile hobby stuff, the chinese junk works. At least later if you decide to dive in you can get the good stuff. I'll bet most of the chinese stuff is used a little at first then sits and rusts.
Edwin