Sieg Lathe Review: CNC, C2, C4, C6, C8 & Mini-Lathe Guide

Whether you are interested in simply repairing cars, or making complicated machinery; a metal lathe is an important piece of equipment which is essential for all mechanical and engineering tasks. The lathe primarily allows you to shape or mold cylindrical metal pieces into useful items such as shafts and bushes. It is also used by other kinds of metalworkers, for instance it is used by goldsmiths to mold bangles and even beads, or any form of circular accessory. Sieg Lathe is the most commonly used lathe due to its superior quality and efficient design.

The Sieg Lathe is manufactured by Shanghai Sieg Machinery Co, which was founded in 1988. It was the first company to mass produce mini lathes, and its Sieg Mini Lathe is well-known in the industry as the symbol of quality and design. It has an extensive design and manufacturing process that ensures safety and quality in each Sieg Lathe.  Along with lathes, the Sieg Machinery Co also provides mills, and usually it is advisable to buy both a Sieg mill and a Sieg lathe together for metalworking. With distributors around the world, it is quite easy to find a Sieg Lathe for purchase. Sieg provides extensive guarantees for all its products and also manufactures accessories to add further functionality to it products. The SC2, C4, C6 and C8 are the most used Sieg Lathe models.

General Sieg Lathe Safety Features

From 2000 onwards, Sieg lathe manufacturers have specifically focused on improving the safety and rigidity of its machine to ensure a more secure user experience and a longer machine life. Not only does the Sieg lathe comes fitted with the traditional safety features of all Lathe, it has many innovative and new features which makes it much more safer to use. Amongst the Sieg lathe some of the safety features are;

• A key-lock mechanism that ensures unintended machine start. Until the key is safely in its appropriate fitting position, the Sieg mini lathe will not start.
• An emergency button to immediately halt the lathe; without damaging electronic circuits and Sieg lathe itself.
• A safety mechanism that always requires you to reset the power prior to using the Sieg lathe. This protects your machine from unexpected voltage variations.

In addition to all these features, Sieg lathe is also built to be much more rigid that before and there are rare cases of a Sieg lathe facing any issues. Even in case, a complaint arises, it is mostly in older models which were fitted with earlier motor technology.

Sieg SC2 Lathe

The Sieg SC2 lathe is a mini lathe that is ideal mostly for hobbyists or those who won’t need to perform any heavy metalwork on the lathe. If we look into the major specialties of this SC2 model, they are as follow: –

a)    Sieg SC2 lathe is a small-sized 7 x 12 lathe, i.e. it offers 7” swing above the bed and 12” space between the centers.

b)    You cannot underestimate the SC2 despite its size. Possessing a brushless motor, the SC2 possesses the same power as larger metal lathes; and cuts as deep as 0.05 mm do not even make SC2 fumble a little.

c)    It operates smooth at all speeds, and provides accurate cuts.

d)    The control panel is simple and easy to use.

Overall the Sieg SC2 lathe is a quite powerful and simple lathe. Most Siege lathe review laud the SC2 for its power despite its small size; and recommend it for small-time hobbyists and metalworkers who won’t require working on larger pieces.

Sieg Lathe C4

In comparison to the SC2, the Sieg lathe C4 is larger on all margins; it is an 8 by 14 lathe.  The main features of Sieg lathe are: –

a)    With a build that allows for 8” swing over the bed, the Sieg lathe C4 can easily turn work pieces of at least 7” stock without even showing signs of stalling the lathe.

b)    Like all Sieg machines, the Sieg lathe C4 is quite accurate.

c)    However, one benefit with the Sieg lathe C4 is that you can get its SC4 model for a fairly minimal amount and get digital speed and tachometer controls.

d)    Its 1000W DC motor provides more power to an already powerful machine.

Overall Sieg lathe SC4 is appraisable by both newbie’s and experts due to its digital controls and powerful features.

Sieg Lathe C6 & Sieg Lathe C8

Although it is rare for anyone to require anything above Sieg lathe C4, for those who are looking for even greater size there is the slightly larger Sieg lathe C6 or the monstrous Sieg lathe C8. Let’s look at the Sieg lathe C6 first.

a)    Allowing for nearly a 10” swing over the bed, the Sieg lathe C6 caters to all work pieces and like all Sieg lathes works smoothly even when fitted with maximum size work pieces.

b)    You can get it in either the 400mm model or the 500mm model; both of which respectively provide 400mm and 500mm spaces between the headstock and the tailstock.

c)    The headstock and chunk of both C6 & C8 are built to be even more rigid and ensure that they do not stall under more load or higher power.

Talking about the Sieg lathe C8, it’s much similar to the C6 with the only difference being that the Sieg lathe C8 allows for an 11” swing over the bed and has nearly 30” space in the center.

It should also be observed that both Sieg lathe C6 and Sieg lathe C8 come with a six-step variable speed control; this is quite unique as most lathe manufacturers do not give a variable speed control for Lathe with anything greater ½ HP motor power.

Sieg Lathe CNC

After going through all this, you must be thinking it can’t get better than this. However, you can’t be more wrong. Sieg Lathe is not only available with traditional analog controls, but Sieg Machinery Co. also provides Sieg Lathe CNC. With Sieg Lathe CNC you can easily connect your lathe to a computer and either operate tasks on it through a computer or just program it to cut in a specific manner and run the same program on countless work pieces. It reduces cutting time by millions and you no longer need to spend time dreading over a mistake or wrong cut.

The good news for existing users is that they can also get their Sieg Lathe converted to Sieg Lathe CNC. You can get this done by contacting any Sieg Lathe Australia distributor or the distributor of your region.