| For what you want to do and within the budget you have set the Chinese lathe of the 7x12 size will be about what you are after.
This can be mounted on a workbench and will need very little room around it. You will need somewhere to store your tools and materials and maybe one or two accessories but you don't need a lot of space. Here's a shot of my own set up with a Chester 7x12 Conquest lathe.
All the above links are to manufacturers that do the same lathe and being Chinese requires a bit of thought. I would strongly recommend that you strip it down to it's very basic components first, clean up all the bits, thoroughly grease the metal work and gears and reassemble, carefully adjusting all the various tolerances and clearances. If you do this the lathe will last you a long time. If you don't it will probably become unreliable and inacurate. These lathes are ssupposed to be ready from the crate but invariably they are not set up very carefully and quite often not very well lubricated.
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