I bought a new bench top Chinese lathe. It works but the graduations on the fees are worse than useless. They do not have anything to do with actual measurements! But I fitted a a digital readout to it. It's OK but not great but a whole lot better than nothing. And yes, a lathe sets you free.
Just a word of caution - be very aware that it only takes a small slip to damage or destroy the thing! Learn the safety rules before you start. A feature found in older machine shops are dings in the ceiling and everything else around the radius of the chuck. That's from the habit of taking ones hand off the chuck key while it's still in the chuck! That's just one of them.