LATHE

[tracker]

hi all i'm a newbie here so be gentle with me,i'm looking to buy a lathe it must be screwcutting i've looked at the Chinese ones (new) but their lowest speed is to high,so can anybody advise on a suitable machine? I am currently watching e-bay as well.

[Manky Monkey]

Ah, Reg is probably the chap to talk to. He runs a lathe & milling machine in his garden shed so would have a fair idea of what's suitable for home use. ByzMax has all manner of home machinery too.
Saddlebags works in an engineering shop so uses professional sized machines.
They all drop in here fairly regularly or contact them via the members List.
Welcome aboard by the way! 

[graffian]

There is a smart and brown L or M on eblag at the mo comes with 127T changewheel. They are very nice small lathes. There was also a chipmaster that looked OK.
GandMtools.co.uk have a Chipmaster that has been reduced in price. Auctiona can ber a great place to buy stuff, there are places closing, reducing capacity or selling off stuff all the time. I have seen decent gear go dirt cheap, it's best if all the other punters are dealers. a good place to find auctions is machinery market magazine. go on the website and request a free copy. or look on th eonline auction, henry butcher have online auctions on there site.

I used someones chipmaster to bore a load of aeroquip fittings out, have to say it was very nice lathe. Colchester students are pretty common, I know someone who makes spares for several british bike places using one, it's been in use 40 years and isn't in bad nick. I nearly bought a Smart and Brown 1024 at an auction at the place that machine all the bits for amal carbs[I bought a load of lin bins and ended up with a heap of tops for Monoblocs], it was very solid looking bit of kit, very like my CVA in some ways.
 
I have a CVA, if you can get one get it, I haven't heard a bad thing about them.

Look at lathes.co.uk site if you want some info on a particular lathe. Look at homeworkshop.org.uk for adverts, it's the modelengineers advert site.

If you buy an english lathe you might well end up with a 30+year old lathe though. I have one thats 99[it's a yank jobbie] this year and one thats 51! I bought the very old one before I had ever used a lathe, there is a nak to using it a lad who had just done a cityinguilds turning couldn't use it worth a f**k, I still use it for large stuff[a bike wheel will fit in it] but I woudln't go and buy something this old. The 50 year old lathe has seen better days but will still hold a reasonble tolerance. I am considering reconditioning it but it's not cheap.

If you can get a lathe with all the accessories it makes life easier, I got my first with nothing, not even a chuck. the second came with everything except the taper turning attachement. I had a yank email me offering more than i paid for the lathe for all the bit's, they are the same as the monarch 10EE lathes parts which the yanks love.
Collets really are a joy to use, I am so used to using a 4 jaw chuck, I could do without a 3jaw but a set of collets is really usefull[unless your only turning stuff above an inch or whatever].
I still haven't used a traveling steady but I use the fixed steady quite a lot, so it's a usefull accessory.
I got something liek 10 faceplates with my lathe, seems they just drill them and bolted fixtures to them, quite usefull.
centres and driveplates and things all very usefull.
What you doing determines if coolant is neccessary. I have been pretty unlucky, in that my machines all came pillaged of their pumps. I use a 5 gallon HDP can and a holley electric fuel pump and move it from machine to machine.

I haven't had a colchester so I don't know what's with the gearing but the smart and brown is like my lathe, it needs optional gears to cut metric threads.

A dehumidifier in the garage or workshop is a good idea if it gets damp, my old lathe seemed to spend most of the year covered in a layer of water. when I got the CVA it didn't have a spot of rust on it so I run a dehumidifier all year round,it's lot cheaper than replacing the rusty stuff. In the summer it rarely comes on. You can pick them up on ebay for pennies, my present one was 26p and it was local, I bought another incase this one breaks, it was a whopping 99p.

nearly forgot motors. Most of the British things will come with three phase motor's.
If you don't intend on cramming as much machinery as you can in you garage the best option is possibly an inverter. RS were doing one cheaper than the things on ebay. It will give you more speed control than the lathe gearing and you just plug it in. I don't know how they are with reversing. I power tap in the mill and lathe, that means hitting reverse to bring the tap out.
 
Rotary phase converters are very simple to make and work fine, You can wire your garage with three phase;-) I run a compressor, saw, mill grinders, plasma cutter and polisher off one.  beauty of this is motors are so cheap and almost all the I buy  comes wired for three phase so I just connect it up.

swap motors. thsi is usally easy enough but you have to buy a motor, single phase motors will cost as much as a phase converter, well it depends what you buy to build the converter and what motor you need to buy.

Transport. if you buy something like a CVA it weighs in well over a ton, you need it transported on a truck with a hiab. I have moved things on plate trailers, but unless you up for a day of fooling around to get it on and off your going to have to have it shifted. forget big machinery movers, I had a quote to bring a lathe from an auction at the aerospace in kingston to gatwick, with vat it was a grand!!!!!!!!!! the auctioneers were s**tty about insurance and health and safty and stuff and wouldn't accept my loacl scrap yard collecting it for me, the driver only wanted £50 to collect it for me...

I was waiting for a dvd to encode, it's doen so that it from me, hope some of the ramblings of some use..

[Manky Monkey]

Wow! Someone who rambles even more than I do. I'm impressed!
I'm not an engineer, just a Monkey spannerer, so I'll admit some of that went over my head, but it sounded good!
Note to self: Persuade this guy to write some techy articles for us immediately.
Welcome Mr, (?), Graffian. 

[Manky Monkey]

This ad is on the 100% Biker forum at the moment. Being sold by "Adjunkie". I think you have to register to view the forum now but I can PM him for you if needed.

Clarke lathe CL430, bout 3 years old, comes with 3 jaw chuck, 4 jaw chuck, Face plate, drill chuck,and a steady. add up all the bits....and on a stand.

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/produc...10&r=2043&g=106
still for sale.....ok 325 quid.

[tracker]

Thanks for the input guys,i have just won a bid on ebay for a MYFORD ML7 will keep you informed how it goes.Thanks again.

[saddlebags]

Myford good choice,another alternative would have been a hardinge most accurate lathe ive ever used wind half a thou on the dial, turn half a thou off, no messing and old ones can be found with a cupboard full of 5c collets for under £500 good luck.

[tracker]

Drove over 200mls + return journey to pay and pick up the lathe i won on ebay, the lathe and accessories was not as described so i walked away.The seller was not very happy but not as pissed as i was.Next time it will be closer to home and i will go and see before i bid.What happens now with ebay i do not know,i will let you know.

[Manky Monkey]

Why not as described?

[trikerpete]

Drove over 200mls + return journey to pay and pick up the lathe i won on ebay, the lathe and accessories was not as described so i walked away.The seller was not very happy but not as pissed as i was.Next time it will be closer to home and i will go and see before i bid.What happens now with ebay i do not know,i will let you know.

I dont doubt you would be a "little peed off" after that, how did the description differ to advertised? if it was blatantly mis-advertised then make it known to ebay. have you checked the sellers "feedback" to see what experiences other buyers have had with them? I always check sellers feedback before I bid. Good job it was cash on collection.
Good luck
Pete

[tracker]

Advertised as in very good condition with accessories.
When i arrived he spun me a story about it not being his but a friends father's who had stripped it down and painted it before he had died,and that he had rebuilt it.I asked to see it working (which seemed reasonable to me).He replied that the wire had been cut and he was "no good with electrics".So off we trot to his shed, shed did i say shed, it was a workshop to die for,he had another lathe,a miller,grinder,sheet metal bender,you get the picture.Anyhow my son said i'll connect it,he then produced a wire stripper and connection block,duly connected then started it started vibrating, after tightening  the motor bolts it was better but still had vibration.I then asked to see the leadscrew working,"but i'll have to put the gears on"he replied,i insisted.While he was doing the gears i had a look at the accessories which were in a plastic tool box the 4 jaw chuck,faceplate and catchplate seemed ok BUT they were resting on adjustable reamers which had nicks on the blades (useless) also resting on a vernier and micrometer (accuracy suspect) i didn't bother looking at the rest.He could not get the leadscrew to work.I said the lathe was not as described and i did not want it,he started to get stroppy and said i bid and must pay,i replied i showed my good faith by the distance i had traveled.He now started to get irate at which point i left.It cost me about £45 in fuel NEVER AGAIN!
ps. i forgot to mention the paint was still fresh,what was it hiding?

[Manky Monkey]

Guess you were lucky you hadn't paid up front eh?
I've got to drive to Braiintree in Essex tomorrow evening -a fair ol' trip from Basingstoke, to buy a pair of doors for the van. Only 10 quid each -the fuel there & back will probably cost more.

[TwistedPatience]

You will have to make sure you know whether it's a metric or imperial machine and the Chinese one's like the Sieg C6B will run slow enough to screw cut and are cheap too. I can thread cut and hobble gears on mine it's very verastile for such a cheap machine.