Quote:
Originally Posted by bill m
A lucky find Mike,
the fact it is 1940's and in very good condition is outstanding. These machine tools are collectible in their own right. I like the 1940 inspection slip!
I am planning on a lathe purchase in the not too distant future. Nothing like the smell of machine shop coolant 
I currently work at Redline Engineering near Moorabbin airport managing and building aircraft components for local concerns.
The workshop is all CNC machines with just one turret milling machine and a Colchester lathe.
The CNC's are fascinating but are not with the character of the older manual machines.
cheers
Bill. |
OK Bill
Colchesters are excellent lathes , but spares cost a small fortune , they used special bearings in the headstock and these are thousands of $ to replace .
Many people buy the new Chinese machines , they have improved greatly in the past ten years , but I still don't like them .
At the moment, there is a glut of older used lathes on the market , manufacturing has mostly died here and many companies get rid of their machinery .
You can pick up beautiful quality old lathes for around 2000$ . These days cheap phase converters ( called VFD's ) are available on EBAY ..you can run 3 phase motors from single phase with ease
A good first lathe is a Hercus 260 , made in Adelaide . Hercus still supplies spares for them
Big tip , try to find a lathe with heaps of accessories , these cost more than the lathe itself does
Go to this site and clik on HERCUS
http://www.lathes.co.uk/page21.html
Mike