Member postings for Martin Watson 1

I've had a CJ18 for the past 9 years, bought it second hand from someone who bought it new from amadeal a year before that (he used it to make parts for his life size dalek, then sold it on)
Sure i sometimes wish i had a bigger lathe with more features like power cross feed, screw cutting gearbox and all that, but this little lathes done all i needed really.

Things i've had fail / go wrong on it,

About a year after i got it i started having problems with it cutting out, refusing to start etc,
I traced this all to the interlock board (amadeal call's it a filter board) that is in the base of the controller box, this makes you start the lathe by turning the speed knob to zero every time... very very annoying,
It also provides motor braking, and operates the inhibit function on the speed controller, which shuts power to the motor if you disconnect the motor whilst running... which you do when you operate the direction switch (something you shouldn't do on any running lathe anyway)

I was told by a few people that those boards can be a pain, and some needed to replace theirs every year or so!! So i bypassed mine, had to keep it in the lathe tho as it also provides power for the speed readout, so that's all it does on my lathe now.

i can get braking and inhibit functions back using a relay and a resistor, i just need to get round to it.

The high - low gear broke about 5 years ago, i lost low speed, it's a set of plastic gears in the headstock, needing the spindle removing to change, so i lived with only high speed for years,

When i finally bought a replacement set of gears, i got the upgraded metal ones,
And at the same time i bought a pair of angular contact bearings to replace the standard ball bearings that the spindle runs in
I figured as i had to pull the spindle and the bearings to get to the gears, i'd do the bearing upgrade at the same time, i got the bearings from arc euro trade (but watch out as most other parts are not interchangable between the seig and reel bull lathes as i found out recently)

When the lathe was put into storage for a year, the person carrying it from the car tripped and the cross slide leadscrews handle got snapped off, to fix this i needing a new leadscrew... so i ordered one from arc as it was cheaper... but it's not the right one, same thread by different on the area that goes through the bearing block / dial and that.

And i had the motor drive pulley come apart and damage itself, again i bought a replacement from arc as it was cheaper than amadeal, but it was not suitable for my lathe (9.5mm hole with keyway, where as the correct part has a 8.5mm hole and a key that's part of the plastic molding)

I've stripped the lathe down a few times and done some fettling to it, there is a great article on how to do this... using a seig version, but as you are just stripping, cleaning and fettling then adjusting it's relevent to most mini lathes:

Mini Lathe Strip and re-assemble

Martin

I have a CJ18a mini lathe from Amadeal (see my earlier post on the 1/7/20).

I did a bit of research online before I bought it on the different ones available. Being a beginner, I didn’t want to spend too much in case I decided it was not for me. At the time it was one of the cheapest and had a better spec than others (for the price).

I have been happy with it and with the service from Amadeal. If you search on this forum you will find a thread from last year from someone who wasn’t happy with the service they received when the ( larger) lathe they had had for 11 months failed. A few people who had had no dealings with Amadeal jumped in to criticise the company, which I thought was unfair.

From my first contact with them before I bought the lathe, I have always got through to them by phone and had a response by email the same day, so even though they are a small setup, I would recommend them.

One thing to bear in mind though if you are thinking of a larger lathe, they don’t include extras like additional chucks or steadies. Warco include these in the price of their larger lathes.

In my view, the Machine Mart lathes are not good value for money.

Stuart

Edited By Stuart Smith 5 on 02/01/2021 12:48:42

Hello Martin and welcome.

Brian

The CJ18 was my first lathe which I bought from Amadeal it was a typical cheap mini lathe, needed some adjusting and setting up but it was reliable and I did some decent work on it. I also did one or two mods to it to make it a bit better. I didn't have problems with it so I didn't test Amadeal,s after sales, I have heard good and bad to be fair.

Welcome, Martin, you will have to factor in slightly bigger work now, so that in the near future you don't regret getting too small a machine. The space available is an important factor.

I had a CJ18 from Amadeal that ran fine but required a fair bit of fettling, but all relatively minor stuff and probably no more than would have been required for similar lathes in that class.

They replaced a 4 Jaw chuck with faulty jaws that I had had for over a year (but not used), so have been content with their support.