Member postings for Michael Smith 26

There's a second hand machine retailer on Facebook based in Cornwall who apparently has a Herbert No 3 Capstan available too - he's just pinged me a message - have absolutely no idea on those so off to do a bit of reading. Quick Google tells me it's likely to be pretty venerable though?

Thanks everyone - felt like a bit of a b*stard but just let the owner know I won't be going forward with the purchase.

The Boxford in the Classifieds ad looks to be in absolutely stunning condition - but the distance is a bit of a challenge - young family, full time job and two small businesses so looking for something I don't have to travel long distances to collect myself (have the ability to tow myself if needed) and I imagine loading and transport via a specialist haulage company would be fairly expensive to get it from Kings Lynn to here.

That Simonet Atlantic on the Pennyfarthing's website looks beautiful and given it's in Cornwall should be fairly straightforward for me to collect. My hesitation with it is that the ad states it was never used in the shop it's based in and it's sold as seen.

I'll go take a look on the Lathes UK website at those two Boxford's now.

If I were looking to buy a second hand mini lathe in the price range you mentioned - any suggestions for what I'd be best looking out for?

Thanks David - appreciate your feedback - think your comments and Pete's have changed my mind on the purchase, £1500 does pay for a lot of transport.

On the three phase side of things - I've got a three phase supply coming into the property. Currently one phase and the neutral is wired into a single phase meter and the other two phases are unused. From the meter I've got a submain going out to the workshop and a separate single phase consumer unit powering the house.

Spoke to my electrician his feeling is it'd be pretty straightforward to swap the meter to a three phase, keep the house on the single phase consumer unit and run a new cable to the workshop - so wouldn't be a massive hassle to get the workshop onto three phase.

Edited By Michael Smith 26 on 10/03/2022 23:23:03

Thanks Pete - missed your response when I did my last reply. That’s very helpful advice - unfortunately no one I know locally who’d have any experience - I live in rural Cornwall and only been here a couple of years.

Edited By Michael Smith 26 on 10/03/2022 18:23:44

Thanks for all the responses.

Fortunately transport and loading aren’t an issue - there’s a friendly farmer with forks to load it and I’ve got ground workers in for a couple of weeks at our place who can provide the trailer and a tractor for unloading at my end.

Thanks for the tip on the gears in the apron - i’ll ask about undoing the apron drain plug when I go for the second viewing.

Thanks Mick - I think those marks around that key square are deliberate to mark it.

The current owner mentioned boring out the 3 jaw chuck when he got it to take a slight taper out - and using that key square specifically whilst he was doing it - believe he marked it off and mentioned that he tried to always use that key square when changing out materials.

I'll ask for more details when I pop over on Saturday.

Thanks Tony - I definitely don't need the size (yet) as the core goal is to learn machining. I was originally planning on buying something smaller and new to work with but the lathe is literally 20 minutes down the road from me and seems a shame to pass up on it if it's in good condition.

Just called the owner and had a good chat with him - really nice guy. I'm heading over Saturday to see a parallel turn with a HSS bit and we had a chat about him demoing screw cutting on the machine too.

It's got the original manual with, the spares catalogue and the change gears.

Leaning even more towards buying it.

Power feeds were definitely working too - forgot that in my last post. As was the coolant pump.

It did have a fixed and travelling steady - I was able to see the lathe running through most of the gearing and sounded OK - no nasty noises and honestly quieter than I was expecting.

Not sure on the change gears - will ask on that one.

Thanks for the advice!

Shot of the turned down rod - couple of points on this:

It was turned down twice, the first go left a pretty rough finish with the carbide tip. I asked if it was possible to achieve a better finish and he swapped the tip around and tried with a different point - this did leave a slightly smoother finish but on that run a small groove appeared which is visible in the shot. Such a visible groove didn't appear in the first turning.

He then demonstrated polishing the piece with a bit of sandpaper and emory - the shot shows the rod after polishing - unfortunately don't have a pic of it prior to polishing.

Thanks for the responses:

I did get an oral history of the lathe - it apparently had fairly light use in a workshop for most of its life then went to the home of one of the staff when the workshop shut down. The current owner purchased it about 3 years ago. There wasn't an ounce of rust on it, it was well oiled everywhere but did look like it had been repainted at some point.

He didn't turn something parallel for me and measure each end - was just a short length of 1" thick rod that was turned down a couple of thousands about an inch down its length. I can definitely ask him to turn something parallel and have a set of Mitutoyo vernier calipers I can take to get a measurement at each end. Just purchased a basic DTI with a mag base as well I could take with me.

I'll attach a couple of pics I snapped - stupidly didn't get any good shots of the ways although you can sort of make them out in a couple of pics.

Edited By Michael Smith 26 on 10/03/2022 16:55:41

Hi,

Hope you don't mind me popping in for some advice - I'm looking to get into machining and am on the market for my first lathe. I'm considering two options at the moment:

1. A 5hp 1960s 7.5" Colchester Triumph lathe for c. £2500 - including a 3 jaw, 4 jaw and flat face chuck, a couple of steadies, centres, chucks and a bunch of tooling.
2. A new Warco WM 250v which I'd then have to purchase everything else for.

Obviously they're pretty different machines but I'm torn as it's a big investment. I saw the Colchester in action, really liked the seller and it's a beautiful machine but I'm not confident of the issues I should be looking for.

Benefits are it's got a lot of tooling, it's a much bigger machine with plenty of room to grow into it. I can easily get 3 phase at my property and also have the space for it.

I had a quick demo of the machine - and my one concern is the quality of the finish on the demo piece wasn't brilliant - felt rough to the touch with obvious lines in the finish. But it was done quickly with a carbide tipped cutter which the owner said was fairly worn - I can easily go back for a second demo and am wondering if it's worth asking to see the finish when using a freshly ground HSS cutter?

My questions are:

- What should I be looking out for as someone who's inexperienced with lathes?
- If I did need to get the ways reground how difficult/expensive would it be to get that done?
- What are the things that would make it an absolute no go in terms of purchase?

Thanks,

Mike