If I can find the extra funds would they be welt spent ?

Sorry, just read the post stating you are in Norfolk, might be a bit far for delivery

Dougie

That is how I wound up with an ancient Lehmann 12" x 120" many years ago.

If you can find a Pratt & Whitney lathe in decent condition I would highly recommend it. One of my favorite lathes was a 14 x 30 Pratt & Whitney. I am guessing it was made in the early 1940s. I bought it used here in the US. Strangely, it had a Buck & Hickman inventory tag on it. Pratt & Whitney made lathes with similar features in, I believe 12" and 13" swing.

Gary

Colchester's and Harrison suffer from the same "everyone has heard of them" issues as Myford and Boxford with similar tendencies for folk in the trade / know / hobby to expect top-line prices for good ones and optimistic ones for ahem "less than good" examples.

The fundamental problem with both Colchester and Harrison is that they were made to offer an excellent price / performance ratio when new and considered disposable machines to be destroyed for the value of the work produced. So most have been rode hard and put away wet.

As David suggests looking at different makes / models will almost certainly give you more bang for your buck. For example my Smart & Brown 1024 VSL, admittedly a slightly smaller machine, cost me just £1,000 whilst the rather smarter M300 standing next to it had £4,500 on the price tag. My 1024 had been rode pretty hard but, being a high end toolroom machine with an ex-factory price tag in the small house region, the underlying build quality meant it had survived just fine. Would have been very dubious of a Student or M300 of similar appearance. All the high end toolroom machines seem to last well.

You can get lucky via E-bay with ex-maintanence shop and similar low use machines either direct or with further low time use from private owner but you could spend fortune running around looking at dross. My pal Mike picked up an excellent, virtually unworn, Student Mk1 1/2 for £650 with loads of tooling via E-Bay so they are about This one had a "why did they do that" redecoration job on it which obviously frightened off other bidders. We were seriously worried that it might actually turn out to be little better than useable rather than the excellent machine it actually was. Thinking back I've probably tripped over 5 or 6 equivalent deals over the last decade by pure happenstance so there is a good chance of finding something if you keep looking.

Smaller dealers will probably offer better prices than the larger ones. For example Simmonds at Cranbrook in Kent, so fairly local to me, have an M300 at £2,500 which looks to be a pretty decent example **LINK** . I've not dealt with them but I have had dealings with MB Machine Tools, who are more or less next door and closely associated business wise, and found them to be more than fair. Can't see them associating with anyone less ethical. Again well off your patch but I've always found Home and Workshop Machinery at Sidcup decent folk to deal with if you want an honest machine at an OK price.

Clive.

John Reese is spot on about the quality of a Pratt & Whitney model B.  I grabbed my wartime one out of the hands of a scrap man and it can still turn out superbly accurate work despite some battle scars.  But realistically not an M300 / Student replacement and pretty much unobtanium anyway.

Edited By Clive Foster on 09/11/2017 21:06:01

Edited By Clive Foster on 09/11/2017 21:07:29

Gary, sent you a pm

Gary

I am near Haverhill in Suffolk, a little over an hour south from you.

If you go looking at anything south of me, I would be happy to tag along.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I do generally know a crap lathe when I see one.

That Harrison in the link has had a good going over with the bonus brush .......more paint on the feet and the floor than the lathe.......£500 auction lathe with a £2k mark up . I much prefer to take my chances with an honest machine, covered in muck, at the right money

I've seen that on eBay for ages, in fact I knew exactly which lathe it was going to be before I clicked on the link .

Looks like it was painted by Stevie Wonder, with a roller and Dulux Weathershield!

Mind you, I did recently buy a Tom Senior M1 that has been badly painted in jade green Hammerite . 

My only excuse is that there is a nice TS underneath, I wouldn't be convinced the same applies to that M300 in the link .

Edited By David Standing 1 on 09/11/2017 22:09:14

And Alan, I agree on the mucky machine concept - then you see it as it is.

I rescued the Myford 254S below acouple of months ago, that was used by an aerospace company in their model making department before they went bust.

It was sold to me by a liquidation dealer, and they probably shoved the operator out of the way to cart it off.

First picture was as I bought it.

The second is after about three or four hours cleaning by me with petrol, brushes and scrapers. It had been used to cut plastic, probably not deep cleaned since it was new, and everything was covered in a sort of plastic like sludge.

But, underneath was a nice little lathe trying to get out, and best thing is I paid just £1,450 for it.

There are good deals out there, you just need to keep your eyes and ears open, and jump quick if required.

Evaluating Re-painted machines is an art in itself, however those doing the re-painting tend to fall into three camps.......

1-The Fastidious restorer who makes a better job than the manufacturer ever did, using the correct shade of paint for that particular model.......

2- The well meaning caring owner (usually of pensionable age) who gives the machine a lick of any paint in any colour they happen to have at hand, to 'keep it looking nice'......

3- The devious and unscrupulous fast turnover brigade that slap a quick coat of shiny shite enamel on, to appeal to naive ebay buyers.

Check out the Colchester on the same site.......it's been extensively touched up in the wrong colour .....now that's just plain lazy.....either touch up in a half approximate shade, or blather the lot in an innapropriate colour, much like the Harrison

Edited By Carl Wilson 4 on 09/11/2017 22:28:50

Hi Carl,

Thanks for your kind offer much appreciated.

I thought I knew everything until I joined this forum where I realised I now know a lot about nothing, at least nothing that is relevant to my needs ref engineering

Again thanks for your kind offer

Gary

Alan

That made me giggle .

But it is true.

Both Colchesters on that dealer's website look like Stevie has been let loose on them!

I totally agree that Stevie has certainly painted a lot of lathes in his time, but alas David Standings post with great pics also shows that grime will clean off and perhaps you have to look further than the dirt.

Whilst I have been trying to armchair evaluate lathes for sale I look at the pictures as closely as possible, to see if its a Stevie job, I try and look at the surrounding areas of where the lath is sited. Clean workshop might mean clean well looked after machine.

It certainly appears to be a lottery. I guess I have to decide on a budget and try and stick with it, with my previous thoughts by budget kept rising I was starting to consider silly money for my needs 7K wish in honesty thats getting ridiculous for what I might need and will use for.

I am not looking to make a living with this machine, its for hobby and fun use, problem is I don't want to just put a pile of £50 on the floor set fire to it and keep chucking more on to keep it going.

Its apparent from your posts, that there are some bargains out there to be had, even just good machines for the money would be a fair comment, but they are going to take. a lot of searching and travelling.

The search for Garys lathe continues, I just don't want to get fired by the wife for excessive spending..

Gary

Whether the OP appreciates my comments is up to him, but I couldn't give a tinkers either way.

To set the picture I have a Harrison M300. I bought it about 15 years ago, from a dealer. It is imperial, 40" between centres and has the removable gap piece. It's all very well people lauding excellent, but esoteric, lathes; the chances of finding one are worse than the lottery. At least the M300 sold well and there are plenty about; whether they're worth buying is another matter. If one excludes a lathe I bought, and later sold, while I was at school the M300 was my first lathe.

Before one starts to look there are a few decisions to be made:

1. Imperial or metric, probably depends on what type of threads one is most likely to be screwcutting

2. Distance between centres, 25" or 40"

3. Straight bed or gap piece

When I looked at my lathe before buying I insisted on seeing it run, we probably didn't run at the top speed, but enough to be happy with the headstock gears. Likewise we didn't try all the feeds, but enough to be sure basic feeds and screwcutting was working. I actually looked at two M300s at the dealer, one 25" and the 40". I really wanted the 40", but the 25" was superficially better equipped with QCTP front and rear, and cleaner. I didn't buy it as there were clear ridges on the bed ways. In retrospect that was a good decision, I don't use QCTPs so I'm lucky I wasn't seduced by them.

I didn't do much in the way of testing, just a twiddle of all the handles to make sure everything was smooth with full movement. I also moved the saddle the full length of the bed, of course it got tighter near the tailstock but still perfectly usable. One gets a "feel" for the lathe, it was obviously used, but the paint wasn't too bad, and was basically clean. I'd never buy a machine tool that has recently been painted, unless there was documentary evidence of a proper rebuild. Too much emphasis is placed on backlash. Even if the bed is worn that may not be serious if you turn larger work. Suppose you're turning a 1" diameter, how much will the diameter change for a 10 thou drop in the tool? The bed on my lathe seems ok, but the cross slide gib is at the limit of it's adjustment and the backlash is around 15-20 thou. But so what? It doesn't affect the ability to turn out accurate work. I can work to a thou or better if needed, the limitation is the operator not the lathe.

Since I bought the M300 and a Bridgeport the dealer threw in free delivery and some other accessories. Having looked at both machines I went and had a pub lunch with my mum, before going back to complete the purchase. I normally like to have a breather on the bigger purchases before deciding.

The M300 has all the usual accessories available for most lathes, whatever their source. Prices seem to have got a bit silly recently. To some extent the deal maker or breaker is the tooling. It' probably easiest if I list the accessories and my take on them:

3-jaw SC chuck - came with the lathe but it's fudged (quality make but very worn) so I rarely use it

4-jaw independent - came with the lathe, in good condition and I use it a lot

Burnerd collet chuck - thrown in as deal sweetener, excellent move, as I use it a lot, the collets go to 1½" so replace the 3-jaw for much work

4-way toolpost - came with the lathe

small (12" ) faceplate - bought on Ebay at a later date, don't use it much as it's a bit small (!)

large (18" ) faceplate - bought later from a different dealer, gets used quite a lot when I need to do faceplate work

Drill chucks - bought later on Ebay

Taper turning - I don't have this accessory and don't really need it - see later

Multi bed stop - I don't have one, but would really like one, but they seem quite rare on their own

Rear toolpost - I don't have one, I'd buy one if the price was right, but I don't have a pressing need for it

Fixed steady - came with the lathe and I've used it quite a lot

Travelling steady - bought later from a dealer at an ME exhibition, never used it so far

Extra change gear for DP/module - bought later on Ebay but not used so far

Catch plate - bought later from another dealer and used once

Centres - bought new as needed

Flood coolant - came with the lathe

Since the M300 is an industrial lathe there are some accessories that are not generally available for ME style lathes:

Capstan unit - bought later on Ebay, I have used it but it is now somewhat superceded by my repetition lathe

Ainjest high speed threading unit - bought later from a dealer, very useful for all imperial threading, makes it a doddle to screwcut into a blind hole at several hundred rpm

Hydraulic copy unit - bought later on Ebay, when you need fancy shapes it doesn't half make life easier, and it's why I'm not bothered about a taper turning unit

More to follow!

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 09/11/2017 23:00:09

Hmmm, first time I've had that happen, the forum software whinged that my post was too long, darn cheek.

Anyway, here's the remainder:

What I like about the M300, and probably other industrial lathes, is:

Everything falls to hand and works

It is quick and easy to change spindle speed and common feeds and screwcutting

Changing chucks is quick

The dials are accurate, 20 thou means 20 thou comes off the radius

When I foul up and overload the lathe/motor it continues to work afterwards, no blown electronics or bent parts

Whether one can find a decent M300 for a sensible price is of course the big question. You pays yer money and takes yer choice I suppose.

Andrew

Andrew, you are on a roll. Thank you.

The amount of 300's and students sold must stand for something. I am not suggesting there are no better lathes out there I am sure there are; but they are my first choice. Tooling whilst great if ts with the machine is not a show stopper, Ill pay what I have too as the need arises.If the need arises.

I guess I am basing a lot of my thoughts on my Bridgeport mill I purchased from a dealer who had 8 Bridgeport's at the time. Different ages, different prices, some belt, some varispeed, Some had tables that looked like a hole had been drilled in it each day of its use, One with a break in the table where some idiot had overtightened the T nuts and pulled the iron out of the bed, Stevie had also painted two of them.

The lowest price was about £1500, the highest was near 9K for a really immaculate machine, I plumped in the middle and got a fair result I feel. I am happy with it its clean, its a varispeed quiet and accurate.

Which is what I would like to achieve with a new lathe purchase, Quiet, Clean accurate and a fair price for its condition.

How hard can it be?

Gary

Specifically for a M300, in my experience, more difficult than you might think!

I am begging to realise this David