which lathe

hi, i want a lathe for home, i did have an ml7 but found it too small as im used to a big lathe at work. im not sure a colchester student 3hp motor would run happily through an inverter, nor am i sure it would fit through a 33" door. advice please as to what to go for, 4-5" swing screwcutting, 240v or capable of conversion on domestic mains. cheers

Colchester Student 1800 runs quite happily on an inverter. Pretty sure it will easily pass through a 33" door, but will throw a tape over it tomorrow for you and confirm.

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When gathering lathe depth for getting through an opening it's important that the size does not include the splash back.

e.g. mine adds about 8" to the total depth but is only a few mins job to remove and replace.

Nick

I run a 3HP lathe from an inerter with no problems. Student if not worn to destruction is a nice lathe just check the spindle bore size if going for an older one as some where on the small side.

thanks, what are the alternitives to colchester / harrison? I'm guessing that there must be numerous makes of good lathes but these are the best known and therefore most wanted and highest price

Hi Geoff, I recently bought a Boxford 11-30 because a I wanted a metric machine as well as the imperial ones already in use. I was looking for a Harrison but wanted a Long bed, hard to find, one and this machine came up, probably not as robust as a Harrison or Colchester but I am very pleased with it and let's be realistic how much metal do you want to remove in one pass? It will happily cut 6 to 7 mm depth in one pass on steel and probably more if need be.

its fits through a normal doorway easily, runs off an inverter OK and probably less expensive than the other brands.

Just my thoughts, John

Make a list of what you may possibly be doing on the machine. I mess around with old motorcycles so the ability to pass a fork stanchion through the chuck/spindle bore was essential. I had a South Bend "Heavy Ten" for 45 years then when I retired and lost the use of bigger machinery at work wanted something bigger. After fruitless searching to find a good Harrison or Colchester (my budget was around £3000) I bought a Taiwan built "Excel" lathe. These are badged under several names. It is a 14x40 size 14" diameter x 40" between centres. It is no Colchester but came with proper Dixon quick change tool post/Newall readout/Pratt 3 and 4 jaw chucks/faceplate/fixed and traveling steadies ETC. 3HP and runs off an inverter. So far it has done all I need, it screwcuts well but a bit of a faff with change wheels when swopping metric to imperial. The down side is a poor cross slide design that only has two bolts holding the top slide on and has been over tightenend and damaged the cast iron. I am making a new slide to beef things up. Take a look at an American site "Grizzly" 14x40. I paid £1000 plus the cost of delivery and it compliments my Bridgeport mill for size very well. Edit the machine is around 15 years old.

I would still prefer a "Branded" UK built machine but good ones are not easy to find. Good luck with your search.

Edited By Chris Evans 6 on 09/04/2016 10:04:51

if you happened on any of the old names mentioned that were more or less as new I suspect £3000 might not be enough. I'd say very likely to be not enough.

My first lathe at home after using large dsg's, langs and a number of others of similar size was a Taig / Peatol. Can't say I had any problems at all using it but it was new and smaller lathes do need better adjustments everywhere than ones with 10" or greater chucks where the shear weight of everything helps if cuts are rather fine.

I did have an ML7 for a while. As bought it was hopeless. Too much bed and spindle bearing wear. Slides too so I set about recon'ing it. I suspect this may be your problem. Never buy an ML7 unless there are still shims under the bearing caps and you are prepared to refit the spindle after removing some. Never finished as another lathe cropped up complete with all of the bits and pieces I might need, various steadies, chucks etc. That one has had circa 40 years of model engineer use and even has resulted in a tiny bit of wear. Not of any consequence really but I will be changing the head stock bearings to cure a minor irritation. They have worn very very slightly oval.

The modern boxfords as mentioned are likely to be more affordable but seldom come up with many bits and pieces, Models vary as well in terms of feed and screw cutting capabilities. Some models need a lot more change wheels than others. Steadies, change wheels etc can be bought off boxford but are expensive.

Personally I think Chris E did the right thing and it would be better to look around at Chinese gear heads that use precision ground gears - some of the cheapies don't and are likely to be very noisy. These are unlikely to come with Pratt chucks these days though and the Chinese ones are probably a bit more fragile - as Chris has found in another area. If some one is used to using heavier built machines it is the sort of problem they may have if usually they tighten stuff up far more than is really needed. It would be pretty easy for people like that to break things on an ML7 though, especially the T slots.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 09/04/2016 11:08:48

British made lathes are good, but are probably now so old as to be worn, in many cases, so do check carefully..

Oriental have had quality problems, but later ones seem to be improved. If you can get a Warco BH600, or Chester Craftsman, they are not too bad. Pretty rigid, will swing 12" , (18 in the Gap), Belt driven head, so not too noisy, Norton Gearbox, and the bed is Induction hardened.

Spares are available, if you need them.

The BH600 (There was also a long bed BH900) came in either Imperial or Metric form, the Craftsman, I think, was/is only metric. My Engineers ToolRoom BL12/24 (now 12 years old, not a Tool Room lathe, but still pretty accurate) is very similar, being essentially Metric, but with dual dials. They weigh about 300Kg, and should come with steadies, faceplate and 3 and 4 jaw chucks.

Quite a few lathes, especially the mini ones, come from the SEIG factory, with different livery, or detailed specifications, (Clarke, Axminster, Chester spring to mind).

If you buy new, you have every right to expect it to be right, (if it isn't ; the supplier should put it right / replace / refund under warranty or common law Sale of Goods Act) but buying a secondhand machine, you need to check for wear, signs of abuse, or bodged "repairs".

When a Rodney Milling Attachment was mounted on my ML7, the lack of rigidity became apparent. Maybe I was a bit heavy handed, but two of us could lift the lathe with ease, so it was a lot lighter.

You will always find a job that is too big for whatever you have. But, as I was told once, "You can do small work on a big lathe, but not the other way round"

Hope that this is some help

Howard

Ajohnw,

You are correct about the budget of £3000 not being enough as I did find an ex training school Student in good condition but that was £4250 and no haggling. It did not have much tooling with it that would have put it up around £5000 by the time I had added what I wanted. Having bought my Bridgeport mill and inverters I had to walk from the student.

Must admit long ago when I thought I would work in the garage I looked a some Students. They were well past what I find acceptable and no gear at all with them. Noisy as well which is a sure sign of wear without checking anything else. I had misgivings about looking at Colchesters anyway being aware of how hard many are worked and what sort of state they are likely to be in when sold. The best bet for these and other lathes really is workshops where they are used for odd jobs but they are unlikely to be selling them unless they go bust. I had to pass over a big bore boxford VSL in a place like that. An on site auction and not enough time for me to dismantle and get it home. These days most auctions are on the web and that has increased prices.

I have no idea just how good these are for instance

**LINK**

but at sub £2000 quid I wonder why people buy some other used models even if these wont last as long. Some might say 1650rpm max is too slow. Well the older names got round this by fitting 2 speed motors. Having used a lightly used Chipmaster that had generally spent most of it's time near and at max speed - no thanks. That 3000rpm was originally for hss tooling as well. A smaller lathe is better really for high speed work but finding one that would match all the features of higher quality lathes is likely to be tough.

Excel did do a lathe some years ago that looked much like a Student. Re alignable headstock bearings. The smallest lathe they now offer with that and built to din toolroom precision is a 330x1000, 2hp and weighing 1/2 tonne. I'd say that may be the equivalent of a Student these days but it comes with an 160mm 3 jaw and and has 3mm leadscrew pitch. The swing and chuck size generally seems to be a rather high ratio now.

I'm not at all sure some one who is used to heavier stuff would be happy with a mini lathe. I do strongly suspect that for that sort of user they would best avoid ones that are described as hobby or light duty. Or one of the bigger versions of those.

John

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ive looked at warco and chester. what is the popular opinion about old quality against inferior but new and tight?

Been running a Harrison M300 off a 7.5kw inverter for 5 years with torque, you don't get from VFD.
Noticed price the other day you don't want to know £1850. Had the 4kw model prior to that too easy to slow the spindle same with Transwave 5.5hp rotary.

Now on lookout for a change my control boards going, easy way junk it and replace with vfd but must have above anything else the torque.

Just checked M300 stands 40 1/4" from wall with splash back and dials. Dials, coolant, splash back removed it will fit through a domestic door at 26".
M300 very similar to newer Students in fact they share many parts.

I'd like one of these inverters Jon. Could you post a link?

John

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A good old one is better than a bad new one and vice versa.

Sorry that doesn't help much but in my experience it is true. I now have two British lathes that I use all the time. A Smart and Brown 1024 and a Dean Smith And Grace 13 x 30. Both were ex university, both show no signs of wear and both had a good amount of equipment with them ( hugely expensive to buy separately ).

Both of the above lathes seem to be exempt from the Harrison / Colchester surcharge (anything from £500 to £2000 as near as I can tell).

Having gone down the route that I have I would be unwilling to swap either of my lathes for a new imported one but that is because mine are relatively unworn. These were toolroom lathes and would have been very expensive new. It would be unfair to compare them to the new imports because they were built to a higher standard. Obviously as they wear that will change.

I think the best advice would be take your time and look around, don't buy anything (including new) that you haven't had a go on and don't be afraid to take test bars and measuring gear with you when you go to have a look.

Anybody selling a lathe that is in first class order will not be afraid to let you look it over and do the various tests that will confirm this to you. Excuses like this just needs adjusting and I don't have power to run it would certainly put me off.

If you go down the new route, make sure you buy from a dealer that gives good after sales service (plenty of posts on here will tell you who they are).

Whatever you do,good luck with it.

Regards.

David.

Out of interest I looked at the M300 on lathes co. They went out with 1hp or 2hp motors the higher one offering the higher speed. Weight circa 500kg. It would be interesting to compare that with the chinese equivalent - hardened and ground gear head against gear head. Not the hobby machines.

I'd guess the Raglan I used to have came in at a similar weight.

When ever I see DSG's on ebay I feel like crying having spent many hours on one that was as new. I shudder to think how much a dealer would want for one like this - if it was possible to find one. It was capable of producing a finish that people might have thought came of a grinder and perfectly capable of working to 1/10 thou. I have also used other lathes in a similar condition even a Student. Few companies can afford to have machines like these about that really are hardly used at all. This included an early 1900's lathe that in some respects was just as good.

John

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Just recently looked at the prices of some of the few machines now rolling off the line at the myford factory, 8 grand? for a 3 1/2 inch centre lathe? jeez, you've got to have some serious cash to throw around. They look pretty but i'm sure you could only want that if you were a myford fan who saved up for years to own one.

Michael W

Sounds like you have been looking at the wrong things again, that sounds more like a M250 than a M300

I may have read it too quickly Jason but this is the page

**LINK**

A slightly slower read still leaves me with the same feelings.

Now people can read it for themselves me being correct or wrong so maybe I should have just posted the link.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 11/04/2016 13:27:36

Yep same page as I looked at 3hp on the 3 phase and just under 700kg