Greetings from sunny south wales !

Good day forumers ....

south wales resident, just joined.

found this site after perusing the web looking for a colchester bantam lathe to buy.

build & restore motorcycles as my hobby, also do a bit of knifemaking & general fabrication.

Hello and welcome NooNoo. There are a number of bike restorers on here, not sure about knife makers but, you never know.

I'm sure some of them will be along shortly.

Brian

Welcome to the forum

H

I too am new here and based in South Wales! There was a Colchester bantam for sale in Bristol a month or so ago on Facebook marketplace iirc.

Alex

Welcome along from another bike restorer, pre war stuff for me. Bantam is a nice lathe to own, good luck with the search. Don't rush there are machines around if you wait.

Cheers Brian & Harry 👍

ACW diolch, im newport end but from cardiff, missed out on a bantam in taunton just this past weekend that was on bookface, i was 2nd to contact him & the first guy bought it, closest i’ve got yet as it was perfect.

Chris, you are quite right there, indeed there is one on ebay that came on yesterday, but price is high considering its imperial, no original accessories or qctp, just the 3 jaw & has been painted over in one lump. Looks nice mind & sounds good in it’s accompanying video.

i have an 80’s korean built lathe thats myford sized that ive had for years & years, it does me til the right 20” metric bantam turns up.
got a tom senior universal mill too, just to list my stuff.

Edited By NooNoo on 20/04/2021 10:20:08

Welcome!

You will find like minded souls on here. And those who try to help in your search.

To allow you to obtain the full range of power feeds, or threads, you will ,need a full set of changwheels.

"Lathes UK" website, if you haven't already found it, will give you lots of useful information on your proposed purchase.

Howard

There is a very nice looking one on eBay right now

**LINK**

Alex

Hello, and Welcome from another South Wales amateur machinist & vintage bike enthusiast.

Cheers Howard & yes, i have spent hours and hours on lathes.co.uk website over the years, bought two or three tools from links on it too, great website.

Thanks for the link ACW, thats the imperial one i was talking about earlier, looks good but doesnt tick all my boxes unfortunately.

Thanks for the welcome Mike E.

thanks all for the warm welcome, really hoping to find the lathe of my dreams.

and please do poke me with a stick every time any of you guys spot one in the wild 👍

just agreed to buy a lathe !! I'm overjoyed, it's exactly what I'm after.

just have to get it home now, will start arranging on monday.

colchester bantam, metric version, 20" (500mm) between centres, all original accessories included - both steadies, 3 and 4 jaw chucks, all spanners & keys etc.

comes with a QCTP and a good few holders & 2 sizes of faceplates with dogs.

it's grubby & clearly hasn't been used for a few years, oil change and a good service & I'm sure it'll be good to go.

excited !!!

can then sell my good old korean one that I've had for about 20 years.

Hello Noonoo, I moved to Port Talbot a couple of years ago and have more or less organised my shed now.

I expect that you might find problems with the electrics - depending of course on what has been changed over the years. Several owners of Colchester lathes have changed the whole electrics to a modern Variable Frequency system, which can run from a 13 Amp plug and yet gives completely variable drive speeds with further 'clever' options like Jog and Reverse by clicking a switch. If you have a 3 phase supply already, this might not help so much, so do let us know what your machine has (motor, controls etc) and what still works and we can help with advice (and sometimes, with parts).

Cheers, Tim (Mid Wales)