Buying a lathe?

You buggers:D It's been a long held desire to make a skeleton clock and long case movement. Now sitting here with not a lot to do or more correctly not able to do a lot I am now looking for a lath so that in a few months when the neck settles down and I am given the OK to get back to something resembling normal activity I will be able to start the project that was going to be started when I retired in 3 years time. There looks to be a half decent model A Boxford on the bay at the moment:rolleyes:
 
As a very small boy I can remember seeing in my grandfathers engineering works a large cast gear wheel finished on a BIG lathe and then heat shrunk on to an equally large drum which had it's rim machined on the same lath I am guessing that the diameters were in the region of 10 foot perhaps bigger but I was a young lad then:D The most memorable thing was to see three men heat it up to dull red and then sledge hammer it on to the drum:eek: Thats when men were men and there were real fitters and turners that served 7 year apprenticeships;)
 
petehb said:
As a very small boy I can remember seeing in my grandfathers engineering works a large cast gear wheel finished on a BIG lathe and then heat shrunk on to an equally large drum which had it's rim machined on the same lath I am guessing that the diameters were in the region of 10 foot perhaps bigger but I was a young lad then:D The most memorable thing was to see three men heat it up to dull red and then sledge hammer it on to the drum:eek: Thats when men were men and there were real fitters and turners that served 7 year apprenticeships;)
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Those were the days when we had an engineering industry.

Still, it's not all bad. According to figures supplied by Professor Sikka, Professor of Accountancy at the University of Essex, in 2009 we had 280,000 professionally qualified accountants. More than the rest of Europe put together.

So even if we can't make things, we can at least count them.
 
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parsifal said:
I hope you're wrong (and I think you may be) because I will probably be selling my Myford S7 later this year and I expect to get considerably more than that.
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Fair enough, that would be good news for me too!I was specifically thinking of ML7 models which are a good starter lathe.
 
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doug748 said:
I would agree.

Despite the good will of the posters, there tends to be a degree of mission creep in these sorts of threads. The original choice is between two cheap alternatives that can be afforded and be small enough to stick in a cupboard. If we are not careful we end up considering a 4k, free standing 4 cwt unit suitable for light industrial use.

I am a big believer in cheap tools, if the choice is between doing the job yourself and having to pay someone else to do it.

Having said that, I think there are many, good practical points about the limitations of the choices, from Norman E and others.
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It was for the above reasons that I found and posted a link to a cheapish Chinese machine that is far better than any of the mini lathes. It has the capacity for some reasonable model engineering projects. There is an old adage that most of the jobs amateurs do are actually too big for the lathe they do them on, and I have certainly stretched the capabilities of both my Myford and my Southbend. This lathe has reasonable capacity, it is all belt driven, which means that it lacks a slow and powerful back gear for heavy cuts, but is nevertheless a well thought out and reasonably well equipped tool. Add the price of the 4 jaw chuck, faceplate, and tools to the mini lathe and £599 for this, for bench mounting, does not seem too much, especially as it comes with a gearbox, and can be had either metric or imperial. The design has been around for at least about 30 years, and now seems to be hard to get. Warco no longer have them, but for a light hobby machine they beat most others, and do not have the potentially troublesome variable speed electronics.

EDIT. I just picked up a December 1998 copy of Model Engineer. Chester were advertising that same 920 lathe for £870 then!. I reckon that the £599 + VAT current special offer price might be to sell the last of the stock.
 
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lotusman said:
You're right, metric/imperial slip on my part. +/- .005" was intended. Apologies.

Other problem is parallelism - it suffers due to quality of chuck and bearing.
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It would have to be a pretty ropy lathe that can only turn to within +/- .005".+/- .002" is a more generally accepted figure & I should check out your top slide for alignment.(I suppose it could be your whole bed is out of alignment :eek:)That is much more likely to be the fault than bearing wear as this is more likely to induce chatter.

Am I the only one that thinks all this selling out to Chinese imports is a complete & utter disgrace?:mad:
Sorry but the old Engineer is not as dead in me as I had thought!
 
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Norman_E said:
Boxford prices tend to be a bit less secondhand than Myfords, but a model AUD or BUD is in my opinion a better lathe than a Super 7. I would choose an AUD every time, as unless you have used lathes with changewheels you just don't know how much of a benefit the Norton Gearbox is. Some examples here.
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I would second this, except that Boxford prices are often far less(I have seen fully tooled Boxford A and Bs go for £4-500) than a similarly equipped Myford, have far more power and are almost as versatile.

I have a close cousin of the Boxford, a Denford Viceroy, which I bought on a whim at auction for £70, then spent a further £300 on an inverter, chucks and tooling! The bed isn't in the first flush of youth but I can turn square and parallel which is the important thing.
 
Nicholas123 said:
..........Am I the only one that thinks all this selling out to Chinese imports is a complete & utter disgrace?:mad:
Sorry but the old Engineer is not as dead in me as I had thought!
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I agree. British companies used to make very good machine tools, having developed most of them in the 19th Century. In the 20th Century there were literally dozens of UK machine tool makers. The last survivor of the small lathe makers was Myfords. There is a bit of a story to tell there because the best pre WW2 maker of lathes for hobby and small workshop use was Drummond Bros. of Guildford. Myford made some pretty poor machines until WW2 when Drummond were contracted by the Government for other work and their small flat bed lathe M Type design was given to Myford so that the latter could produce them. They were a standard tool issued by the Admiralty to certain classes of ship, for small onboard repair work. Myford clearly learned a lot from making the Drummond M type. I have an example in my workshop, though it is not currently in use.

I see from their website that Myford are planning to commence production later this year, presumably of a new design, but whether it will go ahead or not only time will tell.
 
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Nicholas123 said:
I should check out your top slide for alignment.(I suppose it could be your whole bed is out of alignment
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Thanks for the suggestion, but I doubt it. Turning between centres gives better parallel than using chuck. Which lays partial blame on chuck. Turning ali bar of 20mm diameter, cuts of ten thou take more off at end furthest from chuck even though only protruding 35mm. Adjusting the top slide to just grip cigarette paper between tool and work at several places along work just adds to the developing taper. Four jaw is better than three jaw.

Approaching the final cut is allways exciting, will it be under or over? I measure the work, advance the tool 10 thou, take a cut, measure again. The diameter is typically in the range of 18 to 22 thou less.

But this is not the place for this discussion, it belongs on the chester forum or model engineer. I respond only because it gives the op small insight into the pleasure and pain of low cost machine tools.

I'm very pleased with the cost/performance of this tool and it meets my needs.
 
Well I found a Mk3 AUD and at the moment just checking things out, ordered a new cross slide feed nut hoping that will take out most of the 0.3 mm backlash which is the only problem I have found. Next up is to sort out some tooling then to start on some basic exercises followed by a couple of tool builds and a dividing head kit.
 
I missed this thread the first time. I have the Chinese mini lathe in the first post. I looked at suppliers like Machine Mart and Chester and came to the conclusion from the photos that their stuff looked suspiciously similar to the Chinese but considerably marked up compared to the guy on Ebay doing direct imports. The downside is you have to clean off the transport grease and do a few adjustments, probably an hour or so's work for about £200 saving on the one I got compared to UK shop prices.
They are not serious workshop tools, but since I have access to a serious workshop at work I didn't need that, I wanted something I could carry up to my playroom in the attic without an army of assistants. I have been quite pleased with what I CAN do with it. On aluminium, brass, plastic or wood I've had no problems (put wood in one of the ones at work and see how long it is before a hammer hits the back of your head!) Mild steel is just about do-able for small stuff. Stainless is a bit difficult. You won't be parting off an inch stainless bar in a hurry!
I haven't tried screw cutting because I'm not a model engineer, I'm just someone who sometimes needs to turn bits of metal.
 
If you are considering a second hand lathe it is important to test for wear on the bed by removing the tailstock and running the carriage from one end of the bed to the other. If it is tighter at the tailstock end, then the bed will need regrinding. (they get most wear at the headstock end). Myfords used to offer this service for around a £100 (if you removed the headstock, tailstock, carriage etc.) but that was about 20 years ago.
 
parsifal said:
If you are considering a second hand lathe it is important to test for wear on the bed by removing the tailstock and running the carriage from one end of the bed to the other. If it is tighter at the tailstock end, then the bed will need regrinding. (they get most wear at the headstock end). Myfords used to offer this service for around a £100 (if you removed the headstock, tailstock, carriage etc.) but that was about 20 years ago.
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I had mine done some years ago, for £80. When I took it to the factory I was given a tour! Since then I have hardly used the Myford because I prefer the old South Bend.
 
Norman_E said:
Tidy looking Boxford Model A http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120902983584?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649. The model A is the rear drive machine, and this one even has the rather odd geared leadscrew handle. I presume from its date that it is 4.5 inch centre height, as I think the 5 inch models were generally sold as the ME 10.
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I looked at that one but in the end decided on a "retail" one which was delivered on a pallet direct to my workshop for £60 on top of the purchase price. It would have cost me over £200 to hire a jib crane then fetching it etc in the end made it a bit of a no brainer:D

As I work on it I can feel the heavy hand and tut tutting of 3 generations of engineers as they look down or more probably up:D when viewing my efforts.
 
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