Hello Chris,

Welcome to THE best hobby imaginable, be it making steam engines or tools.

The lathe looks identical to my Warco BH600G.

I bought mine 2nd hand unseen from a model engineer at t'other end of the country.

More than happy with it, and recommend that form without reservation, but, always a but, provided the QC of Toolco is up to scratch.

If possible it's best to inspect the machine and move all the moving parts. I did this on a machine at MM some years ago and it felt as if the surfaces of the moving parts where serrated/knurled – horrible.

If you do purchase, do the mods I am and doing to mine, as it has totally transformed its operation.

Those done by Anthony Mount, and serialised in ME, are worth considering and they encouraged me to do mine.

Geoff – Blithering headache And NO not through imbibing to excess!

Toolco BG1224. Chester do it as the Craftsman and Warco discontinued it as the BH600. Grizzly did it as the G9249 who have their manual online.

They have gone out of favour as all geared heads became cheaper but are the best available new traditional back geared lathe of that size. There is a yahoo group called 'import lathes' or something similar that coves this and similar chinese ones of the general 12×36 category.

G Howe (member on here to) has a few good modification ideas on his website too under the projects section.