They do look nice in the mags' but not having touched one can't comment. I have one of those 'Chinese' lathes & so far it has done all I have asked it to do, it certainly hasn't been a 'project' in the sense you say, yes there were a couple of tighten this, tweak that… but so far I'm quite satisfied with it… ' you get what you pay for'.

George.

Have you contacted Pro Machine Tools (part of Emco) at **LINK**

They advertise Ceriani lathes in MEW every month so presumeably speak English and could supply whatever info you need? They seem to advertise them every month in the magazine so somebody must be buying them, as you say.

Edited By Hopper on 17/09/2016 09:17:59

This is one of the things i am hoping to see an article on, but no one wants to take the gauntlet if they do indeed own a ceriani david.

I never got any accessories included with my machine (clarke cl430m). But then the price is much more competitive than a david. Perhaps a chester crusader would be a better one to gun for. 

M W

Edited By Michael Walters on 18/09/2016 08:11:53

Jason, your comment re low speed is higher than you would want. My 14×40 Excel lathe will only go down to 82 RPM. Way to fast for screw cutting a coarse thread. Ideally for me 35 to 40 RPM would be nice.

To be honest, i quite like the simplistic look of it. I can't stand the 3in1's which seem filled to the gunnels with gadgets (one of which is a variant of my own machine, such a hypocrite!). Not to offend any owners, just ain't my cup o-tea.

What the "norton" thing's all about isn't worth whats stamped on my boots. Is that name supposed to mean something which they don't explain? Can't they just say "gear box" and sell the lathe? It would garner more respect for the honesty. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 18/09/2016 19:49:16

Micheal,

A "Norton" gearbox is a style of gear box that is very easy to select many different thread pitches /feeds. Not a present brand.

Edited By KWIL on 18/09/2016 20:10:56

I visited Pro Machine Tools a couple of years ago just to take a closer look at the Ceriani lathes. The one they had on display was fitted with the gear box giving four selectable feed rates, Ceriani call it a Semi Norton gear box.

While I was examining the lathe the guy there told me that the gearbox allowed you to flick from a fine feed to a thread pitch and back again, but I don't think that is true. There are no power feed gears built into the apron, so powered longitudinal fine feed requires engaging the leadscrew thread, the same as when thread cutting. That means the quick change gearbox on its own, just like many others, cannot span the range from fine feeds to thread pitches without altering the change wheels.

Looking at the charts for fine feed rates and thread pitches appeared to show that every thread pitch required altering the change wheels, and that the four quick change feed rates of the Semi Norton gear box were only used when the change wheels were set up for fine feeds. So the gearbox appeared to be redundant when the machine was set up to cut threads, but still a useful feature for quickly changing between cutting feed rates when turning which is probably how it will be used most of the time.

The lathe was very well made and finished, but as Nigel above suggested, the bed does look a little puny around the gap area, and that detail has always irritated me. But the bed casting is very thick in places, upto 20 – 25mm thick if I remember correctly. The dovetail bed also has seperate guide ways for the saddle and tailstock, so much better than some other lathes with dovetail bedways.

I quite liked the lathe, and didn't think the asking price was too bad for an Italian made machine. I recall a comment a user made that the machine had " Hardinge performance at an import price" . So even allowing for a little exaggeration they appear to work very well.

The example I looked at had spindle speed changes by belt and pulleys, but there is a variable speed version. There are also a couple of videos on YouTube showing the bed castings being machined while set up on a large vertical & horizontal milling machine.

Edited By Lathejack on 19/09/2016 00:00:53

Edited By Lathejack on 19/09/2016 00:10:52

Be careful what you wish for on the no belt change front. It seems that many of the variable speed motors, the smaller ones anyway, have very little torque at lower rpm – right where you need it. It may be better to change belts and get a powerful low rev drive than to have a variable speed motor that will not power a decent cut at under 250rpm. Worth checking into anyway.

My lathe is a belt head type, with two ratios from the motor, four speed on the spindle, plus back gear. The only belt that takes any extra time to change is the one from the motor to the jack shaft, but that's ok by me, I rarely change from the bottom ratio. The rest of the belt system can change speed in about twenty seconds. From what I can see, variable speed motors are not there to improve the performance of the machine, but to make manufacture much cheaper. Yes infinitely variable speed is great, look a something like a Chipmaster with mechanical speed control, 0 to 3000 rpm at the turn of the control wheel, and as the speed drops the torque increases.

Ian S C

I find that the VFD drive gives you the best of both worlds if you can be bothered to go through with it.

Michael W