Our 'technician' had one … with the nice skew drive on the tailstock … and loved it.

**LINK**

I only tried it briefly, but was very impressed.

MichaelG.

Good machine. Arguably the best, and most expensive, of the 5" centre height lathes capable of being bench mounted. As I recall matters it's probably the easiest one to do metric threading on an imperial machine as very little change wheel shuffling appears to be needed to get a comprehensive range of metric threads. However I've never actually done this so may be mistaken. My involvement was through helping a friend rebuild one. Never got to drive in anger.

As ever there are niggles. The standard topslide dial is too small for no apparent good reason. Some come with full size double dial imperial / metric reading ones on both top and cross slide so there is plenty of room. My friends was a Mark 2 so the threading was via a simple half nut, not a proper double clasp one, so it wears faster and engagement is not as precise. Yours may be the same. Gate change sliding / surfacing feed slector is neat but it does take bit of getting used to.

Clutch is effective but very sensitive to free play in the shaft. On the MK 2 the end bearing on the chuck side is restrained by a simple sheet steel pug expanded into place. If this loosens the bearing can shift back and forth introducing an intermittant and unpredictable movement of the clutch engagement and disengagement points. The shift is only about 1/8" before other factors come into play and stop movement but it will drive you nuts trying to adjust it out as the mehanism has very little built in overtravel tolerance. Cure is a bolt on cap to hold the bearing in place. The angled and offset tailstock feed handle on later ones is said to be an acquired taste. Some folk consider it lacks feel. Others don't like the position. Hexagon power feed shaft is said by some to be less positive than the usual keyed shaft and claimed more sensitive to wear. That sead the one on my friends Mk2 was fine despite visible wear.

L00 backplates may be hard to find at ME friendly prices if you need to make up another chuck mount or similar. Cabinet mount version isn't significantly smaller than a Harrison, Smart & Brown 1024 and similar full industrial lathe which are up for heavier work.

As ever its condition, condition, condition that decides but if its decent then go for it.

Clive.

Edited By Clive Foster on 24/04/2016 13:23:38

Edited By Clive Foster on 24/04/2016 13:24:40

The simplest check for wear on many lathes is just how noisy the gear head is. It should just hum and the motor may well make more noise than the gear head under heavy loads. No rattles in other words. This is describing an as new lathe though but is a useful guide.

Just add when I was looking at larger lathes and working in the garage this simple check allowed me to walk away from a number with out even looking closer. Next thing would be wear in the slides and a bit of turning.

I finished up with a Raglan – no gears but Brum is probably not the best place to look at gear head lathes 

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 25/04/2016 10:56:38

I mentioned as new because there is a need to be realistic on used lathes. The noise should be more of a hum come whine than rattles.

This one sounds moderately worn to me. I tried to find another one that was sold on ebay and the rattles were at a point where I would look the lathe over very carefully and probably find very loose headstock bearings and a well worn bed.

**LINK**

John

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I don't think that is anything to do with the make Nigel. I mentioned some one a while ago that had a larger long bed Kerry and it was as quiet as a mouse. His sons were machine tool dealers which probably helps especially on lathes that large. He tried to sell me a Student. That was an excellent example of the rattles which is probably why his sons weren't selling it. – or maybe not.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 25/04/2016 14:24:57

It should be well worth the effort of cleaning it up. One of the few smaller lathes with a good sensible head stock bearing set up more less a la Schaublin, DSG, Lang etc.

I want one but would guess that it would crush the kitchen cabinet my Boxford rests on.

John

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