Hello Beccy.

A Zyto lathe would be a metalworking lathe. they are small, basic and the newest ones will be 70yrs old. The value will not be great and will depend on the condition and how complete it is. If it's lacking a motor and gears, like many that you see, then it will not be woth much at all. If however it has a working motor and drive system, a good compliment of gears and perhaps a chuck or two then it might be worth a couple of hundred or maybe a bit more.

Post the pictures if you can.

Pete.

Hi Beccy.

The big chuck at the far right end does not belong on that machine it's for a muc larger lathe, also the tailstock (the thing it#s hanging on is fitted backwards. The pointy end attachment should point at the chuck on the left.

Your dad's lathe appears to be largely complete although the sapearate wall-mounted countershaft makes it a bit cumbersome. In the cabinet the only parts that belong to it are the gears and the big round faceplate with the slots. Loks like there is a tilstock chuck too (it fits in place of the pointy end dead centre in the tailstock). The grinder wheels and other bits are not meant for a lathe (although he may well have used them in it). The wooden thing in the corner is a hand tool called a wood plane.

Okay so it turns out this lathe is only a couple of miles from me so I volunteered to look it over.

What I can say is that the lathe appears to be 100% complete and aside from the grimy appearance and very light surface rust is in remarkable condition and seen very little use. Here's a quick rundown.

The model appears to be the "now rare early Zyto" listed on the Lathes website as linked by Michael G above. It has a working backgear with all the teeth in perfect condition. It also appears to have a full set of screwcutting change gears (10 in total) and the tumbler reverse works although the tiny actuating lever needs attention

There is little or no wear apparent on the bedway. The original planing lines are evident all along the length of the top even (faintly) right up to the chuck. There are no digs or dents on it at all that I could see. The swivelling slide is complete and bears no battle scars. I didn't move the slide except to check it's not seized and external inspection shows no wear.

The leadscrew is in fine condition showing little use and certainly very little wear in the usual spot in front of the chuck.

The lathe has two chucks in excellent working condition just a little grubby, a 3-jaw 3" Crown with both sets of jaws and a 4" 4-jaw Burnerd. Both are undamaged with no signs of wear, no corners knocked off or gouges in the chuck or jaw faces The outside jaws are actually pristine. The jaws fit snug and there is a chuck key that fits both chucks.

There's a centre in the tailstock and also a keyless tailstock chuck that looks unused.

Apart from a clean and service the only part that appears to need attention is the drive system. There a vintage motor which turns smoothly but I would certainly suspect the rubber insulation on the internal wiring before putting it into service. There is a flat leather belt that is perished but that could be replaced with a poly-vee belt very easily.

All in all, a cracking little lathe with loads of potential if you look beyond the grime and put in a few hours of cleaning and fettling effort. I've advised Becky that it's worth every penny of £200 and perhaps a little more given the completeness and condition.

This is going to make a very nice little lathe for someone

It's lasted 80+ years so it deserves a sympathetic restoration, and to be used of course!

Pics are in my album folder **LINK**

Hi all,

New to model-engineer and lathes in general. This thread is on a subject I need some help with if that's ok?

So I have been wanting a lathe for years now, one to restore and teach myself how to use. I had no budget (21 month baby girl), but was able to get myself a zyto. From the research I've done it looks like it's a 50's model possibly the penultimate run. The issue I'm having is the gear that goes on the lead screw is missing and a couple of the shim's. The dial for thread count?! That whole thing is missing too. But given there's very very little I can find out about the thing, I'm drawing a complete blank on replacing the missing bits. Probably also due to my lack of knowledge and inability to use the internet effectively haha 😂

I'm reaching out to anyone who has knowledge on this one, I'd love to be able to get her up and running and looking her best so I can start learning.

Many thanks for any help.

Cal

Welcome to the forum Calum.

Can you post photos of the missing bits please? I think I know what you're describing, but best to be sure. Posting photos on this forum is a little convoluted; how to described here.

Sounds as if the Thread Dial Indicator is missing. They speed up thread cutting but aren't essential.

One comment on Howard's advice: he recommends mild-steel, which is an OK safe choice rather than wonderful. Starting out I was horribly confused because none of my collection of scrap metal machined well. I eventually twigged that many alloys are race tuned for other purposes, intended to be cast, stamped, ground, extruded, or rolled rather than cut by a self-taught trainee with a hobby lathe.

Getting a good finish from ordinary structural mild-steel can be tricky because it tends to smear and tear. I recommend buying a machinable mild-steel such as EN1a or – even better – leaded EN1A, sometimes sold as EN1A-Pb. Most brasses machine well, but many Aluminium alloys are uncooperative. The internet is helpful, sellers like Metal Supermarket usually explain what each alloy is good for. For example they say '2011 Aluminium Alloy is the most free machining of the common aluminium alloys with excellent mechanical properties.' whereas 6063 was 'Developed as an extrusion alloy'. 6063 isn't nice to turn in a lathe. Buying metal, look for mention of 'Free-cutting' or 'Good Machinability'. Although it's possible to turn and mill difficult metals, they're not good to learn on!

Dave

Second to what Hopper says about constructional steels!

Don't touch Rebar with the proverbial barge pole! It is foul stuff, good for reinforcing but NOT for machining.

Almost impossible to get even a reasonable finish.

Probably the easiest to machine will be leaded mild steel. If you use anything slightly exotic or hard and have a problem, you won't know if it is your fault, or a difficult material.

If there are problems with an easy to machine material, (That's one variable you won't have to worry about ) you can explore tool height, speeds, feeds or tool grinding Also, easy to machine materials are fairly forgiving about tool angles; Within reason, a few degrees either way shouldn't be a job stopper.

For feeds and speeds as a starting p[oint, with a well ground tool, thunk in terms of 100 fpm and aim to feed at about 0.004" / rev.

(Another skill to learn, rotating a handwheel at a fairly steady, consistent rate ).

Don't despair, you'll get the hang of using both hands to keep the wheel rotating at a fairly steady rate.

HTH

Howard