Michael,  I can see that the new owners have taken a step forward with their new line in Myford machines.

I have a Super Adept my Grandad bought in a pub for 30/-. It's never made anything, I cleaned it up, put some Hammerite on it, put it back on the shelf where it's now rusting away again.

Just after it was cleaned up:

So once this thread has run its course, I'll know what to do with it!

Steve

Edited By Steve Withnell on 15/07/2014 19:58:48

Edited By Steve Withnell on 15/07/2014 19:59:12

It does seem a bit mean when something is over advertised. It could be bought by and OAP or kid with great expectations only to be dashed and frustrated. Different matter from one of us buying it as an ornament or curio. There is also a round bed Drummond that keeps appearing on ebay as a 'gunsmith's lathe' but so far nobody has be taken in.

Despite the knocks as said above it could be used for small work so it would be interesting if one of those who do own one to make eg a small oscillator engine and show teh process in a thread.

I can sell you an ecologist's dishwashing machine. It would be true, but no good for washing ecologists…

Seriously, despite what I said I would be interested in a short article on real experience with an Adept (super or otherwise).

Neil

Agreed. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the design of the lathe. A dovetail bed and steel-in-cast-iron headstock all work admirably. The only real problem is trying to do work that is too big for it. – empahsised by that 4 jaw chuck. The execution of the design by Adept may not have been great (but no worse than some of the more modern imports) but Cowells have shown how a similar basic design can made into a first class machine for making small items. I myself have an early Flexispeed waiting for some TLC.

Cheers,

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 16/07/2014 17:36:22

Thank you for the link – but the watchmaker style of lathes are, as you correctly surmise, harder to CNC.

BTW – that adept page on Tony's site has a bit about an overseas collector – who happens to live in the same town as I do – have to look him up!

JohnS.

I saw a genuine Pultra lathe for £150 at Chesterfield SMEE,

Neil

At last a common sense comment on the Adept lathe from P.Lousick. Lets have more facts instead of idle speculation. Around 1948, after demob from the RAF in 1947, I happened to work near a small factory producing the "Wizard" lathe whicih is clone of the Adepts, but made from Meehanite. I went to a surplus sale at the factory and bought a set of reject parts for the lathe for a song. I found the leadscrew bearing cast on the bed out of line causing th saddle to jam up. I managed to rectify this,and began a long learning curve with the help mainly of the Model Engineer magazine. I was member of the local model flying club and the then thing was control line flying. The members broke the needle valves with mon,tonous regularity and some cost. I managed to make some 5BA needle valves and sold them at a mininmal cost to members. I could not afford to buy a 3.jaw chuck which were largely unobtainable in the small size needed at that time, so I made 0 MT collets from mild steel to fit the headstock with a drawbar. I needed to make 4BA needle valves but it is a non standard size,so I labouriously bored a collet with a tiny boring bar..I used this lathe over 35 years to make not 101 but more like 1001 different items.. With the advent of Ebay I found a great demand for model diesel engine parts and started making these parts again and have netted maybe £1500 per annum for the last four years, and have sold them all over the world.. Nort bad for a crappy little useless lathe.

Noting the reference to "pedal driven", I do remember getting a Super Adept in the late 1960s/early 1970s and using it for a few years to help in model making. It started off being mounted on an old Singer sewing machine stand and using the Singer treadle to power it. But I did fit a small motor since treadle turning on that setup was not all that easy. However, like Thomas Oliver's lathe, it did a lot of good work for me and it made me learn to set up a four jaw chuck quickly. It was superceded by an ML10 and lay unused for years until it was passed on to someone else a year or two ago. I've almost come full circle now and have started using a Cowells for a lot of my work, which is not all that different from using the Super Adept – maybe just a tad more accurate.

Jim.