Carstens Milling Machine

Hello all,

I am looking at aquiring a milling machine from a friend. A picture of it can be found here:

It is badged as a Carstens machine, but I cannot find any more information on that name. Does anyone have any experience of these machines?

It also has an interesting profile to the spindle. It appears to be a smaller (actually only smaller in dameter) version of a 5C collet. On digging through a box of random collets, we found some more that fit which are all marked with 'F' on the nose along with the size. Has anyone come accross such a thing as an 'F' type collet?

The machine already has a clarkson autolock milling chuck on it, so I guess this must have been an available fitment at some time?

Any help or information gratefully recieved.

Thanks Mark

ps. Sorry Mr Stevenson, I know this is a cross post from the HSM forum, but thought I might get a different readership here... Mark