WANTED: Hardinge chuck and tooling, Cataract lathe

I'm looking at buying an old Hardinge Cataract lathe (ballbearing spindle, cabinet mounted with belt drive below), so I'm in the market for chucks and tooling.

It looks like somebody tipped the machine over, as the tray is pulled about 1cm away from the cabinet base, and the machine is a little off kilter (technical term :-).

It has a collet closer (looks like 5C) and the Hardinge spindle nose chuck mount (not the threaded type), and the runout looks pretty good on it.

Anyhow, what is a fair price for such a lathe in decent condition, with the turret, but no compound/cross-slide/carriage?

My thoughts are to buy it and take it apart and clean it all up and paint it.

I hope to convert it into a CNC lathe by mounting a baseplate on the old bedway with ballscrews and rails for Z and X axes and raise the headstock. Voila, gang-style CNC lathe. Couple minutes work right? :-)

So, am I crazy? (wrong question, I suppose :-) Anybody have a CNC lathe for cheap/free that will keep me from following this crazy path? Have Hardinge spindle nose mount chucks you want to sell? Have tooling for Hardinge Cataract?

Thanks!

Reply to
rpseguin
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