Pictures -- lathe on casters

The caster are a bit scary, but it doesn't look bad otherwise, and those casters would take about 5 min to remove to level the machine properly. If it was near me I might buy it, it's a bit bigger than what I have now.

Actually, if anyone is looking for a lathe, I know that guy, he is a super AAA+++ guy. And those casters, I sold to him a while ago. The lathe looked nice and solid when I saw it a few months ago, though I did not explore it in detail.

-- Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by more readers you will need to find a different means of posting on Usenet.

BTDT

If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes Doubt yourself, and the real world will eat you alive The world doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around me No skeletons in the closet; just decomposing corpses

-------------------------------------------------------------- Dependence is Vulnerability:

-------------------------------------------------------------- "Open the Pod Bay Doors please, Hal" "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.."

And note that the casters are not touching the floor in the photos. There is cribbing under both ends -- though given the location of the headstock cribbing I would expect that there is a bit of tension on the bed making it bow up in the middle. I would (if I kept the casters installed, which is highly unlikely) either move the headstock cribbing closer to the casters, or ideally put some either side of the casters. Of course, since it is a good distance from where I live, I will skip it.

I also notice that as supplied it is *only* a turret lathe. If you want to use it for both turret and normal uses (as I do my Clausing), you'll have to find a matching tailstock -- and a way to lift that turret off the bed. Based on the weight of the turret on my 12x24" Clausing, I would *really* not want to lift that one off the 16" lathe without a crane of some sort.

Hmm ... a closer look says that this turret is coupled to the leadscrew -- and probably has a power feed -- so it would be a major task to remove it and put on a tailstock. Just leave this one set up as a turret machine, and use another machine for normal non-production lathe work.

Also -- the photos are rather limited at the end of the headstock, so I can't tell whether it has a lever style collet closer or not. With a turret, I would *really* want a collect closer on the machine.

I like the red-orange paint on all of the controls, and may do something like that for my Clausing.

Enjoy, DoN.

DoN, I forgot, what kind of Clausing do you have?

A 12x24" one. 5418 is the model number.

It came with a bed turret instead of a tailstock, and the bed turret had a serial number which matched that of the lathe, so it was original.

I did have to find a tailstock for normal use.

Enjoy, DoN.

Do you find it capable of doing what you need it to do? Ever feel like needing a bigger one? Just curious. Still trying to get a feel of what I need from a lathe.

Good catch. I used to own one and the feed does run thru the turret. It would not be practical to switch back and forth between the turret and a tailstock.

I've been finding it to be quite satisfactory. There was one project where I would have liked to have a little more swing, and one where I would have liked to have a little more between centers, but both were extreme situations for me.

So -- it all depends on what you want to do with a lathe.

The time when I wanted a little more swing was for repairing a broken flange on a pulley for my Nichols mill -- but I wound up getting a set from a newer model, which with a bit of adaptation eliminated the need to fix the original pulley (which was for two parallel belts for each speed).

The time when I could have used a little more length was when I was making some circular waveguide antennas for wireless ethernet to connect to a friend's house across the street and one extra house downhill. I was able to make them sa single wavelength long (from Aluminum pipe), but did not have quite the length to make one two wavelengths long to produce a narrower angle of acceptance and a greater gain.

Enjoy, DoN.