Not strictly model engineering (motorbike engineering and supercharging!), but...
About to arrange a trip to the next town to look at a medium-sized lathe (English, geared head 6.5/13" x 40", 20" into gap although the spindle bore's too small for e.g. fork stanchions, has a non-working suds pump and tank etc.) and may consider it if it's in reasonable shape, one concern is the speed range - 8 speeds from 30 - 750 RPM - and whether the low top speed is going to cause problems? The only issue I can think of (other than slow removal of material when cutting!) is that may be a bit slow for small-diameter work in work-hardening materials, but as this would be my first lathe since college over 30 years ago any hints and tips would be appreciated!
Another concern is that the quadrant lever and clutch knob for the sliding and cross power feeds (ooh, luxury....) appear to be missing - I've a fair idea how they (should) work and aptitude enough to rebuild car and 'bike gearboxes, so is this going to be a serious can of worms should there be problems with 'em? They were manufactured into the 70's and fairly popular (if a bit pricey new...) and had spares support into the 90's so there may be spares still around... Famous Last Words?
As manufactured it's Imperial, and bikes seem to all be Metric these days - apart from threading (which may need a 127 gear or similar made if it has gone missing over the last 50 years), am I making a rod for my own back by not going for a Metric lathe? I have a bunch of Metric (and Imperial) measuring tools and can probably remember 40 thou = 1 mm...
I should be able to see/hear it running so can check for noisiness and slop in the bearings, head, QC 'box etc., and I'll be able to check the ways and see what tooling's with it, anything else that I should be checking? Apart from how much trouble I'm going to get from SWMBO, of course...
Thanks in advance,
Dave H.