Old Unidentified Lathe

Be a hell of a shame to scrap it... It's quite possible that it was built (or heavily modified) "in house" by a works somewhere to fulfill a specific need. Points like the oddball taper turning and topslide arrangments and the (comparatively crude) construction of the rack would indicate that this might be the case rather than a mass manufactured machine (at least not in its current form). The bed, headstock, tailstockand stand would make a nice little woodlathe or light metal spinning machine... Or a good solid garden ornament (trust me, I've seen it done. With a nice tidy Britannia of all things, complete right down to the blast cleaned slideways...vandals!) But it'd be a hell of a shame to see it shipped to china to become crap quality tools... Try running it on freecycle or summat. Cheers, Scruff.

Steve wrote:

I have been wondering if it could be adapted for another purpose. The main spindle has some corrosion. I am not sure if it will clean up. The stand is very low as the bed rises a long way above it, so I have been wondering if I can make use of the bed. The main operation I hate to do on a lathe is grinding, so maybe I can devise a way to adapt it for those special operations where you want a grinder mounted on the saddle and the work held in the chuck. Thats a lot of space taken up for such a rare requirement, so I need to expand its use a bit further....

Alternatively I could mount a smaller bench lathe on the top of the flat bed. I have one or two in various states of repair.....

I am not convinced it has been adapted from original, but it may have been made for a very specific purpose. The rack is unusual, but then with split nuts you expect a rack somewhere, and there is no sign it ever had one anywhere else. The double cross-slide is also odd, but the top-slide is formed on the cross-slide at 90 degrees. And the fact the saddle has a female dovetail suggests the double dovetail is original. Most lathes have a male dovetail on the saddle.

Anyway, I can see I'll have to give it more thought about using it for another purpose. Though as no-one is screaming for bits off it, I have a clear conscience.

Steve