FS Bench top Cataract Lathe

[mikefrost]

This is the lathe I started out on. It is time for it to have a new home.
It is complete and in working order, ready to go.
Background is here

Cataract Lathes

Cataract Lathes - high-precision American-made for toolroom and experimental shop work

www.lathes.co.uk

The bearings are good, I added a VFD ( 110V single phase) with a new 3 phase motor so I had variable speed.
Includes 3 jaw chuck, drill chuck, a 3 jaw chuck for really small parts, tool holder, has indexing on the spindle, 5 Hardinge collets and collet chuck, and I also made spur drive and cone centres for wood turning .
It has 7 in swing, 12 in chuck to chuck, 16 in between wood turning centre.
The Cataract lathes have a different system than Logan, South Bend etc.
It has served me well and was a great starting point to learn about machining.
I'm asking $650
It is located in the Toronto area Hwy 401 and Yonge St.
I'm pretty flexible on schedule.
Mike

 

[mikefrost]

OK, to see if there is any interest from lurkers or others, I'm adding my early bench top, shop made milling machine to the deal for the Hardinge Cataract lathe.
Again, it is a modest machine, but with some patience and care, does good work.
It uses the electric drive from a lawnmower, with a chuck threaded onto the output shaft. This makes sure that the chuck stays on. The bearings are tight.
The speed is determined using a router speed control box. The X-Y and vise will be familiar to most folks on this forum.
The vertical direction uses a threaded rod into a block of alloy to give it some consistency and durability. The wrinkle on this is that the threaded rod is a 1/2-13 thread which give a 76.9 thou movement per revolution of the dial. If I had it to do over again, I would have used a 1/2-20 fine thread rod, but at the time, the 1/2-13 was all that I had.

I fired it up recently and she works just fine.

The price for the lathe and the milling machine is $650. It's a BYOB
(bring your own bench) deal.

Mike









Here's the speed control