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When does it start violating the rules, IF I were to....

TorontoBuilder said:
How long til I get banned if I were to post every day asking "WHO THE HECK HAS MY LATHE!!!!?"

I'd hope that I'd annoy someone enough to locate a Colchester Student 2500 13x40 for me before I got banned.... or a Harrison M300 13x40 of course.

Anyone else wanna find out :p

Dont worry mods, I wont.
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I have one... come down and get it.
 
Keep your eyes on the federal government surplus site. It's where I got my Harrison 13x40 lathe. Pay particular attention to any missing parts. They are extremly expensive if you have to buy new ones. The one I bought was missing it's compound slide, I thought it would be easy to find a new one. It was not. After many months of searching I found one that was supposedly from an M300 but had to be modified to fit my lathe. The description was slightly off so it probably didn't get anyones attention and was not crazy expensive.
 
Upnorth said:
Keep your eyes on the federal government surplus site. It's where I got my Harrison 13x40 lathe. Pay particular attention to any missing parts. They are extremly expensive if you have to buy new ones. The one I bought was missing it's compound slide, I thought it would be easy to find a new one. It was not. After many months of searching I found one that was supposedly from an M300 but had to be modified to fit my lathe. The description was slightly off so it probably didn't get anyones attention and was not crazy expensive.
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Yeah I search that site daily.

And yes, I know how hard it is to find missing parts of Colchesters and Harrisons.

We've also decided to broaden our acceptable models in order to be able to get a lathe before Christmas. We decided we're not rocket scientists who need the very best large lathe. Our smaller one should be capable of making small precision parts
 
Upnorth said:
Keep your eyes on the federal government surplus site. It's where I got my Harrison 13x40 lathe. Pay particular attention to any missing parts. They are extremly expensive if you have to buy new ones. The one I bought was missing it's compound slide, I thought it would be easy to find a new one. It was not. After many months of searching I found one that was supposedly from an M300 but had to be modified to fit my lathe. The description was slightly off so it probably didn't get anyones attention and was not crazy expensive.
Click to expand...
I can now report that we bought the 1440 Busybee lathe from the GovDeals website at 4:50 pm for the minimum bid of $3500. It will only take about 10 to 15 minutes to drive it home versus 10 hours for the lathe we'd been considering in Windsor at nearly the same price.

It is new old stock, meaning it was purchased by Durham Region transit for their bus service depot, however the lathe operator went out on disability for 18 months just after the lathe was acquired. It had only been used a handful of times and still has cosmoline on most of the parts. The management locked out the lathe when they discovered that no one else in the shop was licensed machinist. It was never put back in service and just sat there.

All in it was $4200 which does not seem like that great a deal... but it is much much much less than he offered for 3 different Colchesters recently, less in the end than the Windsor Chien Yeh 405Gx1000 once you added transportation costs. Thanks to @Dabbler's comments about some Chinese lathes I was able to convince my brother to inspect this one....

OH and the golden rule is ALWAYS inspect a lathe because you never know what surprises you may expose.
 
For new-old-stock you did get an reasonable discount from the 'new' price. So well done there. When I looked at the showroom model at the Busy Bee in Calgary, I don't think it was quite as good quality as the Modern version: but yours might be fine...

inspecting the lathe:

Since it has been 'barely run' I recommend you do some disassembly and check out - this will serve you very well in the long run. Apart from thoroughly checking and cleaning the headstock gears and enclosure, you will be very well served to check the internals of the apron for grit and shavings left from the manufacturing process. I'd also relube the QCGB ... just in case.

This is kind of a 2 hour type process, but I'd even do this for a brand new Modern lathe.... just in case.
 
Dabbler said:
For new-old-stock you did get an reasonable discount from the 'new' price. So well done there. When I looked at the showroom model at the Busy Bee in Calgary, I don't think it was quite as good quality as the Modern version: but yours might be fine...

inspecting the lathe:

Since it has been 'barely run' I recommend you do some disassembly and check out - this will serve you very well in the long run. Apart from thoroughly checking and cleaning the headstock gears and enclosure, you will be very well served to check the internals of the apron for grit and shavings left from the manufacturing process. I'd also relube the QCGB ... just in case.

This is kind of a 2 hour type process, but I'd even do this for a brand new Modern lathe.... just in case.
Click to expand...
yeah we know that BB is not as good quality wise, having owned one. But it is okay and the discount from new is very good. Additionally, it is cheap enough we can buy the lathe we really want if one comes up again.

We'll tear it down and inspect in much greater detail because being finicky is in our natures. And we distrust BB... now all I need is a taper attachment or to make one if anyone can direct me to plans or such
 
Re taper attachment, do a search here, lots has been written. The rear angle set bar/follower is the relatively easy part IMO. Its the cross slide feed screw decoupling/coupling that requires some noodling.
If you can purchase these parts from manufacturer separately, suspect you will be money & time ahead. Or go with ELS if you are electrically savvy. My friend has a Clough42 ELS on his EMCO lathe & it sure is cool. Not just tapers but any kind of thread.
 
PeterT said:
Re taper attachment, do a search here, lots has been written. The rear angle set bar/follower is the relatively easy part IMO. Its the cross slide feed screw decoupling/coupling that requires some noodling.
If you can purchase these parts from manufacturer separately, suspect you will be money & time ahead. Or go with ELS if you are electrically savvy. My friend has a Clough42 ELS on his EMCO lathe & it sure is cool. Not just tapers but any kind of thread.
Click to expand...

I have a buddy and we will be doing an ELS project, but better than the one James did. My brother wont likely go for that on his 1440 if it means any down time. I'd have to figure out how to add encoder wheels to the lathe to maintian manual use for him too
 
TorontoBuilder said:
I can now report that we bought the 1440 Busybee lathe from the GovDeals website at 4:50 pm for the minimum bid of $3500. It will only take about 10 to 15 minutes to drive it home versus 10 hours for the lathe we'd been considering in Windsor at nearly the same price.

It is new old stock, meaning it was purchased by Durham Region transit for their bus service depot, however the lathe operator went out on disability for 18 months just after the lathe was acquired. It had only been used a handful of times and still has cosmoline on most of the parts. The management locked out the lathe when they discovered that no one else in the shop was licensed machinist. It was never put back in service and just sat there.

All in it was $4200 which does not seem like that great a deal... but it is much much much less than he offered for 3 different Colchesters recently, less in the end than the Windsor Chien Yeh 405Gx1000 once you added transportation costs. Thanks to @Dabbler's comments about some Chinese lathes I was able to convince my brother to inspect this one....

OH and the golden rule is ALWAYS inspect a lathe because you never know what surprises you may expose.
Click to expand...
That lathe new today is about $9-10k, crazy stupid prices compared to a few years ago.
 
TorontoBuilder said:
yeah we know that BB is not as good quality wise, having owned one. But it is okay and the discount from new is very good. Additionally, it is cheap enough we can buy the lathe we really want if one comes up again.

We'll tear it down and inspect in much greater detail because being finicky is in our natures. And we distrust BB... now all I need is a taper attachment or to make one if anyone can direct me to plans or such
Click to expand...
Look on Grizzly site for the same looking lathe, parts for the taper attachment should be interchangeble
 
TorontoBuilder said:
I have a buddy and we will be doing an ELS project, but better than the one James did. My brother wont likely go for that on his 1440 if it means any down time. I'd have to figure out how to add encoder wheels to the lathe to maintian manual use for him too
Click to expand...
You could make it dual CNC, manual like my 1440, release one lever and it becomes manual again.
 
PeterT said:
Re taper attachment, do a search here, lots has been written. The rear angle set bar/follower is the relatively easy part IMO. Its the cross slide feed screw decoupling/coupling that requires some noodling.
If you can purchase these parts from manufacturer separately, suspect you will be money & time ahead. Or go with ELS if you are electrically savvy. My friend has a Clough42 ELS on his EMCO lathe & it sure is cool. Not just tapers but any kind of thread.
Click to expand...
As can mine.
 
TorontoBuilder said:
I have a buddy and we will be doing an ELS project, but better than the one James did. My brother wont likely go for that on his 1440 if it means any down time. I'd have to figure out how to add encoder wheels to the lathe to maintian manual use for him too
Click to expand...
Would it be possible to have the ELS options but also one on the cross slide makings the tapper attachment mute?
 
Tom O said:
Would it be possible to have the ELS options but also one on the cross slide makings the tapper attachment mute?
Click to expand...
Yes, an ELS and cross slide servo motor would make finding or making a taper attachment a moot point.

I just don't want to battle my brother to convince him. It's okay too, I now have a slightly longer compound to make tapers with too
 
Darren said:
@PeterT , I did not know that the Clough42 system could do tapers. Did he modify it to add X axis control?
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Hmmm I may have mispoke, suspect you are right, I may have mixed up with another ELS (Rocketronics) or maybe my buddy was saying he's working on something new? Sorry for any confusion.
 
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