I just got back from checking out the Cincinnati lathe. It’s not as big as the pictures make it appear. It’s certainly bigger than I need but I could live with the space it would take up. It’s in generally well maintained condition. All the speeds and feeds work , runs quietly in all the speeds ,it shifts fine, all the feeds engage well, carriage and cross feed and threading all function as they should. I looked at what it would take to switch it to work on 230 volts and it would be a piece of cake, maybe 15 minutes work, the electric cabinet is in spotless original condition. There’s an original schematic in a pocket in the door that looks brand new for reference. It has a newal Topaz DRO that works fine, there was a coolant pump at one time that is gone, it has a 10” 4 jaw , no chuck key, a jacobs chuck in the tail stock, a aloris style wedge type tool post and nothing else. The serial number puts it as a 1958 machine. he ways look ok, there’s a very slight wear at the headstock end but nothing outrageous given the age of this machine. What really gives me concern is the backlash on the cross feed and the compound. Looking at the micrometer dials the cross feed has .150 of backlash and the compound has .280 of backlash. The compound is set up so that a full turn is .300 so it’s almost a full turn of nothing before the tool post starts to move, the cross feed is not as bad but still pretty sloppy. I really want to like this lathe but I’m concerned that with that much wear in the feeds it won’t be long until the nut is completely gone and the lathe is useless until a used nut is found . Am I reading too much into this? The guy I met with was telling me that they are moving into a new facility, and are getting out of the metal fabrication side of their business , he also mentioned they kept other lathes and moved them to the new location. This tells me they know it’s worn out and are looking to send it down the road. I’d love to hear what folks think, right now I’m ready to pass on this one, it’s a great machine but I’m feeling it’s pretty well used up.
