Bolton Lathe/Mill

Two things I see from the photos that you may want to investigate if you look at the lathe in person:

A fair amount of wear on the front prismatic way…
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And something funny about the rack teeth immediately to the right of the carriage….1689992722559.png

It’s hard to imagine the teeth being broken so I’m thinking it may just be grease smears or something about the lighting, but nevertheless it does show as something different there. As for wear on the ways — there will be wear on any machine this old, you just need to be aware of it and decide if it’s acceptable or not.

I like Logan lathes too, wish I had one (some days).

-frank
 
That's the ticket! Looks like plenty to get started with, too. Looks a lot more like a runner than a resto project for you. Everybody loves a Logan.
 
I’d keep looking. QCGB is a big deal if you want to cut threads.

For $1500 you can probably do better. You’re looking for the one that pops up in the morning and you’re the first caller.

You could make this one work but….

I’m always skeptical of someone who claims the machine was “only used for plastic”. Seems a little like only driven on Sunday by a little old lady to church.

John
 
If I had it to do all over again I'd look for a QCGB. I don't single point a lot but the ability to easily change power feed rate is a big deal to me.
 
Looks too worn in a couple spots- I'd pass on it. The rack does look damaged
The ways and spindle bearings are the two most important items

Like the old jeweler (Bruno Ganz) says in The Counselor: "This is a cynical business- we seek only imperfection"
 
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C-Bag said:
I like Logan but this would be a tough one for me because no quick change gear box. It looks like it has a stack of change gears, but there’s weird stuff mixed in. Like in the second pic the red-ish pieces are from 9x20 lathe like mine. It also looks like a couple of other pieces from a 9x20 mixed in there. It makes it really hard when they have stuff all piled up in a jumble. i also don’t like that it looks like he had the cover plate on the head wired down. Lifting that cover is a clutch /belt release for changing speeds. Is the mechanism messed up? I’d also take a good look at the ways, I don’t see much oil. Bad sign IMHO.
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You’re right on all counts. The red pieces aren’t for this lathe but it does have one steady rest for this machine. There are a bunch of change gears that I didn’t post. They’re in the original posting but I didn’t add every picture. I’m fine with that as a beginner. Just means more time with the lathe! The cover is being pulled down by the motor, that’s the torsion I mentioned, supporting it with another leg should sort that out. I didn’t look super carefully at the ways but I did notice some damage, but it was up past the chuck. It had a thin layer of oil but it has hardly been used in years.

matthewsx said:
I’d keep looking. QCGB is a big deal if you want to cut threads.

For $1500 you can probably do better. You’re looking for the one that pops up in the morning and you’re the first caller.

You could make this one work but….

I’m always skeptical of someone who claims the machine was “only used for plastic”. Seems a little like only driven on Sunday by a little old lady to church.

John
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A QCGB isn’t a deal breaker for me, hell it could be an interesting project later on. I can definitely understand thinking the guy may be trying to cheat me but I didn’t get any bad vibes from him. He’s just a fabricator that decided he didn’t want to do lathe work. He seemed offended that the lathe was being under utilized by the previous owner haha. $1500 probably isn’t the best price but with all the tooling it will save me all the time and money I would need to start building my own collection. It’s a fair trade off as most deals don’t come with any tooling. There are some but are usually priced for it.

I think I’m gonna stop by again. Take a real good look at the ways, and the rack teeth, and if I don’t see anything too concerning then I’ll pull the trigger.
 
If you keep looking, and asking here you will get a lathe you will keep longer, and it will be easier to sell if you want to change. Later you might want to change, but have a difficult time selling what you bought first.
 
I can remember looking for a used lathe. I wanted to be able to do some repair work on other kinds of machines so was looking @ 13 or 14 x40 lathes. Most or all of the used ones I looked @ had been run in production. I had no way of evaluating their condition. I gave up after a year and bought a new Chinese lathe from PM. The reason for going PM, reputation!

IAmJohnny5 said:
A QCGB isn’t a deal breaker for me
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Given my limited experience, I think you should reconsider that. Threading on a lathe is one of its very useful capabilities. Using change gears really slows the process and discourages doing it. I know because I have to use change gears for metric, & I do a lot of work in metric. As a matter of fact I would chose to work in metric most of the time. & yes, I'm in the USA. The US made a big mistake back in the '70s when the politicians failed to back going metric.
 
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