Enco 12x36 USA made

[Ken226]

Sorry for the long delay in post. Finally got time to look at the lathe on Mar 1st, and picked it up on Mar 3rd. Gentleman was very nice to talk to, very knowlegable, but I could not him down on price. Lathes around here are few and far between. Was at an auction it October, Montgomery wards lathe (1964)10x30 sold for $1800. Did not include any chucks, steadyrest, tooling. Did not get any photos of before, or during the move and cleaning. Lathe still had a lot of the cosmoline coating on it. Gentleman changed the motor and put a marathon 1 1/2 hp ( I believe) motor on it. Also built a very heavy and sturdy wood bench for it to sit on. After unloading lathe and taking 2 days to get all of the chains, straps, cribbing, and steel unloaded and sitting in my garage I decided that the bench needed to be painted a much lighter shade of Gray.

That's one of the old belt drive chinese 12x36 lathe's. Imported at one time or another by nearly every American importer. They're good machines.

Being a belt drive makes changing spindle speeds a little less convenient than a gearhead lathe, but they are great for a 3 phase VFD conversion.

With a 3 phase motor and VFD, that lathe becomes a smooth, quiet and powerful machine that can be set to any speed you would want. The belt / pulley settings work like speed range selectors, giving you the ability to go low speed / high torque, or high speed for small stock.

If I had it do do over, I would have got one of those and done a VFD conversion. I've come to appreciate quiet machinery.

I've always had the hankering for a Jet GHB 1340 belt drive with a VFD.