Looking for a used lathe in fairly good shape

[Red96]

Apparently it's the rule, all used machines must be in filthy pigsty condition for the photo shoot. I mean if you want to sell something for thousands of dollars, who doesn't take 30 minutes to wipe the thing down wow, just wow.

Yep.... wipe it down, clean up the swarf, put away the tooling, sweep the floor.
And maybe go crazy and back the damn Harley up 2 feet and turn on a light or two.

Makes you wonder if they ever bothered to oil anything or take care of their machined surfaces when there's zero signs of basic housekeeping or organizational practices in their shop. Pics are a tell. A secret weapon for those of us who can see & interpret.

 

[coolidge]

Makes you wonder if they ever bothered to oil anything or take care of their machined surfaces when there's zero signs of basic housekeeping or organizational practices in their shop. Pics are a tell. A secret weapon for those of us who can see & interpret.

^^^ this 1000%

 

[markba633csi]

BIRMINGHAM METAL LATHE - PRICE DROP - tools - by owner - sale - craigslist

Birmingham metal lathe , great condition and lots of tooling $2000.00

bellingham.craigslist.org

I'll take the Birmingham from Bellingham LOL

 

[hemmjo]

There are many advantage of a VFD. The only downside is the cost. There is a little initiall "programming" involved but it is not rocket science programming. Simply telling it to soft start, how hard to brake, small things like that. WAY cheaper than getting your house wired for 3 phase, IF they will even do it for you. A little more cost than the rotary/mechanical converter.

Advantages; small and compact, variable speed with the turn of a knob, soft start, variable degree of spindle braking on shutdown.

Good Luck

 

[Wanttolearn]

Yeah that is very true, when I see a machine that looks like it was pulled out of a grease pit it sure makes you questio just how well they took care of it. If at all, other than plug it in and use it with no maintenance.

 

[SouthernChap]

Yeah that is very true, when I see a machine that looks like it was pulled out of a grease pit it sure makes you questio just how well they took care of it. If at all, other than plug it in and use it with no maintenance.

Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable suspicion doesn't it?

Thing is though, the 9x20 I bought earlier this year was utterly and disgustingly filthy. It was an offence to everything good and decent in this world.

However, the previous owner, despite being a complete slob where cleanliness was concerned, clearly wasn't a slob with lubrication. All the sliding surfaces were well oiled and the lathe was very smooth to use when I had a play when checking it out. The carriage moved smoothly up and down the ways with no vertical or front to back slop, the cross slide and compound rest were adjusted perfectly and again, I could find no discernable movement where there shouldn't have been.

It looked tatty as buggery, but it was an utterly sound example of it's type.

You see, I'd be suspicious of lathes that are 30, 40, 50, 60, or 70 years old, that look too tidy. Especially, beware the freshly painted lathe, unless you have good reason to trust the person selling it.

 

[Wanttolearn]

There a JET GHB_1440A for sale in Tacoma, WA for $4k that's about the best lathe up for sale in our area at the moment. It's listed on FB marketplace

View attachment 536594

This Jet is a nice machine, $4000.00 is a little higher than I was prepared to go but I think it would do anything I would need it to do and it looks to be in good shape and cared for. Which is worth something in itself for sure.

 

[projectnut]

I guess I don't get too upset about the cosmetics when buying a used a machine. The main things are to make sure all the critical parts are there, it isn't beat to a pulp, and the price is consistent with what I estimate it will cost to restore it.

Case in point is a Baileigh cold saw i came across a few years ago. It was the nastiest looking piece of junk you could imagine. It had broken and missing parts and looked like it had been dragged behind the truck to the used equipment dealer. Still when looking it over there seemed to be enough of the machine left to at least attempt a restoration.

I bought it for $350.00 with the agreement that the dealer would deliver it to the garage at our family cottage. It sat in the garage for several weeks while we were out of town. When the time finally came to move it, I disassembled it into pieces small enough to move and loaded it in the trailer. Once home I began the further disassembly, cleaning, and restoration.

The whole project took about 3 months to complete between other road trips and responsibilities around the house. When completed I had a perfectly functional machine at a fraction of the cost of buying new. The total cost was around $850.00 with the majority of that being for 5 new blades. New blades cost on average about $125.00 each and have a cutting life of around 1,000 cuts before needing to be sharpened. Sharpening costs around $20.00 and can be done until the blade is too small to cut the intended material. In this case I happened to get lucky in that I found a shop selling off several new blades for $50.00 each.

As a point of reference, a new machine costs around $6,000.00. It's by far the quickest and most accurate saw in the shop. It easily cuts to within .002" of the specified length and can cut within .0005" with a little effort.

Here are some pictures of before and after the restoration.

 

[hemmjo]

I got an 11" powermatic logan from a school for free. If had been stored outside in an unheated shipping container during a 2 year building renovation project. All of the machined surfaces were covered with rust then it came out of the container. they got some crazy estimate to have it refurbished. I knew the teacher, he called me asked if I wanted it. Well DUH, I went there, took it ALL apart, loaded it in my truck, Had been in my basement now for near 15 years. Don't let a little dirt and grime chase you away. As stated above, check the main important parts.

There could be a jewel hiding under that grime.

 

[matthewsx]

The 11" Rockwell I bought recently looked pretty bad when I went to the auction house to inspect it. I'd already put what I thought was a low-ball bid on it so "inspecting" it was more to see if I wanted to go higher if someone else bid against me. Was a little dismayed when I found the spindle locked up in addition to much grease and grime covering everything.

Well, I ended up winning the auction at my original top bid of $350 and went to pick it up. Once I got it home I made sure there wasn't anything mechanical locking the spindle and proceeded to put a big adjustable wrench on one of the jaws. It broke free with minimal effort and appears to spin freely without any sticky spots so I'm hopeful that it was just some crusty grease locking it and when I get power to it all will be good.

On inspection most of the grime appears to be storage rot and there's very little if any wear on the "flame hardened" ways.

So, when buying any machine tool the trick for me is to get it at a low enough price that if I had to part it out I wouldn't loose money. Of course, if you can inspect it under power the price can be much closer to half of what new costs. But, buying new isn't an automatic guarantee of trouble free operation. Some vendors are great, others not so much.

John