- Joined
- Jan 11, 2018
- Messages
- 308
I've been looking for a lathe for a while. I had a Rutland Tools 12x36" belt drive lathe for a few years. I sold it 6 years ago to help finance the Grizzly G0704 mill that I converted to CNC. At the time I was making parts for RC cars and they didn't lend themselves to turning. 3 years ago I got back into High Power Rocketry and I've missed having a lathe ever since.
I know a little more now so I had a wish list this time around:
1. 1800-2000 RPM. I turn a lot of smaller aluminum parts and I use a lot of carbide tooling.
2. Gear head. I was SO tired of swapping belt positions. I didn't want to deal with a variable speed lathe and their problems either.
3. It had to fit into a 36" x 72" hole in my garage.
I looked at a couple different machines on CL and it seemed like I missed them by less than a day each time. I finally found this "Bench top lathe" on Craigslist on Saturday. A quick search lead me to a couple threads on this lathe and the fact that the following retailers imported it:
Grizzly (G4016)
Enco (110-1340)
Frejoth 1340
Birmingham still sells it (YCL-1340GH).
I went to look at it yesterday. The guy selling it knew basically nothing about it. His father bought it on a whim and then rarely used it. The machine was pretty dirty but I realized that most of the cosmoline was still on the machine. The face plate, 4 jaw, steady rest, and follow rest had never been mounted or cleaned off. The metric change gears and a spare back plate were still wrapped in cosmoline and wax paper.
I turned a piece of aluminum with it and I could tell that it needed new belts. The gears all sounded good though. I paid him $1200 for it and we started loading it up. It took a couple hours to get it loaded on the trailer and another 20 minutes to get the load distributed back enough that the trailer wasn't bouncing all over the place. Once we got home it took another hour or so to get it back off the trailer.
So far I've spent about 3 hours cleaning everything. Under all the crap the bed is like new. It had been moved a couple times so the paint is chipped up but overall its in good condition.
Last night I ordered a pair of matched belts from McMaster Carr. I also ordered a handle for the tailstock and the gear shift indicator label from Grizzly. I'm at $60 in parts for far.
The first three pictures are what he had in his ad. The last picture is right after we got it off the trailer.
I know a little more now so I had a wish list this time around:
1. 1800-2000 RPM. I turn a lot of smaller aluminum parts and I use a lot of carbide tooling.
2. Gear head. I was SO tired of swapping belt positions. I didn't want to deal with a variable speed lathe and their problems either.
3. It had to fit into a 36" x 72" hole in my garage.
I looked at a couple different machines on CL and it seemed like I missed them by less than a day each time. I finally found this "Bench top lathe" on Craigslist on Saturday. A quick search lead me to a couple threads on this lathe and the fact that the following retailers imported it:
Grizzly (G4016)
Enco (110-1340)
Frejoth 1340
Birmingham still sells it (YCL-1340GH).
I went to look at it yesterday. The guy selling it knew basically nothing about it. His father bought it on a whim and then rarely used it. The machine was pretty dirty but I realized that most of the cosmoline was still on the machine. The face plate, 4 jaw, steady rest, and follow rest had never been mounted or cleaned off. The metric change gears and a spare back plate were still wrapped in cosmoline and wax paper.
I turned a piece of aluminum with it and I could tell that it needed new belts. The gears all sounded good though. I paid him $1200 for it and we started loading it up. It took a couple hours to get it loaded on the trailer and another 20 minutes to get the load distributed back enough that the trailer wasn't bouncing all over the place. Once we got home it took another hour or so to get it back off the trailer.
So far I've spent about 3 hours cleaning everything. Under all the crap the bed is like new. It had been moved a couple times so the paint is chipped up but overall its in good condition.
Last night I ordered a pair of matched belts from McMaster Carr. I also ordered a handle for the tailstock and the gear shift indicator label from Grizzly. I'm at $60 in parts for far.
The first three pictures are what he had in his ad. The last picture is right after we got it off the trailer.
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