Mauser Lover.
Your lathe looks very similar to a lot of small Taiwanese lathes sold under various names during the 1970's/80 etc. I think the original brand (though not 100% sure on that) was Lontaine. I have “McMillan” branded one.
One of the issues with these machines is it's easy to break a tooth off the back gear. As there is no way to hold the spindle when lossening the chuck, most users (myself included) engage the backgear without pulling the drive pin out. This locks the spindle. However when loosening the chuck, all the load is taken on one tooth of the small gear on the backgear. Very easy to break the tooth.
One of my “to do” jobs is come up with a way to effectively lock the spindle without using the back gear.
My little lathe is quite good for what it is, however it does not run carbide tips very well as it just doesn't have the power or speed.
It sounds like you are a “turning” newbie (welcome to this world by the way). I would like to suggest that you try and get a few good books on basic machining and do a bit of study. You will learn heaps and hopefully reduce the amount of errors you make through inexperience. (and you will – we all do/have done) Even a small machine like yours and mine has the potential to do a lot of expensive and/or painfull damage in a very short time.
Old trade school text books would be a good place to start. Not sure what you would have available over there in the USA but here in Australia back in the 1960's and 70's the standard text was “Fitting and Machining Stage 1, 2 and 3. (3 seperate books for the first 3 years of an apprenticeship). Before around 1972 they were in imperial and after 1972 they were updated to metric.
Eg
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1960s-S...=item2aa3d18597:g:oDQAAOSwQVpasHA3&rmvSB=true
this one is from the 1990's and is also a good one but it is in metric
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/tur...ks/fitting-machining-hardback-book/1182502383
I hope this is of some help on your new adventure.
Regards
Peter