Celtic lathes, anyone have one to comment on.

we are looking at getting a 17 X 40 CELTC lathe to cut a part we make that is 15 inches in diameter to just do one quick facing operation on a face plate fixture. I have been looking for this size swing but with as short a bed as I could find. This machine is near us and I am going to go inspect it next week. I have never heard of this make of lathe before. It looks like a robust machine in the pictures that were sent to me. Anyone ever need parts for one of these? I think they are made in the U.K.

Made in the land of my distant forefathers - Belgium, Mondiale "Celtic" Lathes
Back in the day I knew of a Celtic, and it's driver, never used it, BOTOH I never heard anything bad about it.

Don't they eat their dead?

Mondiale still exists
Belgium yes
A simple straight forward lathe

Peter

Terry Z said:

we are looking at getting a 17 X 40 CELTC lathe to cut a part we make that is 15 inches in diameter to just do one quick facing operation on a face plate fixture. I have been looking for this size swing but with as short a bed as I could find. This machine is near us and I am going to go inspect it next week. I have never heard of this make of lathe before. It looks like a robust machine in the pictures that were sent to me. Anyone ever need parts for one of these? I think they are made in the U.K.

Click to expand...

If that's all your going to do, look at a W&S 2ac, I think they swing 15"
Air chuck, and push the button.
Will start, run, retract, and stop.

Letting operator do something else.

Facing can be done with both the front & rear cross slides, toolblocks
are set up to add a chamfering tool to nick in chamfer at the very last minute.

Me: Homebrew wannabe machinist
FWIW

No experience with Celtic but I was looking for one cause here they`re plenty around, reasonably priced and seem to to what they`re intended for. Camlock, all types of threads, speeds although not too fast. Not too light. They are and were used for high volume production.

Sooner or later I decided against buying a used because:
There is a bewildering number of almost identically named but different types of Celtic lathes
Make sure that you will get the correct manual for it.
Tony`s listing (Lathes + Machine Tool Archive) is far from being complete. Not blaming Tony for Gods sake!!
While searching for a lathe I found so many Celtics particular New Celtic or MK2 without the remotest findings at Google that I finally given up. Mondiale in Belgium still exits yes but I`m not sure wether they`re still have stock or documentation for their older units. It seems to be something of a trading company which has no more links with the older generation.

Again, their rep is ok.