Jon_Spear
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2004
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
This past weekend, I purchased an older Clausing Colchester lathe at a local estate sale.
The sale went from Friday to Sunday, and I left work early enough to get there on Friday afternoon. I bought a few things, but wasn't intending to purchase a lathe. But this model seemed so interesting looking... And also of higher quality, compared to what I already had (a South Bend Heavy 10, which now is for sale), that I came back the next day and took these pictures:
I also had looked up the lathe on Tony Griffith's lathe pages (http://www.lathes.co.uk/colchester/page2.html), which provides an interesting description, and also a nice black and white image of the lathe:
Anyway, as of Sunday morning, the lathe still had not sold. So I decided to purchase. Yesterday, the estate sale company delivered it, and I am eagerly looking forward to trying to run it under power. Apparently, the previous owner had never used it in his home, because there was no 3-phase power there, just some unfinished electrical boxes. For inspection, I did have a chance to take off the top cover plate for the headstock, and the gears all looked fine, with the proper level of clean oil. I also pulled the motor vee belts by hand, and the spindle seemed to turn smoothly.
Does anybody else have any experience with this sort of lathe?
How about any words of advice or warnings, for maintenance and operation?
Thanks in advance,
Jon
The sale went from Friday to Sunday, and I left work early enough to get there on Friday afternoon. I bought a few things, but wasn't intending to purchase a lathe. But this model seemed so interesting looking... And also of higher quality, compared to what I already had (a South Bend Heavy 10, which now is for sale), that I came back the next day and took these pictures:
I also had looked up the lathe on Tony Griffith's lathe pages (http://www.lathes.co.uk/colchester/page2.html), which provides an interesting description, and also a nice black and white image of the lathe:
Anyway, as of Sunday morning, the lathe still had not sold. So I decided to purchase. Yesterday, the estate sale company delivered it, and I am eagerly looking forward to trying to run it under power. Apparently, the previous owner had never used it in his home, because there was no 3-phase power there, just some unfinished electrical boxes. For inspection, I did have a chance to take off the top cover plate for the headstock, and the gears all looked fine, with the proper level of clean oil. I also pulled the motor vee belts by hand, and the spindle seemed to turn smoothly.
Does anybody else have any experience with this sort of lathe?
How about any words of advice or warnings, for maintenance and operation?
Thanks in advance,
Jon