Late model Boxford lathe

[rotarySMP]

I was at my mates place when he got his Boxford Industrial 10.30, so I made a video review of it. Nice lathe.

 

[neanderthal mach]

Nice well looked after lathe other than that trapped coolant under the compound. I almost bought one from G and M Tools in the UK a number of years ago. Same metric based machine, so that sort of put me off. I can and have worked in metric, but imperial is by far my preference. A dro would fix most of that, but exact single point threading for a wide range of imperial pitches would still have been my main issue. That Boxford might be properly designed and set up a bit different, but my current lathe has the same lead screw coiled guarding his does. It's a great idea, but for mine it didn't allow the carriage to move all that close enough to the head stock when using a face plate. And it's a pita to lube the lead screw. I ended up removing mine and gained a bit over 2" of travel.

The first shot using that carriage lever showed that pivot block for it was a bit loose. Since I've never used that exact lathe, I can only guess. I think its safe to assume it was designed so that lever swings up to a complete horizontal position and has spring loaded detent's to hold it in position up or down. But the user manual / parts exploded view should confirm that. Very odd Boxford would chose multiple shims for the correct offset spacing. I'd be checking into that a whole lot more because somethings not right. Since spare parts may not even be available now, or for sure would be expensive. I think I'd go to all the extra work and drop the apron for a detailed analysis of what the internal gear alignments are and how there supposed to work with that gear engagement lever.