Wow Challenger,
An older jet. Allways makes me look twice. I still remember our first lathe and somtimes wish it was still here. Good luck and here is a story I told a while back.
Dear Ranman,
I have been reading this board for about a week, and have really enjoyed all of the topics and replies. However when I read of your interest in a JET lathe it made me smile on this Easter Sunday,
I have slept at a few Holiday inns, and maybe that is why I ended up with a Jet one day. I bought the thing for 500 bucks. It was a Jet 10/24. It was fitted with an Armstrong Rocker style tool post, and had a home made R8 hand wheel type collet closer. It came with the standard stuff like 3 and 4 jaw chucks centers and a cool little vise for milling with the cross slide.
It became like a family member, and I liked it. I realized it had some limitations, and they were constantly pointed out to me by well meaning machinists. I got an Aloris tool post for it and that helped, although I used the Armstrong for a few years.
One day a man came to my shop looking for work. He was a little down on his luck. He was Alcoholic and nobody would hire the guy. (Can’t blame them) I had a lathe job to do and felt sorry for him. Since much of my experience came from sleeping at the Holiday inn I decided to give him a try. He was a very qualified man. 20 years of nothing but lathe work, from VTL to watch maker type parts, and every thing in between. He helped me in ways I am still discovering. He hated that Jet Lathe, but could get some fine parts off of it.
My wife and I paid for him to go to Rehabilitation but it did not take, and we had a love hate relationship for a few years, when he needed money for his habit he would come by and ask for work, and I would give it to him and he would teach me a thing or two.
My shop makes some Optical parts and often they require strange sizes and pitches of threads. That Jet Lathe would cut inch and over 32 pitch microscope threads in aluminum all day long. I had to fight the thing allot but when that is all you have, that is what you must do. I wore the thing out, and wanted to restore it, but another man offered it a good home for 500 dollars less tool post. I hated to see it loaded up and taken away, it had been a loyal piece of equipment, and it used to make the machinery dealer angry that I made money with it, but it has a good home and is well taken care of. It made about 45 thousand dollars wile at my shop, and is now making some gun parts on a hobby basis for its new owner.
My advice (free) is to consider a cheep lathe of a good cheep brand. Jet is one of the better cheepies, and get on with making some parts. Bigger and better will come to those that are patcient.
Good Luck, and Happy Easter
PS: My Alcoholic friend died from a brain aneurysm. They could have saved him but there was too much alcohol in his system to do the required surgery. I miss him, but I often feel his presence as I run my new lathe.