Thanks for the guidance, thermite. I know whatever I find will be a project to at least some degree. I'd still like a nicer and larger lathe than my Sheldon. For what it's worth, the catalog number on mine is "S.E.W.Q.M." It has an ordnance inspection stamp (ordnance bomb) next to the serial number on the end of the ways, indicating military usage. The base/cabinet is not original. Here's a photo:
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I'd still like to upgrade to a larger, nicer lathe, even if a "project."
"Nicer" is subjective. Some folks like the "bigger" Schaublins, for example. Go figure.
Stiffer, and capable of moving metal faster, is easier to put "real numbers" to.
Even rather pedestrian South Korean Wacheon's (Mori Seiko clones..) do that well-enough. Still in brand-new production, those are, so the chance of finding one ready to use is higher. Price is tougher, of course.
"Larger" than your Sheldon, work-envelope-wise, a 12CK isn't by much.
Prolly swings 14 1/2" - plus over the ways, but a 14" nominal or "trade size" swings around 16" there.
My rationale for the roughly 14" X 30" HBX-360 as a "step up" from 10EE's wasn't so much the greater swing - it was 30" center-to-center vs only twenty inches.
Annnnnnnd.. that per a "reliable source", (PM's own Milacron hisself..) it had very little significant bed or cross wear, and only a "possibly" fried motor I could easily replace with a Dee Cee monster I have on-hand.
It also made more sense to me to go for an inherently "Metric" inch/metric lathe that could cut US threads easily as well as metric rather than to mess with transposing gears, supplementary charts, and finessing half-nuts engagement/dis-engagement or NOT.
Both cases, I have 2500 to 3000 + max RPM on-tap. Newer 10EE had 4,000 RPM. My bearings will stand it if I want to go there with a pulley change.
CAVEAT: Chucks have to be either/both a) selected as high-RPM capable, b) smaller - ELSE shed outright for collet systems to make use of the top RPM.
My investment in chucks and SEVERAL collet systems alone would burn
triple your entire $2,000 target budget. Mind, that's enough to cover TWO 10EE without sharing, 'Coz ONE of them is not meant to stay here forever, and my "plan" is it leaves VERY well tooled-up AND NOT pieced-out.
A 12CK is what? 600 or 700 RPM, tops? Only good news in that is most any chuck that it can provide clear swing for will stand 1200 RPM!
But that makes a lot of turning work a tad challenging that is probably easier to do on the Sheldon you already have with its higher top RPM.
"More research" might be put onto yer tasking list?
If I hadn't stumbled on the Cazeneuve, I might have wanted a Lodge & Shipley "AVS", first-generation (the DC drive ones, not the AC+VFD ones). Monarch Machine Tool owned L&S by then. They were - as claimed - "good lathes". Very.