So I pulled the top cover off the lathe and my heart sank.. Someone in times past has welded the high/low selector dog to the low gear on the spindle effectively limiting the machine to around 140 rpm max speed. The original maximum speed of 530 rpm was on the low side compared to other machines but would have been ok for my needs..

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Given the age of the machine and the fact that the manufacturer no longer exists the chances of procuring replacement parts are extremely slim at best.. I guess my only hope is to track down a donor machine and cannibalise the parts out of that.. Otherwise I have no idea what I'm going to do. Athough it appears that the welds are not that great I don't know if it is even possible to separate the two pieces.. I guess I'll need to pull them off the shaft and have a look.

Which leads me to my next question.. How do I remove the chuck from the spindle? From the info available on the net the lock nut you can see in the picture keeps the front bearing in place and does nothing to retain the chuck.. The only lathe that I have used to this point is a small Sieg C6 and the chuck was retained with lock nuts on a backplate. I'm assuming that the backplate shown in the attached image is meant to stay with the chuck.

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Anyway whilst I'm a little disheartened I am not defeated (yet)..
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