pkroeze
21st September 2017, 04:46 PM
Hi all,
My names Paul and I've been on this forum a couple months just browsing. Always been interested in wood work but never got off my butt and learned it until about a year ago when I needed to upgrade my Laundry and didn't want to have to sell a kidney just to afford a low quality/horrible chip board bench from Bunnings :no:. Anyway it's been a fun Journey the last year, haven't done half as much as I would like but with the warmth and light in the evenings increasing I get to spend more time doing this.
Anyway to the point of this post I've slowly been collecting tools and I have wanted a wood lathe for a while, A friend alerted me that he could get a lathe and I could have it for $50 and he said it wasn't an old run down thing, so I agreed. I've got no idea what it is, it doesn't have any branding on it that I can find but it is solid, approx 1.5m long and on a very sturdy stand. It's run by a 1HP Crompton Parkinson single phase motor. I did some reading about how to determine what sort of shape it is in and most sources agreed that the bed is important to check and obviously the spindle can't be damaged. So I went out and checked the bed and yes you can see wear on it. It dips away towards the inner edges slightly but I can't tell if it is significant or not. What would be a significant amount of wear? 1mm? 2mm? 3mm? I just want to figure out if I bought something that will work okay or if I've scored a bargain as I've got no idea. My friend that sourced it for me thinks it worth quite a bit. For $50 I'm not too fussed as it will still turn something basic but if it's still it great condition mechanically that would be a pretty cool bonus.
Anyway I will be buying a face plate and center for it tomorrow and potentially testing it tomorrow evening. I'll put some photo's up this evening.
My names Paul and I've been on this forum a couple months just browsing. Always been interested in wood work but never got off my butt and learned it until about a year ago when I needed to upgrade my Laundry and didn't want to have to sell a kidney just to afford a low quality/horrible chip board bench from Bunnings :no:. Anyway it's been a fun Journey the last year, haven't done half as much as I would like but with the warmth and light in the evenings increasing I get to spend more time doing this.
Anyway to the point of this post I've slowly been collecting tools and I have wanted a wood lathe for a while, A friend alerted me that he could get a lathe and I could have it for $50 and he said it wasn't an old run down thing, so I agreed. I've got no idea what it is, it doesn't have any branding on it that I can find but it is solid, approx 1.5m long and on a very sturdy stand. It's run by a 1HP Crompton Parkinson single phase motor. I did some reading about how to determine what sort of shape it is in and most sources agreed that the bed is important to check and obviously the spindle can't be damaged. So I went out and checked the bed and yes you can see wear on it. It dips away towards the inner edges slightly but I can't tell if it is significant or not. What would be a significant amount of wear? 1mm? 2mm? 3mm? I just want to figure out if I bought something that will work okay or if I've scored a bargain as I've got no idea. My friend that sourced it for me thinks it worth quite a bit. For $50 I'm not too fussed as it will still turn something basic but if it's still it great condition mechanically that would be a pretty cool bonus.
Anyway I will be buying a face plate and center for it tomorrow and potentially testing it tomorrow evening. I'll put some photo's up this evening.