Thread: Colchester

Originally Posted by Graziano

A real genuine Master 2500 is relatively rare

Are you sure your thinking of master and not chipmaster ?

The chipmaster was the pyramid shaped thing, relatively small, constantly variable speed.

The master looked like a triumph/student etc generic colchester. They were just the middle size between student and triumph.

Colchester lathes

A very good site with lathe information. I refer to it because I often forget what I was using 20 years ago....

Originally Posted by damian

Are you sure your thinking of master and not chipmaster ?

The chipmaster was the pyramid shaped thing, relatively small, constantly variable speed.

The master looked like a triumph/student etc generic colchester. They were just the middle size between student and triumph.

Colchester lathes

A very good site with lathe information. I refer to it because I often forget what I was using 20 years ago....

According to Colchester people I've spoken to, it is rarer. They fielded a full range of lathes for the market but the Master 2500 undersold almost all the other models in the series . It's interesting that the Master 2500 was only made for 6 years vs 9 for the Triumph 2000. I'm having trouble making sense of the serial numbers for the models on Tony's site as they all seem to start from the same number each year but it looks like it's at least 10:1 Triumph to Master sales.

Fair enough, I just never thought the straight "master" was special. But then I can't remember if the ones I've used were 2500's or not.

The chipmaster was a completely different beast, about student size but every part seemed different, and they were a dedicated precision lathe, toolroom whatever you want to call it. Never liked them much, hard to clean, not a lot of swing and I've never been partial to the variable drive.

Anyway good luck to any prospective buyers, hope you get a good machine at a good price.