I want a lathe! were to get one cheap?

[weedwacker]

Needs to have a +18" swing and that can be through a gap bed. I am on the east coast and I have 1500 bucks to spend. Where can I find something useable at that price? Am I waisting my time looking?

[PTSchram]

Gee, there aren't any used equipment dealers on the East coast?

Start by looking for auction companies, machinery sales companies (trade-ins, etc), etc. You'll find one, but for that price and that size, if it has any life left in it, it won't be worth much.

You'll find that big lathes are either dirt cheap as they aren't needed, or they are worn out beyond rebuilding.

[weedwacker]

I have browsed a few dealer sites but I really have no idea what the cost of one of these things is so I wouldn't know a good deal if i saw one. I guess I need to chase down someone with some knowledge in lathes to get some on the spot advice when I see one.

Thanks for the info.

[Oxjockey]

Wow! That's a big lathe...I'd expect anything that big to be 3-phase, no?

Bryan

[hotcowboy76]

Check on ebay I know whenever i am looking for large machines they are allways on the east coast!

[jnutter]

Try auctions. Look for the machinery liquidation auction houses in your area and start watching them. Look for the small to medium sized 'shop going out of business' type auctions. Watch E-bay too. You'll see alot of older iron go for cheap there, especially if you are on the East Coast near New Jersey, New York or anywhere further North towards New England. The prices that stuff goes for out there make me sick. Machine prices are about twice as high here in Minnesota.

The good news is that the size of lathe you are looking at will usually go for a lot less than a 10" Southbend. Hobby guys typically don't touch anything that big, and if it's 50 years old a serious shop will probably not have much interest in it either. By the end of WWII Lathes had all the features you need, unless you want to do Metric threading. They were built well back then too, and a lot of them have survived in servicable condition.

My lathe is called an 18" (actual swing is 19.5"), it was made in the late 40s or ealy 50s. I got it at auction for $900 and I paid $300 to get it moved, becuase it weighs about 4000 lbs. I can't even begin to tell you how many small lathes I've seen go for $1200, so I think I did OK becuase I got a lot more lathe and it was a lot less worn that your typical Southbend.

One of the best ways to learn about lathes is to take a class at your local vo-tech. I did this a year ago, and it was the best thing I could have done. I only took the first class in mills and lathes, but I learned more than enough to get started. You will learn what you need in a lathe as you make your projects, and you will also learn what tooling you need.

Don't be afraid to deal with an older lathe that needs a little repair. They are surpsingly easy to fix. I think part of the reason mine went for so cheap was becuase the clutch was out of adjustment and they had a bolt jammed under the handle to hold it engaged. That took about 15 minutes to fix, without a manual to go by. I just did some searches on the various machine shop boards and figured out how the clutches were typically adjusted and went from there. I also had to replace a couple bearings and a seal in the drive section, my local bearing house had all of that.

You will want to get an idea of what wear on the ways looks like before you buy anything. That's not so easy to fix. Start looking at the machine shop boards and you'll find enough info to figure out what you are looking at there.

Edit: Almost forgot, this is worth reading how to buy a lathe (http://www.mermac.com/advicenew.html)

Here's some boards to check out:
Home shop machinist board (http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/ubbs/Ultimate.cgi)
Chaski board, general machining section (http://www.chaski.com/ubb/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=gendiscussion)
Practical machinist board (http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi)

[YJ4RoX]

if your willing to drive or ship it. check out Norman Machine in baltimore. We just bought an entire shop of stuff from them. Nice guys and great prices. we bought two lathes, 20x80 and 14x60, vert & horz saws a lagun mill and Radial arm drill. the lathes and mill have digi readouts too.

there are soooooo many machines setting in warhouses right now its ridiculous. you should be able to find a usable 16-18" lathe for the money your talking. it may need work but it will be a good start.

good luck

[weedwacker]

Great info ! Thanks for the help.

[PXJ]

We got ours from a smaller stock car shop going out of business. We also had a machine shop neighbor that has hooked us up on numerous occasions with stuff from auctions. We got an old LeBlonde for $500 that really needed nothing but a cord and a switch. It has paid for itself a thousand times. If you have a local job(small run machine shop) shop that you work with, ask them. It paid off for us.

[weedwacker]

Jnutter thanks for the info, that was a great read on how to buy. Norman Machine is loaded! I just wish they had prices posted. Not much fun calling about a machine that is 25K. If you fellows know of a sweet buy on the east -southeast area hook me up. Just to let you know I want to be able to turn a 17 inch H2 wheel,that the reason for the huge swing.
Thanks

[YJ4RoX]

hey weedwacker, here ya go man.

www.surplusrecord.com

just a warning, if you post a wanted ad you will be swamped with used machinery quotes. You can search state by state, post a want ad, etc...

we have a cheap birmingham lathe for the techs that may swing a hummer rim. It was only about $2k brand new. I will have to check how deep the gap in the bed is. Sometimes the knockout is short so you can swing say a 18" dia piece but it can only be about 4" long by the time you chuck it up. You also have to make sure the cross feed will run out far enough to work the OD if you need that worked.

[weedwacker]

Oh yeah, I'll find something there. Looks like a place right up the road might have something I can use. What ever i get needs a minumum of 19 inch swing 9 inches wide through the bed. This will give me .250 clearance with an H2 wheel. Thanks for the help. If that Birmingham lathe is large enough I'd like to know where you got it. Thanks YJ

[ful8inch]

If you've got any vocational schools around you that have machining courses, you may be able to check with them. At work we got a 15"x50" for $1000 cause one of the shafts in the gearbox was bent from a student, the only side effect from it is that it makes a little more noise when it's at a certain speed.