- Thread starter rikrobson
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brightspark
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this business of light use only from a school is a load of crap. course they use and abuse them 
Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
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Damn damn damn damn.
I paid £170 for mine with no leadscrew / cutting box
You didn't miss much. That one near you is a very early, non-underdrive with no leadscrew and Boxford's older style 2-lever backgear selection. Probably 50s or early 60s.
I wondered if the red highlights were added by a school to make the operator think about which control he was turning/ pulling/ twisting/ snapping
Mine http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/raglan-5inch-lathe-with-tooling.60930/ is going to join them on ebay if it's not sold this weekend. Should do ok assuming their prices are about right. Extra milling cross slide...... travelling steady....fixed steady ....3 and 4 jaw chucks plus decent face plate should give it the edge.
Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
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this business of light use only from a school is a load of crap. course they use and abuse them
My previous Boxford AUD was ex-school from Oxfordshire and the bed had a few silly marks but nothing bad; the headstock bearings had never been adjusted to take out a bit of play so it hadn't done any accurate work in a while!
My current VSL was ex-school from Retford; it has some lash in the leadscrews (less than 90 degrees on the cross-slide handwheel, still way better than a lot of them) and the bed's quite good compared to some but it's missing a lot of paint and when I got it I thought the gearbox was broken as it wouldn't change gear. It turned out to just need a bloody good lubing, my guess is that the yoof of Lincolnshire didn't get to cut many threads apart from the pitch it was set to
Luckily both had most of the original equipment apart from the VSL missing its 3-jaw chuck; a year after I got it I spotted one for sale on Ebay, banged in a bid then realised it was the same seller I got the lathe from so who knows, maybe it was the original chuck for it
On the other hand my Colchester has a plate saying it was reconditioned and rebuilt by a firm in Halifax, sometime after it was built in 1970 and sometime before UK phone numbers got the extra '1' after the first '0', so my guess is it initially had a hard life and needed regrinding - but since then it doesn't seem to have suffered much; I bought it from the family of the deceased chap who bought it from the company he worked for and although I've seen them go cheaper, it came with all the necessaries and more importantly was just down the road so saved a long day's drive, fuel etc.
As a workshop technician in a college & now a school the term "Ex School" can be an advantage. Normally schools & colleges bought top quality machines that came with full sets of tooling. Most will have been well maintained but with the proviso that idiots will often have used them & done stupid things like running the saddle into the chuck or trying to change gear with it running thereby mashing the gears!
What also often happens is that many schools will have teachers or management who are risk averse & wont use them.
Often machines will sit there for decades with no use at all.
My Harrison 140 is a prime example, i worked at the local college for 12 years & in that time i doubt if it ran for 10 hours a year, its problem was that a technician who should have known better had filled the gearbox solid with thick grease. It has no perceptible wear on it & i have seen many similar ex school or college machines.
On the other hand you might find one so brutalised that its us but on the whole i would prefer an ex education machine over one that had been hammered day in day out in industry.
What also often happens is that many schools will have teachers or management who are risk averse & wont use them.
Often machines will sit there for decades with no use at all.
My Harrison 140 is a prime example, i worked at the local college for 12 years & in that time i doubt if it ran for 10 hours a year, its problem was that a technician who should have known better had filled the gearbox solid with thick grease. It has no perceptible wear on it & i have seen many similar ex school or college machines.
On the other hand you might find one so brutalised that its us but on the whole i would prefer an ex education machine over one that had been hammered day in day out in industry.
rikrobson
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Mine http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/raglan-5inch-lathe-with-tooling.60930/ is going to join them on ebay if it's not sold this weekend. Should do ok assuming their prices are about right. Extra milling cross slide...... travelling steady....fixed steady ....3 and 4 jaw chucks plus decent face plate should give it the edge.
It was just a little too much out of my budget and a little too far, other wise it would have been heading to Scotland
rikrobson
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You didn't miss much. That one near you is a very early, non-underdrive with no leadscrew and Boxford's older style 2-lever backgear selection. Probably 50s or early 60s.
I wondered if the red highlights were added by a school to make the operator think about which control he was turning/ pulling/ twisting/ snapping
It was a model B, with leadscrew and powered long and cross feeds. no gearbox, so the screw cutting is by change wheels. It Didn't stare what the extra's were, But the was a thread indicator on it. I actually thing it had £120 as a buy it now, but i could be mistaken. Any way if it went for £120 it was a bargain.
zx9
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I would try to hold on a bit mate, many folk are getting Christmas credit card bills and us self employed have a Self Assesment payment due at the weekend if that is not bad enough, I've got a VAT quarter to pay two weeks later. Much as I would like a lathe there are other need to spend demands on my pocket.Mine http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/raglan-5inch-lathe-with-tooling.60930/ is going to join them on ebay if it's not sold this weekend. Should do ok assuming their prices are about right. Extra milling cross slide...... travelling steady....fixed steady ....3 and 4 jaw chucks plus decent face plate should give it the edge.
Wendelspanswick
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I agree with ZX9, January/February is a good time to buy but a bad time to sell.
I understand that mate. Thats why I offered a Bargain price to Rik and whilst I can deliver Local delivery to Scotland and back in a 19 to the gallon Navara was never going to be an option.
As I have said though more capable machines can be had for the same money if you h ave the space and can run 3 phase so I was never sure it would sell on here. On ebay there are more who require small footprint and maybe have just retired etc.
Its more a case of I need the space although if I had a committed buyer I could cover it up for a while. Plus I have been offered a milling machine.....
its easier to blag the wife if she know the smaller lathe is going (I have been saying I will sell it for a long time now but everytime I use it I fall in love again) lol (with the lathe not the wife) I do know what you mean about buyers in January and feb though. The thing is when is there a good time to sell. extra cash has been taken away from virtually anyone who buys of ebay and other such places.
I have a complete Vinyl cutting business in a box to sell which I was going to sell for the xmas trade but very few people had enough money to buy it and even less the capability to use it constructively in a short space to be of benefit to them getting it before xmas. Now is the time to but it as they would have a month or so to learn the ropes before the spring summer rush.
I was offering it with a website (on line designer) but the package I was using has now been discontinued so I need to relearn/reinstall the new one before I can demo it to a potential buyer...lol
I also have rolls of Clear Viny and Laminate plus see through backlite printing medium for the Craft trade but thats pretty dead just now. As you say people have no money and I cant see it getting any better.
rikrobson
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I have no money now. 
On my way back to Scotland with a metric boxford bud in the back of the car. Gertrude kinda put the kybosh on the trailer idea.
So we split it from the Base and it fits in ok
Looks like I'll be finding out how to refit it this weekend.
I'll probably rewire it too. It's a 3ph motor with inverter so it's got speed control ☺
Loads of change gears and cutting tools come with it as well as some chucks.
I'll start a new thread when I'm back with photos
On my way back to Scotland with a metric boxford bud in the back of the car. Gertrude kinda put the kybosh on the trailer idea.
So we split it from the Base and it fits in ok
Looks like I'll be finding out how to refit it this weekend.
I'll probably rewire it too. It's a 3ph motor with inverter so it's got speed control ☺
Loads of change gears and cutting tools come with it as well as some chucks.
I'll start a new thread when I'm back with photos
Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
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My mistake, I thought it was a C as I couldn't make out the power feed lever (titchy Windows Phone
)... but even so a B of that era is unlikely to do a novice any favours. I guess even if the bed was like a banana you could probably claw back £120 by breaking it for spares.I've walked away from a good few lathes that were advertised as mint, unworn, hardly-used etc. that unless you had a lot of time and patience really weren't worth bothering with. I think the worst was a Myford ML4, screwed to a sheet of chipboard, being powered by a washing machine motor set at spin speed
and with a snapped-off chisel as a cutting tool. Might have been OK for some wood-butchery but its best use would have been as a counterbalance on the crane used to pick up a decent one
Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
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I have no money now.
On my way back to Scotland with a metric boxford bud in the back of the car. Gertrude kinda put the kybosh on the trailer idea.
So we split it from the Base and it fits in ok
Looks like I'll be finding out how to refit it this weekend.
I'll probably rewire it too. It's a 3ph motor with inverter so it's got speed control ☺
Loads of change gears and cutting tools come with it as well as some chucks.
I'll start a new thread when I'm back with photos
Excellent
Not complicated in the slightest to rebuild or rewire; it probably had a full set of interlock switches when new but these are often removed/bypassed by post-school owners as they think they're invincible.
Wedg1e
They call me Mr. Bodge-angles
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delivery to Scotland and back in a 19 to the gallon Navara was never going to be an option.
I dream of 19 to the gallon
That silver thing on the left <<< does 18mpg on a good day.
Shox Dr
Chief Engineer to Carlos Fandango
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I dream of 19 to the gallon
That silver thing on the left <<< does 18mpg on a good day.
That's very poor of a navara, what yr is it. I got an average of 26mpg over 3yrs
I have no money now.
On my way back to Scotland with a metric boxford bud in the back of the car. Gertrude kinda put the kybosh on the trailer idea.
So we split it from the Base and it fits in ok
Looks like I'll be finding out how to refit it this weekend.
I'll probably rewire it too. It's a 3ph motor with inverter so it's got speed control ☺
Loads of change gears and cutting tools come with it as well as some chucks.
I'll start a new thread when I'm back with photos
Hope you are back safe and sound.--quite surprised you came down but well done you, sorry i missed you, another day perhaps.
Look forward to the weekend update.
Stan
It's an 07...I know it's poor but it's like everything else expensive to diagnose and it shows no fault codes..lol
