Britannia lathes?

[Chipper]

I'm after a lathe and there's a couple of Britannias for sale locally, I could do with your advice. Workshop space is a factor, and also cost. Don't envisage doing anything too demanding, small stuff for cars & bikes. I liked the look of these because of the price, size and the gap bed.

Would these be OK for a beginner? Will I get tools & parts OK? Size and price they're spot on, but I know nowt... any advice appreciated.

One's from the 20's I think. Says it has MT2 tapers, 650mm between centres, 200 max diameter over bed, 290mm in the gap. 3x chuck back plates - guess no actual chuck (?) - again I know naff all about what to look for.
The other says 24" between centres, don't know any more yet.

 

[cumbriasteve]

There are still a lot of lathes around from the time period you mention, probably a sign of their build quality and still capable of producing good results..IF they are in good order.

The problem is the age may also means many many years of use and the wear that comes with the years to the bushes etc, tools should be fairly universal and should be ok to get, chucks tend to also be avaiable for most the old lathes I can imagine other specific spare parts not so easy to get but would you ever need them if you are only doing occasional light use, if it's lasted 80 years or so then another 10 is no big deal.

Think the answer is to see the lathe turn down a bit of bar and see how it turns out for accuaracy.

 

[GrahamGKD]

This site may be of interest?

 

[Chipper]

Thanks guys. One needs a pulley system making so can't see it run. Trying to see them both this week, see how it goes.

 

[Andy from Workshopshed]

This site may be of interest?

Yes, that chap will help you fit lathes to back plates if you can't find any off the shelf ones to fit.

MT2 taper is quite common so you will get bits for that. Lathe tooling is pretty universal. You should be able to make some replacement pulleys on that.

 

[awemawson]

I would advise you to steer away from the Britannias, which although superbly made lack many features of modern lathes and accessories are like hens teeth to find. I would suggest a better propositon is an earlyish Colchester Student. Many of them about from the mid 1960's onwards and masses of accessories and tooling. Extremely solid and long lasting. Ebay abounds with them.

 

[nickk]

also myfords,loads of bits around & accurate.

 

[Chipper]

Thanks for that chaps. I'll keep looking. It's horrible not knowing how to really check one out. My Dad's offered to lend me his small Unimat though, so I'll try and get a bit of learning with that in the meantime.

 

[hotrodder]

The http://www.lathes.co.uk/index.html link that Graham posted has beginners buying guides for general advice and the machine specific pages cover individual weakpoints/quirks