I was lucky with my ML7 that way and I see the difference it makes coming with clutch, chucks, steadies, faceplates, centres, milling attachment and quite a few tools, never mind all the gears etc. A retired engineer had it and came with all the tooling for £700 5 years ago. I have since added a QC toolpost and ER32 collet chuck and collets.Well you want something about the size of a Colchester student and I don't really think you need to be any more specific. I couldn't say whether any one would be better than any other, M300, M250, Colchester, Harrison, they're all potentially excellent machines. I say "potentially" because they will all be used so each individual one will need to be judged on its merit.
FWIW, I suggest you draw up a short list which matches your "red line" requirements; physical size, through bore (does it take a bike spindle), cost etc. Once you know the sort of machine you're looking for, be ready to grab one. Put out feelers ideally with schools and obviously eBay searches, lathes.co.uk, machinery's forums. Build up an idea on cost but the very most important thing: what tooling does it come with.
A decent lathe which comes with a lifetimes collection of tooling is the holy grail for upgrading your workshop. Obviously that's 3jaw/4jaw but perhaps more than one of each and various sizes, collet chuck and collets, steady rests and travelling steadies are also handy to have. The ist is endless. Generally speaking, I'd much rather have a nominally inferior lathe with a vast collection of tooling than a bare bones "better" machine with no tooling.
When I was in the business of buying and selling, it was the tooling that made the money. I could literally buy an entire lathe for less than the cost of some of the individual tooling because the seller was already being pestered to sell off individual parts for more than he was planning on selling the entire lot! That's why you really have to move quickly. Not just to "save" money but because the lathe is worth less than the sum of its parts and what could be a fantastic deal with all of the tools quickly becomes a bare bones machine.
i allways put more money on and knock it off if people ask . that way they feel happy they have had some discount and you got your original price its physiologicalI needed to get rid of my Colchester Student quick due to the Chiron arriving. I sold it for £650 I think.
It had the 3rd shaft control, two speed motor, fixed steady, travelling steady, 3 jaw, 4 jaw, faceplate, catch plate, dogs, QC toolpost and DRO. I put it on eBay and it was sold within minutes to someone from Ireland and he had the cheek to ask me for £50 off because he had to drive so far to collect
I vote for a cva, one of the finest toolroom lathes ever made and far longer lived than a hardinge .
Cva will flatter you and make you smile when you use it
Get a real lathe , Harrison and Colchester are white goods grade
A friend had a CVA and it was a lovely lathe, think the spindle bore was quite small though.
I am hoping whatever I get will be, though I am not knocking the Myford, I enjoy using it: just gets frustrating turning down say stainless bar when I need 10 shallow roughing cuts when a bigger lathe would do say 2.CVA is 1-3/8" though the bore I think. After the Myford 7 it'll be a revelation.