I bought this lathe from a Craigslist ad for $425 (the ad asked for a bit more but we negotiated). It spent a few years in an unheated garage and acquired a layer of rust, mixed with wood dust and grime. Hopefully, as the story develops, I will post more pictures of its move by Machinery Movers of Chicago and restoration to usable condition. This is a Clausing Colchester "Master One and a half" described here. Here's a link to another Colchester lathe owned by Jon of the Practical Machinist forum. Here are pictures of a similar lathe. Tony's excellent webpage discusses Colchester Master lathes. The manual! Clausing Colchester 13 inch lathe manual PDF
This lathe has a two speed, 220v, 3 HP, three phase motor. I will run it from my homemade phase converter at first, but will possibly convert it to a VFD like I installed on my Bridgeport Mill. The bed of the lathe is induction hardened according to the sticker. I picked up and cleaned up the tooling a few days before going to pick up the lathe, due to seller's personal circumstances. |
To move this lathe, I had to make a wooden cart on casters. I hope that I will be able to use this cart for all sorts of other purposes.
See also: how to use a lathe.