Hopefully this is a fairly easy one, once the answer is known!!

I have a Sieg C3 mini lathe.

I was turning some al.alloy this a.m., everything was going well until it stalled. This is not particularly unusual, but not a frequent occurrence. I turned the speed control back to zero, turned the Forward/Off/Reverse switch to "Off", then back to "Forward", this usually resets everything. Turned up the speed control and nothing happened. First thought was the fuse, checked that, it seemed o.k., but it was changed anyway. Went through the start up procedure, nothing. Tried it in reverse and it worked! That is the spindle turned in reverse. So I took the control box off, having unplugged the machine, there were no signs of any burned out components, no smell of escaping smoke. It all looked fine. Reassembled everything and tried again, and again it would only run in reverse. The spindle is free to rotate in both directions.

Does anyone out there who has experienced this sort of thing, or has any idea what is going on??

cheers

Bill