.

Yes.

Bought both my mill and lathe blind on ebay and got the seller to strap them to a pallet and send them.

Both exceeded my expectations on condition stated and price paid. ………. Perhaps I was just lucky on both occasions.

Nick

My Dad gave me a pile of MEs from the 40s and 50s that he had been given (I think by my uncle, but I'm, not sure).

I took them on holiday to Devon and spent most of the week devouring them.

As a teenager I had been fascinated by the idea of a lathe (without knowing a great deal about them) but put off and encouraged towards electronics and model boats, railways etc… probably because they thought I would rip my arm off with one (good job they never figured out how risky my adventures with mains electricity and pyrotechnics were).

The holiday reawakened my interest. I counted my pennies and even a second hand Myford appeared unlikely. In Machine Mart I found a returned and apparently unused mini-lathe for a knock-down price by coincidence and accidentally bought it. I already had boxed off part of the dining room/kitchen as a 6×7 workshop so it moved in, followed rapidly by a bench drill.

The rest, as they say, is history, or if not history, farce…

Neil

Nothing exciting but:

About 30 years ago I managed to get my hands on an old Colchester Master lathe from either Exchange and Mart or Loot, cant remember which. Chuck wise it it was well equiped and the lathe in more than acceptable condition.

As with many quite a few lathes about then, practically all the change wheels had vanished and no steadies.

It took me about 6 months of continually rumaging around in scrap yards trying to build up a full set of the correct DP wheels to eventually build a full set, several being modified by bushing or boring etc. Alternative steadies were sourced, reworked or adapted to suit.

I dont know if this was just was an excuse to rumage and nosey round but it was always so satisfying as usually something else was bought when leaving. Nobody seemed to bother when you explained the mission you were on, you just got a free hand to roam at will. At the time there was a lot bigger choice of yards about, a lot more machine tools, textile machinery, printing equipment, engines etc being scrapped off.

No chance now with H & S controls, plus scrap yards just Ebay some of what comes thru'. I miss that ability to roam free in them for bits. Dont think I have enjoyed equiping a lathe as much since.

I was very fortunate when buying a lathe and milling machine from places I worked at.

The first was the lathe as I had outgrown the Myford M type which had served my well.

I learned that a lathe in the tool room was to be thrown out because the clutch was worn out so one lunchtime went to have a look. The lathe was made in 1946, the same as me and fortunately a friend of mine worked there. The lathe was a Henry Milnes, 6 1/2 inch with a removable gap allowing 21 inches, just right for the 3" Marshall 'S' type that I fancied. It had a screwcutting gearbox, coolant and was 3 ph.

The clutchplates were ​ submerged in oil and were operated by a Maxim toggle that had been repeatedly adjusted by the maintenance dept. so that now the clutch would not stay engaged.

I bought it for the scrap value of £100 and had to dismantle it to get it home!. Once the Maxim toggle was loosened it worked perfectly for many years.

Them milling machine was much the same. It had been bought by the company to mill serrated plates used on the Harrier jump jet and when that job stopped, the machine had to go.

The machine was horizontal and vertical with power feed on all three axis and a non-working digital readout.

As it happened the company had an avionics department so I asked one of the inspectors if he could have a look at it for me. He was back minutes later to say that the fault was a 3p resistor that had burnt out and he had replaced it with the result that everything now worked. It cost £100 to buy the 5 ton machine and another £100 to get it moved.

Sadly, I had to downsize a few years ago because chucks and vices were becoming too heavy to lift. I now have a Boxford 'A' and a bench miller.

Brian

Edited By Brian Hutchings on 03/06/2017 18:34:02

I had a guy lift my Smart&Brown with a forklift into the back of my old van .. which made it sit down and creak somewhat.. They're heavy ! Coming back home from Chatham to Maidstone , down Bluebell hill ,at a fair lick , I had an awful job to slow down at the bottom with brake fade ….

Some years ago I was working in the Perishing Gulf. I wanted a lathe larger than a Myford and decided a Harrison M300 was a good machine to look out for. Over a few weeks I scoured eBay for suitable possibilities. About a week before I was due home, a likely candidate came up for auction by a private seller. He had bought the machine in question from an educational establishment in North London, but after a couple of years ownership using it for amateur gun smithing, he was emigrating to Spain and couldn't take it with him.

I watched the bidding, but no bids until one morning I looked and the listing had been withdrawn. Damn. But lo and behold an hour or so later, it reappeared with a Buy-It-Now price. I jumped in and bought it unseen.

I hired a transit van the day after I got home and went to collect it and was told what had happened. Which was that a potential buyer had been out to the seller's house, tried out the lathe and told the seller to put up the BiN price and when he got back home he would take it. It just so happened that I saw the BiN price before the other chap got back home! I believe there were some unpleasant phone calls from the guy who lost out.

As usual with college machines, there is no wear and it was comprehensively equipped but the paint is tatty thanks to some bored pupils. Very pleased with it.

It goes to show that with care bargains can be had on eBay.

Dave
The Emerald Isle

"and told the seller to put up the BiN price and when he got back home he would take it. It just so happened that I saw the BiN price before the other chap got back home!"

I had something very similar with a BIN I put up for a buyer at a prearranged time. He spent too long over dinner and was late getting to his computer only to find it had gone to someone else. Of course it was my fault.

Roger

Not a Lathe but a Axminster X1 Mini Mill.

Couple of years back there was an advert on the bay for a X1 mill but it had to be collected, turned out it was less than a 10 min drive from home.

The story with it, was the mill belonged to her ex father in law and it had been in her shed for a couple of years. As he failed to collect it she wanted it gone. The mill was in as new condition so I paid up and left a very happy bunny.

A couple of days later she emailed me to say she had found some outher bits which she thought might be related to the mill if I wanted them to go and collect them or she would bin them.

Turned out the outher bits were a full set of work clamps, three M2 collets, various cutters, some bar stock and a very nice 4" rotary table.

And the cost of this bargin a full Sixty Seven Great British Pounds.

I'd been looking for a cheap lathe for months but finally bought my ML7 off ebay just over 3 years ago from Bede Tools and Machinery (**LINK** – No affiliation but very happy customer) purely by chance but I felt like I'd fallen on my feet.

Barry put it, the stand and the tooling on a pallet for me held upright with some webbing ratchet straps, which he asked for me to return which I duly did to his surprise. It's been great fun although he reckoned I'd have grown out of it pretty soon. It came with an old 5" 3-jaw, a beaten up but functioning 4-jaw, faceplates, an old Jacob's chuck, a 4-way toolpost and some old taper drills.

It was in need of a bit (well quite a lot TBH) of TLC and I've mended quite a few bits over the years and upgraded toolposts etc but it's still going strong and is in regular use.

HTH

Jon

Back in 2009 I wanted a lathe to fabricate some fittings to enable me to fit forks from a different motorcycle on to mine. Plans for the spacers were provided by the online owners club. So I found lathes.co.uk and a Barker 5×24 and then read up on that lathe. It was down in Hereford. Arranged with a mate to lend a hand and set off down to Hereford where the lathe was duly demonstrated, loaded into my Vectra estate after much cussing and heavng, and we set off back home. My pal said "Be bloody careful, we must have half a ton of metal behind us!". All went well until we were reaching a junction where we would turn off. All of a sudden cars, lorries and a National Express coach began swerving around in front of us. Then a blue Rover 75 towing a caravan swerved and launched the caravan about a foot in the air! Then we saw the cause of the problem – a set of ladders spinning across the M1 carriageway heading our way. I gingerly applied the brakes and steered towards the off ramp. The ladders lazily passed just in front of us on their journey to the outside lane. We both needed a stiff drink after that!

I managed to get an Elliott 10" shaper for £112 on ebay after the seller had only put "model engineer" in the title so hardly anybody was bidding on it. It was collection only but for £40 he loaded into his van (lived about 15 miles away) and out of it on to my drive and into my garage. Bargain!

A friend rang me and said there is a lathe rusting away in a coal bunker
next door I picked it up it was an old Myford super seven with no tailstock