Hello Mark,

Welcome to the forum.

I'm sure you will get lots of suggestions…

Neil

mark hopley:

You might consider a Willson slant bed lathe which will comfortably swing 420mm. They come up on eBay from time to time and seem to be good value. Re-motoring to single phase would be a straightforward alternative to VFD.

I wonder if I might as a question on this post

I have no greater knowledge beyond inserting a 3 pin plug into a socket. Talk of single , three phase and other technical stuff is hard going to paracetamol level.

Recently our heating engineer, suggested that we switch to an electrical boiler, and produced leaflets etc. He then sent round his electrical specialist who calculated the floor area and said oh no you can't you will need two linked boilers which is beyond the local overhead cable capacity. This was not something I was even aware of.

In simple terms how does one establish what equipment can be used in which location . Who should one approach to avoid plunging the district into darkness, is this a rural problem, is a SIMPLE calc available before purchasing larger upgrades of equipment. This info may of help to those intending heavy metal removal

Sorry if the question is "Simple" to some. (We ended up staying with oil)

A secondhand Warco BH600, Chester Craftsman, or Engineers ToolRoom BL12-24 (clones other than paint scheme) will swing up to 18 inches in the gap, as will their successors, and ex Tech College, or Industry lathes.

The problems with ex Industry machines are that they will have worked hard for their living, and are likely to be 3 Phase, and so will need a change of motor to work in a domestic environment off a 13 Amp socket.

Ex Tech College machines will have done little work, but probably been abused, by things like running the toolpost into the chuck and so on.

Once you have a lathe, (and hopefully, a Milling machine) the world will almost be your oyster, with a huge range of jobs now possible.

ENJOY!

Howard