Whilst not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm … I have just carefully read your conflicting constraints !

A glib response is : You may find one alongside the rocking-horse manure.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ for a reality-check, I suggest you have a look at this site:

https://www.colchesterspares.com/

Does your budget include for an inverter, etc to get the 3-phase machine running or are you lucky enough to have 3P supply?

On a site that in the main generously values tools I’d say you were lucky to miss it.

Beware of the freshly painted and ask for close up photos of the ways near the chuck to check for wear ridges.

Hi, the Student is an old machine, and were last made 50 or so years ago, but while they are good machines, they will wear over time and use, I’ve used one in one of my day jobs, and that was fairly well worn, so getting a cheap one could cost you just as much again or more, to restore it. Nothing really wrong with getting a decent Chinese lathe, but if you are planning to do really high spec work, you’ll have to pay a few thousand quid for one. The Harrison ones seem to fetch a much higher price though.

To be honest, being that you are a novice, you may be better off buying any reasonable cheap lathe to get you started and gain a bit of experience of using a lathe, that way if you mess up the machine, it won’t hurt your wallet so much.

Regards Nick.

I spent a year or two looking for a decent M300 or similar and put in a lot of miles around the country.
My home town at the time has a couple of reliable machinery dealers; here’s two of examples from a dealer there
https://www.pjmachines.com/blank?Category=Lathes
Colchester Bantum (sic) £2K   & an M300 £2.5K

I was looking at an M300 at this one, and arranged a demo of an affordable machine so he wired it up for me in advance; it had a distinct tick when running from the headstock, so likely a chipped gear.
All credit to the owner of the company, he noticed it too, so we left it on the shelf as it were, as the price of a replacement headstock gear (pair) would have exceeded my budget.
I relate that as you need to see a machine up and running; Ideally under load, rather than just looking for observable bed wear.
In the end I picked up a Warco GH1330 from a deceased estate, via a third party who knew its true value, but that was £2k by the time I’d arranged transport 5 years ago and they’ve increased in value since then.
Phil has M300s & M250s, but is unlikely to be cheap and prices are POA
http://www.philgeesinmachinery.co.uk/used-machine-tools/lathes/

Tony’s site has a Mk2 Student for £850
https://store.lathes.co.uk/adverts/for-sale/colchester-student-mk-2-lathe-0

https://lathes.co.uk/page3.html/

Bill

p.s. don’t forget that wiring up an industrial machine with safety interlocks etc, to an inverter, is rather more complicated than a simple home machine with just a single motor.

As it sounds like you want to use this commercially you should really also factor in bringing it upto safety standards. Might get away without if just using in the garage at home but if you were to have an accident will insurance co pay out if it did not have chuck and leadscrew covers etc?

Hopefully you will find one with a good collet chuck for your holding needs unless you are going to clock it in with a 4-jaw every time. Even if you went soft jaws in a 3-jaw you are going to have to factor in a used machine will come with a worn chuck.

As you have seen the normal prices that cheap one linked above must be in a very obscure corner of Scotland otherwise it would have been snapped up by a garage trader instantly. Since you started by saying you were a complete novice and the search may take years you should get a little old Drummond or something for about £300 to learn a bit before going all out with a 3HP machine.

Hi messy457, the best new lathe you will get for up to £1k, will be one of the many Mini lathes. However, the best new lathe would be what you are wanting to do on it, and most of them are above £1K and higher, which is dependent on how large a piece of metal you wish to use on it among other things, to start with. But only you can decide, as one mans delight maybe others horror.

Regards Nick.

Is it just this machining of stainless you want it for? And how much metal to remove? is it just opening out the end of stainless tube or reducing long lengths of 30mm bar down to a much smaller diameter?

While there are bechtop machines out there that will pass 38mm through the (short) spindle and could turn stainless to within a thou for under £1K new it is not something you may want to do on them regularly or if time matters.

Good luck in your search. BUT I think your mentor has missed out an important message. Be realistic.  1k + 1k will get you nothing near the well looked after in almost perfect nick machine that you are looking for. Even a half decent Boxford with a 22mm bore will set you back that much or more.