I have had a long interest in making things and I have had a good deal of experience of lathe work from many years ag at school and more recently in an number of friends workshops. I have made items for old machines, including some parts for a full size steam loco, a couple of radio dial mechansims very similiar to the Eddystone 898 offering and I would like to make a decent sized clock mechanism along with some more steam (stationary) engine models,
I retired a bit early some years ago due to ill health (I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and decided to set up a decent machine shop. I currently have 4 machines, an Elliot Omnimill 02, A Sheraton Diploma lathe. More recently I purchased a Hafco AL 320G lathe and an HM 46 dove tail collumn mill.
The Elliot and The Sheraton are really magnificent machines, particulalry the mill although it did need some work. Both these are 3 phase machines and I built my own power supply for them. The reason for the second lathe is the Sheraton is not really comfortable at full speed (1200rpm). I discussed this with a friend who runs a general purpose machine shop and he said it this was common on the larger lathes and one was better off doing such work on a smaller machine.
The Sheraton is an Australian made copy of the American Leblond Regal Lathe, its not that big but weighs just on 1000Kg and goes well with the Elliot at1500Kg. Both machines are in excellent condition are well thought of in the engineering community and I was quite lucky to get them.
For info on the Sheraton as they are not to well known out side Oz see
http://www.lathes.co.uk/sheraton/page2.html