Hello from Lancaster.

[Gareth TParticipant @garetht]

Hello all,

Just hello from me.

I have come across this wonderful forum looking for information about lathes and lathe restoration.

Well this evening my first lathe for restoration turned up. A Colchester Student Mk2, it will need a full strip down and rebuild with new paint, gaskets and at the same time will replace any worn parts like bearings.

I am 32 years old and work in cyber security but previous to this career I worked in a classic car restorers for a long time and this is what most of my tools and workshop orientate around.

I have a pretty decent mig welder and know how to use it. A nice 150 litre air compressor with a decent 14cfm which also connects upto my shot blasting cabinet. I also have various tools for working on older cars.

I have always wanted a lathe but did not want to buy something new as my budget was less than 1k and I always liked using the Colchester at my school.

I am going to post some questions on another thread but I hope to do a nice rebuild diary on the Colchester Student mk2, I am used to restoring classic cars to concourse standards and I plan on putting the same effort into this lathe. Then after the lathe I want to do the same to a nice old milling machine.

Cheers

Gareth

[Gareth TParticipant @garetht]

Just me saying hi

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hello Gareth,

Welcome to the forum, I hope you will be posting some photos of progress with the Colchester.

Neil

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

Welcome Gareth, I'm into old cars, the present one being a 1931 Austin Seven Box saloon which is far from concourse but now has a rebuilt engine and gearbox. Next job is the back axle which is the wrong one for the year at present.

Brian

[Gareth TParticipant @garetht]

Hi Neil, I have posted a photo of how it stands now along with some questions in the beginners section of the forum, however I do plan on photos and videos of progress throughout.

**LINK**

Hi Brian, the local Vicar in the village I worked in had a nice little 1931 austin 7 that had been turned into a 2 seater boat tail sports car. From what he told me this was something that was done very early in its life as it was a rare coach built thing. I have never worked on a 7 but I have worked on a lovely austin 10 lichfield and outside of the work environment helped out on the much larger but rather rare austin 18.

Gareth.

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Gareth, welcome to the forum. Your mention of an Austin Lichfield brings memories of when I owned one. A lot of us on this site are into cars and motorcycles rather than model engineering. It is the love of the machines and using them which is the bond. The missing cover for the change wheels/drive belts was made from glass fibre on the later Colchester machines, with patience one should turn up from a machine being broken for spares.

[Gareth TParticipant @garetht]

Thank you Chris, mine looks like it had a fibre glass cover as there are bits of it all over the place. Glad to hear there are plenty of Motorbike and car people here.

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