Help Sourcing Colchester Student / Harrison M300

[LathejackParticipant @lathejack]

If you can come round to the possibility of a Chinese made machine then there is a good Warco BH600 lathe on Facebook Marketplace at the moment.

This is 150mm centre hight, 600mm between centres, belt drive, gap bed with full screw cutting gear box, back gear, power feeds and a 36mm spindle bore.

In as new condition according to the seller, with 3 and 4 jaw chucks and coolant pump, priced at £1000. Located in Johnstone, Renfrewshire.

A Chinese made lathe that is certainly capable of doing everything you require, and much more.

 

 

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

I suspect that it is mostly produced in the far-east and probably just assembled here

Their product brochure is careful to say “Our core machine tools are British designed and engineered”. Not very clear, I know.

Given that the launch of their latest Student lathe took place in Taipei, it’s a fair assumption that Taiwan is where the manufacturing takes place, at least of the manual machinery we’re talking about here.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Being dismal, a Colchester MAY be ex industry and will have been worked hard all it’s life, and probably with a 3 phase motor.

Not saying that it would be bad machine, just more likely to be worn than a hobby machine.

Having mentioned a Warco BH600, there are other equivalent (lookalike) machines, Chester Craftsman, or Engineers ToolRoom BL12-24. All seem to have hardened prismatic bedways. The BL 12-24, certainly has a graduated handwheel on the ejector type Tailstock.

They are heavy machines, 300Kg.

An extended bed BH900 was offered, but have never seen one

The power cross feed is a nice and very useable feature.

The belt drive headstock has 12 speeds available, with the back gear.. The Chuck guard, Headstock and gear covers are all protected by microswitches.

If a work light is fitted , it is likely to be a 24 volt 50 watt Halogen. Lamp life will be extended if the “reflector” has a couple of slots filed in the rim, to improve ventilation.

The gap is removable, allowing the maximum swing to increase from 12″ to 18″

The BH600 was available in either Metric or Imperial form. the Craftsman, was, as far I know, Metric.

The BL12-24 is basically Metric, but dual dialled.

The Apron on the BH 600 was the opposite hand to that of the Craftsman and BL12 -24, so might have come from a different factory.

I think that the Chester Craftsman is still available as new machine, but now geared head, rather than belt driven. to see a full specification, or look at Suffolk Steam (This one ihas been sold, and being secondhand differred from the original specification.)

Changing from Metric to Imperial, or vice versa merely entailed remeshing the 120/127T Idler gear

All came, from new,  with a single phase motors, (up tp 2 hp) 5MT spindle bore, 3 and 4 jaw chucks, Faceplate, two dead Centres, Fixed and Travelling Steadies, and 5 – 3 MT reducing sleeve, Four Way toolpost, and two T slots in the Cross Slide, Thread Indicating Dial, and a basic tool kit.

The norton gearbox allowed a range of 15 metric threads to be cut, from 0.25 to 7.5 mm pitch, and 40  Imperial threads from 4 to 112 tpi

There were 8 feed rates listed, 0.0165 to 0.0047″ /rev (0.42 to 0.12 mm/rev)

Actually by suitably meshing the Idler and using one of the alternative gears in place of the standard 40T (1.25 Mod 32 and 30T supplied with the BL12 -24) slightly lower feeds can be achieved.

Unsure if the Facing feeds are possibly half the Sliding ones.

Certainly, with a Tangential Turning Tool, the BL12 -24 gives an even better finish on facing than on sliding.

In fact, these were all generic Taiwanese lathes, rather than Chinese, and sold across the world under various brand names, and in different colour schemes.

A BH600 with all the extras for £1,000, if in reasonable condition, sounds like a good buy to me, even if it is a long way to fetch it.

Hopefully, it will come with the original operator manual and parts list.

If used for hobby work, are unlikely to be have been as hard used as an ex industry machine.

FWIW, if you buy one, replace the roll pins driving the Leadscrew and Power Shaft with brass shear pins (5mm OD and 2.5 mm bore) in case of any mishaps.

HTH

Howard

 

[Bill Phinn]

On Bill Phinn Said:

Their product brochure is careful to say “Our core machine tools are British designed and engineered”. Not very clear, I know.

Given that the launch of their latest Student lathe took place in Taipei, it’s a fair assumption that Taiwan is where the manufacturing takes place, at least of the manual machinery we’re talking about here.

I feel sure you are correct, Bill … ‘engineered’ is a word with a conveniently broad range of meanings, but in this context I would guess it means “production-engineered”

MichaelG.

.

Ref. [probably as valid as any]
https://www.coventry.ac.uk/course-structure/pg/eec/production-engineering-and-operations-management-msc/

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This looks like a realistic “benchmark”

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266927301104

… way above the originally-stated budget, of course.

MichaelG.

[Bill Phinn]

On Bill Phinn Said:

I suspect that it is mostly produced in the far-east and probably just assembled here

Their product brochure is careful to say “Our core machine tools are British designed and engineered”. Not very clear, I know.

Given that the launch of their latest Student lathe took place in Taipei, it’s a fair assumption that Taiwan is where the manufacturing takes place, at least of the manual machinery we’re talking about here.

Which is not a bad thing. Taiwan is these days the home of good-quality machine tools and other engineering gear. Like Japan, it has passed through the early stages of “Taiwan trash” (passing the mantle on to the mainland as “Chinese junk”) and now provides superior quality gear. Here in Australia, the Taiwanese lathes cost two to three times the price of similar sized Chinese lathes and are sold as “toolroom” or “industrial” quality.

But I think that for what the OP wants to do, a larger Chinese lathe would be fine. I know several owners of 330mm x 600mm or 1000mm Chinese lathes  and they seem to be quite good machines. They have a 40mm spindle bore so would take 1.5″ bar ok. My mate has made a plethora of working model engines on one with no complaints or problems.

A used Colchester would be great IF you could find a good one IF it was cheap. Two very big ifs. A simple thing like a new set of headstock bearings could cost you an extra thousand Pounds though.

 

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

There is a M300 in than industrial auction here:

http://www.ppauctions.com/lot/193558/lot-353?

Within buget at the moment 🙂

Robert.

[messy457Participant @messy457]

I’ll keep an eye on it.

Thank you

[Author]

Posts