# What do you guys think of the Colchester lathe?



## HMF (Aug 4, 2011)

Colchester chipmaster lathe is for sale.

What do you guys think of this lathe for home shop use?

Thanks,


Nelson


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## core-oil (Aug 11, 2011)

Colchester lathes are nice machines, with a good range of speeds, feeds, & screw thread cutting facility, The chipmaster is nice, if the price is reasonable, it has not been ill used, and you have the space & can move it, check the electrics as well as this can be tricky if you have to change voltages

These lathes are handy for general work, usually have a cam lock spindle nose, see how it is for tooling , 3&4 jaw also faceplate if it was well equiped and sounds nice running and was suitable for the work i proposed to machine i would seriously think about it


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## Nammar (Dec 15, 2011)

Hi,

Of all of the lathes I've used, the Colchester brand has always been my favourite. This may be because of me having done my apprenticeship using a Colchester Student round head lathe. I currently own a Colchester Bantam and will be getting it up and running this Christmas holidays. I will have to re-post my Colchester Bantam posting as it went bye bye when the server crashed recently.

Geoffrey owen.


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## Starlight Tools (Dec 18, 2011)

Nelson

The Chipmaster was always my dream lathe, and I drooled over the brochures on that lathe many times.  It was a high speed lathe and was reported to have lots of power.  I did not even know what a Hardinge was at the time, but even now, I would choose a Chipmaster over a Hardinge since they seem to have a similar size of work envelope.

I never did go for a Chipmaster, I got the Logan 9x28 and realized with its small work envelope, the Chipmaster would not give me any benefits, over the Logan.

I eventually took the bite and upgraded the Logan, but went to a 14x40 that is made in the same plant in Taiwan that produces the newer Colchester models.  Even came with combination of Metric and Whitworth threaded fasteners.  

I think that if one could get a "Chippy" in good condition and was doing work that would fit into the envelope it would make and awesome Hobby lathe.  Way more machine than a 9x20 import kit, that is for sure.  Much heavier, with a bit better capacity.

But then in this corner of the world, it is rare enough to find anybody with even a lathe let alone something with a pedigree like a Chipmaster.

Walter


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