Are Good Used Lathes Like Unicorns?

Looks like a good stout machine, and she cleaned up nicely. Definitely worth a little elbow grease, and might just be a keeper. I just spent about six hrs cleaning my new to me Niles lathe, wearing fowl weather gear, and power washing, scrapping, and hand scrubbing (still hard to beat good old Dawn dish soap for grease) off a century's worth of chips, and a combination of dirt, grease, and oil, on all 16' of her. About tuckered me out, but she's looking pretty good, for an old girl. Mike

MtnBiker said:
Buy used they said. Well, whoever thought it was a good idea having the coolant tank be integral to the casting...is a DUMMY. I just finished scraping the last inch of sludge out of my lathe. About the grossest thing I've ever had to do. Stuff hadn't been touched for who knows how long and I can't imagine that tank had ever really been cleaned. 3 entire rolls of blue, now brown shop towels, two cans of brake cleaner and two gallons of science experiment to dispose of. I wore a trash bag on my arm up to my shoulder plus gloves. Would have preferred a space suit. So so horrible!
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FOMOGO said:
I just spent about six hrs cleaning my new to me Niles lathe, wearing fowl weather gear, and power washing, scrapping, and hand scrubbing (still hard to beat good old Dawn dish soap for grease) off a century's worth of chips, and a combination of dirt, grease, and oil, on all 16' of her. About tuckered me out, but she's looking pretty good, for an old girl. Mike
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That's quite a mind picture - something out of Outbreak. Am I reading that 16' right (as in 16 feet)?
 
You could land a plane on that! Whatcha gonna make?
 
You may not know what I'm talking about, but this ending sounded exactly like what I might hear Seth from Seth's Bikehacks saying at the end of a video. I can even imagine him saying it. Lol
MtnBiker said:
I think (I hope) I got lucky with this lathe. It might be a great long-term investment, it might just be an awesome machine to learn on. Either way, the size is right, even if the branding is unfortunate, and the tooling is a long-term investment. The thing about estate sales is that the machine wasn't for sale (wasn't all used up). Not a bad option if it comes up. Not buying new makes room for more/better tooling and that might just be the part I like best now that I know more.

Happy hunting.
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You got an awesome lathe...fyi.
 
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