Diy lathe or cheap ancient lathe

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Camnefdt

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Hi everyone!

I am an absolute novice to machine work with the least amount of work time on a lathe and even less on a milling machine.

I have an opportunity to swap some of my belongings for an old britannia colchester lathe which i have managed to identify as one made in like 1920-1930.

There other option I am toying with is going the DIY route which i understand would take time and patients. But I have access to most of the materials i would need for free, and I have the knowledge and capability to do all the construction and precision work myself.

What would you guys recommend? Should I attempt making it myself or should I rather go for the old lathe and work my way with that one for now?
 
Well we all like our toys haha its a road bicycle and a couple rc planes.

Also considered not the cheapest of things to replace here in south africa.

To be honest i am sort of leaning more towards the diy lathe but just worried about the accuracy.
 
You can alway sell the lathe later, probably for more than an “old bike” and an RC plane that you are likely to crash next week (ask me how I know that this is likely). There is a reason everyone isn’t making their own lathe. That said, use the Colchester to “rebuild” itself. You’ll get the machine time and have a project at the same time. Do the trade and don’t look back. (I got into RC heli’s. Put $5000 into setting myself up, turned it into about $800 4 years later. Machining is costly but nowhere near as costly as some hobbies.). Cheers from Canada!!


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Ive been the rc heli route before, those went off to pay for my first car haha.

Does anybody have knowledge or experience with the Britannia colchester lathes? Will try get a pic of the one I'm l can get
 
The smaller Colchesters are a lot like the South Bend lathes in construction; that should give you an idea about what to expect out of them. The larger Colchesters are pretty nice machines. Either way, you could clean up the lathe, set it up right, sell it, and leverage your next purchase with the proceeds, right?
 
Do the trade. That’ll clean up beautifully. If nothing less, you are moving from depreciating dust collectors to one that is appreciating, lol.


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Well I guess thats it, time to start investing my life savings on tools and mesauring devices
 
Camnefdt said:
Hi everyone!

I am an absolute novice to machine work with the least amount of work time on a lathe and even less on a milling machine.

I have an opportunity to swap some of my belongings for an old britannia colchester lathe which i have managed to identify as one made in like 1920-1930.

There other option I am toying with is going the DIY route which i understand would take time and patients. But I have access to most of the materials i would need for free, and I have the knowledge and capability to do all the construction and precision work myself.

What would you guys recommend? Should I attempt making it myself or should I rather go for the old lathe and work my way with that one for now?
Click to expand...


In your post you indicate that you are an absolute novice to machine work, yet you have the knowledge and capability to do the construction
and precision work yourself. Not questioning your skills, but it's a bit difficult to assess your abilities based on this post. Building a decent lathe
from scratch is a pretty significant task. I'd go with the Britannia: you'll learn a lot from getting it back in shape and using it, and you can always
build a lathe later if you choose to. Here's some information on Britannia's:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/britannia/
 
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