I picked up a new tool this weekend. I've always wanted a lathe, but couldn't justify the price as all the ones that I ever saw were $1,500-2,000 for the ones that I wanted. As I usually do, I was browsing the classified section on FB Marketplace (the only thing FB is good for), and came across a listing for a "metal lave". It looked like a quality unit that was marked down from $1,800 to $900. That was within the range of possibility for me and bonus was upon further inspection, it was a metal lathe and mill combo! Then after more carefully inspecting the photo, it was a Smithy 1340 Granite edition. It's a full size 3 in 1 Metal lathe, mill and drill press combo. Retail is just shy of $6k for a brand new unit, and used ones were going for around $3k.
It was about a 2 hour drive for me, but the price was worth the drive out there. Unfortunately when I got there, it was literally at the far end of the families 10x20 storage shed that was full of many other heavy tools. Bandsaws, wood plane table, and porch furniture, other woodworking tools. After spending 20 mins digging it out, I was able to pull it out (by myself) far enough to test it to make sure that it functioned properly. I was able to get it turned on and the lathe worked perfectly, but the mill wouldn't turn on... I was still very interested in the unit so I proceeded to load it in my truck(basically by myself). Wow, way heavier than I thought it was. I got busy loading it and forgot to ask to negotiate the price. I asked if they would take any lower, and took my offer of $760! I couldn't be happier, so I made the trip home and got it unloaded, again by myself. He was a cool guy, and he mentioned to me that it was his grandfather's lathe that he didn't know much about. He said that he was surprised that I was the first person to respond to his ad in three weeks. I didn't want to break his heart that the reason was he spelled Metal Lathe wrong.
But good for me haha
Fresh off the truck!
After I got it spun around and centered on the blocks. The machine appears to have very little use and seems very tight, just neglected. It has surface rust on the bed, main beam and main lathe chuck. I spent a few hours on Saturday closely inspecting, cleaning and learning what all the levers and knobs were. I was able to confirm that the mill head was engaging, the gears, but for some reason wasn't turning. The mill head wouldn't spin when engaged and the motor sounded labored. Not sure what was causing it, but with the gears engaged the mill head wouldn't spin. I tried it with the gears engaged with the motor on and gave it a little help spinning and it started to turn on it's own! I also noticed the belt tensioner wasn't spinning properly as it was also frozen. I sprayed some lubrication on it and turned it on again this time let it run and it started off pretty slow, but kept spinning faster. After about 30 seconds it came right up to speed! What a relieve, no weird sounds and it looked nice and tight.
I reached out to Luke (Thanks man), and got some tips and help since I'm not familiar at all with this level of equipment. He was a huge help identifying what I need to do and buy. The major components are there, but I'm missing a few small things before I can put this back into service. I've since ordered a drawbar for the mill, a clamping kit and lathe tooling. It also was missing the chuck key, and I grabbed a self ejecting unit from Smithy. While I could use a 3/8" ratchet, but I was reading about people forgetting they are still attached to the chuck and them being thrown across the room at high speeds. Feel like that's $25 bucks well spent getting a self ejecting one haha.
I'm going to continue to clean it up and lubricate all the moving parts before I attempt to use it. Looking forward to start machining some parts. I could have used this soo many times when I was building my Camaro.
