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  1. #16
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    I wouldn't say any motor as some are not configurable to obtain the 240V required without some surgery on the motor, in this case it is usually cheaper to just buy another 3 phase motor that can be configured to run on 240v.

    Quote Originally Posted by caskwarrior View Post
    Sorry glivo I should have been clearer, single phase to three phase Variable Frequency Drives are available from China at such a low cost that any old three phase motors can now be run at Home. If you search for Powtran here there are numerous threads.

    They are easy to set up, although they involve mains voltages so be careful etc etc.

  2. #17
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    I guess we won't know what the same lathe sold for on eBay. He just ended the listing so either someone made an offer he accepted or he's changed his mind about selling it.
    I had just copied the picture of the screw gear chart and everything disappeared. You can still see the original listing and it is interesting to see that this one has had a more usable tool post attached.

  3. #18
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    You could alway look at this one at Belmont.
    https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/metal-la...d=273305409557
    Kryn
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  4. #19
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    North Brisbane. Qld. Australia
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    The very early Advance Lathe pictured never came with guards.
    Nev.

  5. #20
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    Thanks. I've seen that one KBs, along with every other used lathe on eBay or Gumtree and everything in between. It would do the job if it was in Belmont NSW but it's in Belmont Vic.

    I did discover from reading up about these machines that the belt guards were a later addition, so the only guard missing is the end cover over the gear train.

  6. #21
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    Im not sure why but Sydney / NSW seems like dry ground for machine tools, is your industry not collapsing like a wet cardboard box?

  7. #22
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    I can't really comment on the stability or state of the manufacturing / mechanical engineering industry in present day NSW / Sydney. I can say though, that in the 40 years since I trained in Industrial Arts in Newcastle, the heavy industry that once thrived there has all but disappeared. The suburb of Mayfield, home to many impoverished students in shared rental housing, no longer disappears under the smog and coal dust of the Big Friendly Australian. I wonder what happened to all the machinery that used to be on the apprentice training floor. Probably shipped off to China to go into their new blast furnaces and sold back to us as new steel.

    I'm thinking that limited as it may be, this little Advance lathe could be fair value and suitable to my needs. If I decide against it something else will come along soon enough. There are a few around and they come in several different classifications.
    1) There are the post war models that are ridiculously priced because they have been "fully restored". Those Myfords must be a good machine to justify the money some people want for them.
    2) Others that look like they've been out in the paddock since the last big flood went right through the shed out back. Some of these really are good moorings compared to the one I'm considering.
    3) Another type is the ex-industry beasty that looks like something out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The colour palette of rust, old black grease and dirty brown oil just does nothing for me.
    4) The old-but-new ones that appear to have never been used for anything at all, but the seller thinks "If I don't get my money back I'd rather leave it unused in the shed forever".
    5) My favourite is the "Complete! (except for the missing bits and currently disassembled)". These are halfway to being "fully restored" (see #1 above) but they don't actually work.
    6) The lathes that actually make good sense because they are affordable and as there are lots of them around, replacement parts and attachments shouldn't be a problem. 3 phase power but probably a good idea anyway.

    Oh well. I'll see how this lathe looks soon enough.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by glivo View Post
    I'm thinking that limited as it may be, this little Advance lathe could be fair value and suitable to my needs. If I decide against it something else will come along soon enough. There are a few around and they come in several different classifications.
    1) There are the post war models that are ridiculously priced because they have been "fully restored". Those Myfords must be a good machine to justify the money some people want for them.
    2) Others that look like they've been out in the paddock since the last big flood went right through the shed out back. Some of these really are good moorings compared to the one I'm considering.
    3) Another type is the ex-industry beasty that looks like something out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The colour palette of rust, old black grease and dirty brown oil just does nothing for me.
    4) The old-but-new ones that appear to have never been used for anything at all, but the seller thinks "If I don't get my money back I'd rather leave it unused in the shed forever".
    5) My favourite is the "Complete! (except for the missing bits and currently disassembled)". These are halfway to being "fully restored" (see #1 above) but they don't actually work.
    6) The lathes that actually make good sense because they are affordable and as there are lots of them around, replacement parts and attachments shouldn't be a problem. 3 phase power but probably a good idea anyway.

    Oh well. I'll see how this lathe looks soon enough.
    There are a fair few machines about the place, just that often they're not advertised on Gumtree or eBay.

    I know of a very high quality lathe for sale near you but it has the other 2 characteristics of such lathes - it's of considerable mass and cost. Plus of course 3 phase power.

    As I have emphasised in the past, it all depends on what you need to do with the machine that determines whether it's good value or not.

    And yeah, FWIW I think describing Myfords as 'ridiculously overpriced' is fair comment.

    PDW

  9. #24
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    I'm not after anything much. My needs are simple but there have been so many instances, since retirement and not having daily access to machinery, where I've just wished for a basic lathe to do something I knew I could easily accomplish, but for lack of facility. I can't really justify putting a big machine in my shed that is now only 2/3 full size after my family pinched 1 bay.

    The sad thing is that I know that the machines I used to use are sitting in the Metalwork shops in most schools completely idle. There are several reasons for this.

    The kids basically lost interest in skilled work when the new Design and Technology course's emphasis was clearly focused on design. As a teacher from the age of the old objectives where pride in workmanship was paramount, I along with most of my ilk, struggled to accept the change to it being more about the journey than the destination.

    Coinciding with this, the teacher training changed as well and the qualification of new TAS teachers did not include machinery knowledge and skills, so most of the new teachers wouldn't have a clue on using them. We saw this year after year with the practicing student teachers coming through our supervision.

    Then of course there was the introduction of the excessive safety regimes that forbid younger students from using anything but the most basic of machinery. Things like milling machines and shapers haven't been touched for years on end because nobody knows how to use them any more. The lack of knowledge from the teachers meant kids were hurting themselves from being uninformed as to proper use. Rather than fix the problem we just locked the tools up.

    Metalwork as a subject died while Woodwork faired a bit better. The last 2 schools I worked in had converted 1 of 2 metal shops into a 3rd wood room, although not too successfully.

    Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing but Australia now is paying the price of this de-skilling of a whole generation. I'll step off my soapbox now. Phew.

  10. #25
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    These are my thoughts.
    It used to be that tradies wages were above labourers, now it's the reverse.
    Governments stopped doing trades at schools because IT was the new Proffesion to be in, now they've realised that there a very few apprentices doing trades. With the Defence projects in SA, they've suddenly realised a shortage of boilermaker welders to be able to fulfil contracts.
    Unfortunately with the closing of a lot of manufacturing industries, machines are being sold off to overseas, the operators of these machines with all their knowledge is lost also.
    Kryn
    To grow old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

  11. #26
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    Ive actually got a bit of a theory with all this glivo, in the schools ive seen and worked in where metalwork died, it always featured IA staff who were far more interested in woodworking and considered it a lot easier to implement. Ive seen metal get put in the too hard basket because of head teachers who arnt keen to spend money on a subject they dont understand well. Ive seen a share of woodwork teachers teach metal on the side and teach it as if they were working with timber. Im talking sanding jobs until theyre shiny to paint it, just to chew up time. Avoiding lathes for anything except a simple knurled handle for a toolbox, never suggest that they can be power fed or that those numbers on the dials actually mean something. Never take weld prep seriously, just burn through that gal and never mind bevelling anything. The kids pick up on that, they see teachers with zero enthusiasm for the subject and thus never pick it. Never mind about industry as a driving force, you get a teacher with enthusaism for the subject, any subject, and the classes will grow and grow. My metalwork classes are bursting at the seams. Build cool projects and show them off mercilessly, the kids will come. Theres still places taking kids with skills in the metal industry. Agribusiness is massive in my town, we lose 15 to 20 kids a year to apprenticeships in the metal industry.

  12. #27
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    I can't argue with what you are saying. I agree.
    In the 1980s I was brought into a North Sydney school to teach 2 and 3 unit Engineering Science and Metalwork because the other available IA teachers couldn't. All they wanted to do was woodwork and drawing. A couple of them were bonded Primary teacher retrainee and 2 year trained artisan conversions. I had left teaching and I was actually contacted by the school principal who asked me to return to Teaching to take the job to replace a retired teacher. I used to make the traction steam engines with year 10, among other things and they thrived on the skills. Precision machining and benchwork to tolerances. Mind you there was a pretty good class of student in this school with a high proportion of O/S fee paying students.
    I will still say, however that the change to Design and Technology killed it shortly after that. It all went away from jobs with plans to projects that went nowhere. Cupboards full of junk instead of works in progress to be proud of. Plus if the teachers don't have the skills themselves, they can't be expected to deliver.
    Are you old enough to remember the individual student record cards where each skill had to be checked off once accomplished? D&T saw the end of this concept of attaining prescribed levels of achievement IMHO.

    Sent from my SGP521 using Tapatalk

  13. #28
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    There may not be graguations on the cross slide or compound. Common on older / low budget lathes.

  14. #29
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Check out this thread in the wood workers forum
    VFD install summaries - Page 12
    It shows a range of examples of where VFDs can be used in a home workshop and there are a couple of posts detailing the requirements and pitfalls.

  15. #30
    BobL is offline Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by glivo View Post
    . . . . . when the new Design and Technology course's emphasis was clearly focused on design..
    The over emphasis on design over skills is Bollocks IMHO, to me it's a bit like allowing students to do brain surgery before they have even done a medical degree. Half decent designs require a whole lot of prerequisites, not just basic hand and machine skills, but things like basic maths, materials science, drawing, planning, and plain old maturity.

    All learning starts by copying, when a student can copy something "accurately" then they should have some of the hand and machine skills that allow them to progress to the next level.
    Sure they should be allowed to design small things along the way but that should not be the emphasis of the learning. The emphasis should be on the basic skills and pride in those skills.
    The next learning step is modification and testing of existing designs and not many people go beyond this point.
    Full blown Design is an admirable goal but several levels above copying and modification.
    My experience is that once the small cohort of students that even have the inclination, skills and smarts for real design reach that point, many give up because they realize successful design is hard work.

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