turret lathe for sale

[barracudajoe]

It's not mine and I don't know the owner. I'm just posting it because this has been on my local CL for several weeks now and thought maybe someone out there might be able to make use of this machine.

https://medford.craigslist.org/tls/d/medford-turret-lathe/7283238311.html

[nickel-city-fab]

Looks like one heck of a deal. I could see somebody like Doc using that.

[JRouche]

It's not mine and I don't know the owner. I'm just posting it because this has been on my local CL for several weeks now and thought maybe someone out there might be able to make use of this machine.

https://medford.craigslist.org/tls/d...283238311.html

Thats a sweet lil turret there. Problem, its not woth the 2k. It is a 1100$ lathe as it sits. And if that.. I am leaning towards 900 bucks, even though it is unused. JR

My Bust. I meant to say because you are still talking about it means its not moving!!! Over priced.... JR

[754]

I can't imagine finding that new for 1500.....not in this part of the universe. Good deal .

[Doc Nickel]

Thats a sweet lil turret there. Problem, its not woth the 2k. It is a 1100$ lathe as it sits. And if that.. I am leaning towards 900 bucks, even though it is unused.

-The thing is, turret lathes have nearly no value these days regardless of condition. The simple fact is, no one wants them.

Well, a very few do- types like me that can't afford a proper CNC and don't produce enough parts to justify buying one anyway- but supply is far greater than demand. That one's kind of a rare bird being unused, but the simple fact is, there's still so little demand that even that would have to be priced near scrap in order to sell.

Even I wouldn't bother with it, unless it was like five miles away and maybe $500.

Doc.

[Ian B]

Doc's right on that one. Shaping machines fall into the same category. Sad, but the manufacturing world has moved on. Turret lathes and the like may have more value in countries where labour costs are still extremely low, but the cost of shipping them would probably kill the deal.

Pity - that's a nice "hobby-sized" turret lathe, brand new according to the advert. Not sure what the "28 1/2" between centres" refers to though.

Ian

[Bented]

Turret lathes such as the one above are nice IF you have a use for such a machine.
Drill/tap, parting, die threading, grooving and form cutting in manual production. Such a machine is not likely suitable for the general lathe work that a hobbyist may desire.
As mentioned they are excellent when drilling and tapping the ends of hundreds of parts per day otherwise they have limited use.

[mickeyf]

It's a "rare bird" in that it's such a cute little thing. Most of the ones I've seen lately would take up half my entire shop.

[Bented]

It's a "rare bird" in that it's such a cute little thing. Most of the ones I've seen lately would take up half my entire shop.

Hardinge made thousands of small turret lathes of similar size, in a commercial shop a 4' X 8' space for a handy little machine is not a burden so many are still in place.
This one has been in the shop where I work for 40+ years and is used weekly for second operations.
It is behind 2 CNC lathes now. A very nice machine.

This one is going to a scrap yard in the next several weeks, it is well over 20' long with the bar feeder.
A new CNC lathe will take its place.

[alanganes]

A number of years ago I got a walk through of a shop near here that made cast steel pipe fittings. Smallish family business that apparently survived by making some unusual fittings that were no longer available anywhere else. The place was out of another era and still had a couple of machines (not lathes) that ran off what was left of an overhead lineshaft system.

There were maybe 15 or 20 huge old turret lathes, each set up to do a particular size and style of fitting. They were all buried in a pile of cuttings. They were in the process of getting rid of all those machines and they were going to be replaced by just a couple of CNC machines of some sort once the relocated the company to someplace far enough south of here to have warmer weather.

I suspect that all of those machines ended up either getting scraped or shipped overseas someplace where such stuff was still in use.

Wish I could have taken pictures in there, but this was before every phone had a camera in it.

[Doc Nickel]

Here's a vid showing some of the first parts I ran on my recently-restored W&S No.2.

It's a fun machine, kind of a blast to run, and I'm [i]amazed[/] at the build quality. Messr's Warner and Swasey were clearly not believers in the idea of "planned obsolescence". This thing's almost certainly run many tens of thousands of parts, and is still clean and tight and accurate.

BUT... if I could afford a CNC turning center, even a Tormach- which is cheap Chinese made junk compared to the W&S- I'd swap over in half a heartbeat.

And I'm essentially an 'ideal case' for a turret- can't afford a CNC, don't really know how to properly run one even if I could, and have too many parts to do onesy-twosey on an engine lathe, but nowhere near enough to justify paying a CNC shop to do a large enough run to make it cost-effective.

I figure I'll do the same as Bent notes- once I do upgrade to a decent turning center, I'll keep the turret for second-op type stuff.

Well, not that I'll have a choice. Even refurbished and heavily tooled, the thing is basically valueless- especially up here in Alaska.

Doc.

[dian]

why are you using so many drlls?

[Ian B]

I wondered the same, but I think the setup was just to test the lathe.

Ian

[DR]

https://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/tls/d/auburn-turret-lathe-jet-5c-collet/7283189179.html

[J Tiers]

It appears that the actual killer of turret lathes (other than age) is not CNC, because an automatic is often faster than a CNC at production, but rather the setup. They are mechanical, and require adjustment, cams, etc.

And for manual turret lathes, the cost of actually employing an operator to work it. (you know, these days actual people are not supposed to be employed, they are supposed only to have magic money to buy stuff with).

The CNC is not as fast, but may be more precise, and is easily set up in comparison. But if you timed the production of 10,000 parts, the CNC would often fall far behind an automatic. Of course, a manual could easily be slower than CNC.

The problem is tool changes, which tend to be slow. When one tool is used for a lot of time on making a part, that is no issue. But with a turret lathe specifically, the tools are changed fast, and used perhaps for 4 seconds. That makes the tool change on a CNC add up to more than the machining time.

So some "CNC" machines have a "tool bar" where the tools are already set up, and just need to be moved into position. It is sort of the turret straightened out. That can be quite fast, and is the replacement for the automatic. But it replaces some programming with mechanical setup, but still using a program instead of cams. So it is a "part CNC".

You can find videos on YT of those.