Colchester Bantam 2000 - Thoughts?

[kingcreaky]

I had that on my watch list. Il leave you to it Chaz.

[Chaz]

I had that on my watch list. Il leave you to it Chaz.

At the moment, Im looking at a new Warco instead. Buying 2nd hand, especially without knowing and inspecting, worries me.

It might be a good buy or not. When I spoke to the guy I asked if the lathe had any damage / play. He mentioned 'some play' but not sure.

I think the Colchester lathe parts are expensive, so this might not be the bargain it seems ...

[uli12us]

The colchester is much bigger and powerful as the warco. 13*30" vs 10*22" and the weight ist at least 6*, the warco has a small 1,2kW Motor, the colchester at least 4kW.
Maybe, I can't see it on the pictures, it has a removable bedbridge without this you can
turn much larger parts who have a bigger diametre than 13" but must be short in length.

[Chaz]

The colchester is much bigger and powerful as the warco. 13*30" vs 10*22" and the weight ist at least 6*, the warco has a small 1,2kW Motor, the colchester at least 4kW.
Maybe, I can't see it on the pictures, it has a removable bedbridge without this you can
turn much larger parts who have a bigger diametre than 13" but must be short in length.

Understood. I think your stats are a bit wrong.



That's the nameplate, difficult to read but it looks like 4HP motor. It is larger, no doubt but more difficult to run too. Im more worried if there is a problem with it, than its ability.

[uli12us]

Ok 4hp ist a bit (some 20%) littleer than 4kW. but all the other things are right.
I couldn't find better technical data, the weight is only estimated. If a small weiler commodor weighs around 700kg, then the colchester is at least as heavy.
In difference to warco the colchester has only an unregulated 3~ motor with a big gearbox, that reduce the speed while increase the torque. If you want to drill a hole with maybe 30mm, you will see the difference.
The Warco has a DC-Motor, which you must maintain regulary, the control unit can be (not must) fault-prone, while the 3~ motor is nearly indestructible.

And if you want a DRO, you can assemble it to the colchester as well.

[Chaz]

Ok 4hp ist a bit (some 20%) littleer than 4kW. but all the other things are right.
I couldn't find better technical data, the weight is only estimated. If a small weiler commodor weighs around 700kg, then the colchester is at least as heavy.
In difference to warco the colchester has only an unregulated 3~ motor with a big gearbox, that reduce the speed while increase the torque. If you want to drill a hole with maybe 30mm, you will see the difference.
The Warco has a DC-Motor, which you must maintain regulary, the control unit can be (not must) fault-prone, while the 3~ motor is nearly indestructible.

And if you want a DRO, you can assemble it to the colchester as well.

The newer Warcos are now VFD 3 phase motors, no longer DC motors.

http://www.warco.co.uk/metal-lathes-...50v-lathe.html

[Chaz]

Details on the Colchester (and any other lathe) here http://www.lathes.co.uk/bantam/

Not sure if this is for the 2000 model specific, but some details below.

The approximate weight of the standard lathe was 756 lbs (343 kg.)

[Neale]

I know it's a difficult choice - I went through the same decision process a year or so back and went with the second-hand British option over the Warco same-price alternative. In your case, though, you are comparing two very different machines. The Warco is roughly equivalent to my Myford Super-7 which is a great machine, very useful, pretty versatile, etc. But next to a Bantam it's a bit of a lightweight. Less capacity, and that increased mass translates into greater cutting capacity (much faster metal removal, etc). As long as it's not too worn...

In my case, what swayed me was that the second-hand machine came with a heap of tooling, chucks, collets, etc, and the Warco with the bare minimum. You are going to have to buy cutting tools in either case but chucks can cost a fair bit, and from what I read the Bantam had a D1-3 spindle nose mount and these days that's not a common size. OTOH, I think the Warco has its own unique chuck mount which can be a bit fiddly to use when changing chucks.

Can you realistically think through the kind of jobs you might do on the machine and see if that guides you? Remember that you can do little jobs on a big machine but the opposite is more difficult...

And while the Bantam might be the right size machine for you, this particular Bantam might not be! There are plenty of them around (very common machine in training workshops and the like).