Thinking about a Clarke CL430...

[mekanik]

Have to agree with Doddy on this one.
I purchased a new Emcomat 7L 40 year ago, only because i couldn't afford one of these.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Maximat-V...UAAOSws59dKLjn

[Wal]

Cheers guys. Some food for thought there.

Yep, I've considered second hand - it's being in the right place at the right time and knowing exactly what you're looking at with that market. When it comes to lathes I'm a total newb, that's not to say I wouldn't have a go at cleaning up and fettling something that's had a run - so long as it's not a basket case!

Thank you all for your advice thus far, I'll keep you posted...

Wal.

[cropwell]

I have the Amadeal 290-VFF, so out of interest I had a look at the other offerings from Amadeal and they seem to have retracted their catalogue somewhat. There are others that sell the same chinese machines under different badges, Warco for instance.

Wal, the size of lathe you seem to be looking for is often sold off from colleges. They have little wear and can be undamaged apart from where the little sods set the toolpost on an autofeed journey towards the chuck and then walk away. So Autofeed is often disabled.

I have the Clarke CL300, which is the only experience I have of Clarke Lathes, and it is a pretty amateurish job, I think the slideways need scraping to get them true as adjustment is damn near impossible to get rid of the slop without binding. The CMD10, which I also have, is the same but worse.

At one time, it was possible to get a lathe from ArcEuro and a proper engineer like Hobnob would set it up. Maybe worth looking at their offerings and chatting to them.

Cheers,

Rob-T