colchester student 1800 lathe

B

Bencher

Guest
Hi all ,im new to the site but have been looking in for quite some time .
I am very close to buying the above lathe for gunsmithing and wanted advice and opinions on it been suitable for the job .
It has had very little use with no ware .
Dose any one use these lathes for gunsmithing ?
Thanks in advance .
 
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I use a Colchester Student. One thing - make sure it is an IMPERIAL lathe not metric. The seller will tell you that it will cut both metric and imperial threads - he's correct but you need an imperial lathe, otherwise it makes cutting imperial threads up to a (barrel) shoulder a bit tedious.
 
Bencher,

Here is a link with some info on the Student 1800.

http://www.lathes.co.uk/colchester/page15.html

If it's the short bed model, it will be too short to do barrels between centers. The headstock LOOKS a little long, but if you're going to chamber through the headstock, but that can be worked around. If you do a search on this forum, you'll find several different ways that has been dealt with.

If it is like new, $7000 sounds like a pretty good deal, especially if it has some tooling to go with it. A new Taiwanese machine of comparable size will cost you more...and it probably won't be of the same quality as that Colchester. A new Clausing/Harrison 13" will cost you about $14000 from MSC...and they're made in China.

Justin
 
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VinceB said:
I use a Colchester Student. One thing - make sure it is an IMPERIAL lathe not metric. The seller will tell you that it will cut both metric and imperial threads - he's correct but you need an imperial lathe, otherwise it makes cutting imperial threads up to a (barrel) shoulder a bit tedious.
Click to expand...
Not good so......its a metric machine :eek::eek:.Never taught about it.. when it could thread both metric and imperial .
What a bummer especially with the lathe been mint !
 
Bencher said:
Not good so......its a metric machine :eek::eek:.Never taught about it.. when it could thread both metric and imperial .
What a bummer especially with the lathe been mint !
Click to expand...

When threading imperial threads with a metric lathe you can't disengage the 1/2 nuts.

My lathe is metric and 3 phase, so a flick of the lever on the Ifanger threading tool holder and flip the carriage switch to reverse, reverse to the start of the thread and flip the lever on the Ifanger holder wind in and start another cut.

Ifanger tool extended



and retracted



Almost any lathe can be used for chambering and fitting a barrel, it's just some are easier to use than others, ie shorter headstock, imperial leadscrew etc but almost anything can be worked around.

The Coulchester is a high quality lathe, both metric and imperial versions. Ian
 
I sold one of those a few years ago, it used to belong to a NZ shooter that gave up shooting BR and sold everything off.

I don't see them come up for sale very often but have seen a couple of similar ideas, here goes a few links, and I'm pretty sure a few could quite easily make a retracting threading holder.

http://statecollegecentral.com/metallathe/MLA16D.html
http://www.hemingwaykits.co.uk/acatalog/Retracting_Tool_Holder.html
http://www.gadgetbuilder.com/ToolHolders.html
http://www.projectsinmetal.com/forum/general-discussion/making-a-g0602-cross-slide-retractor/

Ian
 
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