This is a record of my attempts to buy another (bigger) second hand lathe. The first attempt from Gumtree seller 'NICK' was a disconcerting failure. There were some adventures and surprises on the way, and now a happy ending. Maybe also some more surprises yet to come.

Background

On general principle I'd rather spend money for capability to make a thing myself, than on buying the thing.

So, I've been looking for an old second hand lathe, as cheap as possible, that has swing clearance (distance from spindle center to the bed) of at least 170mm, preferably 300mm. Plus at least one big faceplate, or better yet a range of faceplate sizes.

The vacuum system project is stalled until I find one.

I'd been looking for a few weeks, before:

20170907 Saturday

Screenshot from Gumtree. Details below:

URL: https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/wetherill-park/miscellaneous-goods/lathe-big-and-heavy-fair-conditions-not-sure-working-or-not/1158543932 (Later: It is no longer listed.)
LATHE BIG AND HEAVY FAIR CONDITIONS NOT SURE WORKING OR NOT $1,300.00 (No offers made yet)
Seller's description: BIG LATHE FOR SALE VERY OLD AND HEAVY NOT SURE WORKING OR NOT VERY CHEAP $1300 YOU CAN'T BUY CHUNKS WITH THIS PRICE COME AND MOVE YOURSELF
NICK ph 0419435262 Wetherill Park, NSW
Date Listed: 02/09/2017 Last Edited: 06/09/2017

All gumtree listings by NICK: https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-seller/NICK/31359368

This looked interesting. The lathe appears in terrible condition, neglected, rusty, covered in some rubbish (sawdust? Clay?) disused for a long time (dead vines still draped over it) and apparently everything in chaos and disorder.
But it's clearly large enough for my purposes, and could probably be cleaned up and repaired. Some lathes have a removable section of the bed (called the 'gap'), and this one appears to have that part removed.
Overall the poor condition is a plus for me, since it equates to a lower price. Or it should.

Questions:

1. Where is the removable section of the bed? It's critical, required for most lathe use, impossible to obtain a replacement, extremely difficult to make an adequate replacement due to essential precision alignment and material (cast iron) compatible with the slides of the saddle.
2. There's no faceplate visible in the one photo. Is there one with it? If not, this lathe is no use to me.
3. That's a 4-jaw chuck. Inconvenient for most general use. Is there a 3-jaw chuck with it?
4. All the other usual: does it actually work, 1 or 3 phase motor, condition of bed and screw feeds, etc.

Then there's the listing text. It's very illiterate sounding, almost incoherent. All-caps, no punctuation, strange phrasing. What does "you can't buy chunks with this price" mean? Is he trying to say scrap iron would cost more? It doesn't sound like a '2nd language' issue, more like some kind of conceptual glitch. Odd.

Which brings us to the price he's asking. It's completely absurd. Some people do tend to put unrealistically high prices on things, as a tactic. But $1300 for this is so far into unrealistic, it raises that sanity question again. It's the same with all his other listings too. He wants near-new prices, for old, rusty, maltreated relics. In general, what kind of person put these adverts up? Is he really somewhat detached from reality?

Only one way to find out. Here's my first Gumtree message to him, and the resulting exchange:

20170907 Thursday evening

Incidentally I eventually found out those $1 listings were just click bait. They exist, but that seller does not posess them. They are part of an upcoming auction, with starting prices of $1. More on that later.

20170908 Friday

Hmm, well being a 'man of few words' isn't unusual. And being cagey about the address is fair enough I suppose.

20170909 Saturday

One good thing; it's not so far. Near the grey elephant, intersection of Hume Hwy and Henry Lawson Drive.

20170910 Sunday

I arrived there at 11:30am, as arranged. He had the garage-workshop open. In person he's a lot more communicative than on the phone and text. Seemed fairly normal. Late middle age, relates a story of family health issues. The workshop was his father-in-law's, who died a year ago. The garage has to be cleared out, hence selling all the contents on Gumtree.

Since I have my own family and personal health issues and recent death of a friend we commiserated. I explained my requirements for an old lathe, and we discussed the condition of this one. He showed me the various accessories for it lying about the shed, all of which are included in the sale, though not being pictured in the advert.

The minimal effort he's putting into these sales may be due to other time demands. Though I think there's more to it than that.

I found that the 'stuff' all over the lathe is dry sawdust (ie not oil soaked.) Wood dust in general is bad for exposed bare steel, since it tends to soak up what oil film there is, and promote rust. But here it doesn't seem to have caused much harm.
There are several big face plates, hooray! A 3-jaw chuck too. But very sadly, the removed section of the bed is just plain missing. He's never seen it and I can't find it anywhere in the shed. Without it the saddle can't come close enough to the chuck for normal working. Can only operate by winding the small slide right out, which is highly dubious and undesirable. Greater flex in the cutting bit results in a poor quality finish of the machined surface.

I made the points that I'm poor, currently really only have $300 available to buy an old lathe. Plus in this one's age, condition, and missing the crucial bed section, it's not worth much more than that anyway. I actually had $500 in cash on me, and only a few dollars in the bank, but needed to keep around $200 for some car parts, to get my Subaru to pass registry inspection. It's been out of rego for a while so putting that off more is bad. At the moment I'm driving a borrowed small car, and that can't go on for long either.

We seemed to be getting along OK, and he volunteered the price of $500 for the big old lathe and all its accessories. But that was as low as he'd go. Since really the money was for the mother-in-law, and she'd feel cheated if less. Fair enough. So I accepted, warning him that I couldn't pay that now but would have to borrow $200 to make up to $500. I'd be able to pay him tomorrow, I thought.

He agreed. I got in my car and started driving away, but got only around the corner when I had a better idea. Drove back, he was still there. I said I can phone my mother now, ask if I can borrow $200. If yes, I can give him a $200 deposit now. Phoned her and she OK'd it.

Then I hastily wrote out a receipt for the deposit of $200 for the "big lathe", with balance to be paid on pickup. I was excited and rushing, so goofed slightly with the wording — and then signed my own name under the text, when it should be just Nick's signature. Anyway, I gave him the $200 in cash, he signed the receipt, I corrected the wording, and we both initialed that change. Really the mistakes were a result of me writing it, instead of Nick. He should have written it, as the receiver of the deposit. But he didn't offer, and I assumed he's 'not comfortable with writing', much as in his Gumtree listings.

After that we both left.

Here I'd made two serious mistakes. I should have given him the full $500, got a receipt for completed sale, and then immediately loaded all the easily portable parts (faceplates, chucks, keys, tool posts, etc) into my car. But I was feeling excited and happy, to (I thought) have solved my machining problem and acquired a suitable lathe. I did not anticipate the kinds of problems that next arose.
I also should have taken detailed photos of the lathe and all visible accessories. But I'd left my camera in my car, and assumed I'd be collecting the lathe pretty soon anyway, so no point. Sigh.
For what's it's worth, here's a list of the accessories, from memory.

20170911 Monday

20170912 Tuesday

At 7:57am, he called me. I missed it but he left a voicemail. He says he's been up all night at the hospital with mother-in-law, cannot come to the meeting today. Then he gets very strange, and mumbles about how I should "Not come, I don't know, stay home, do something else..."

(I'd hoped to make a file copy of this message and include it, since it's so odd. But my phone service Optus deleted the message before I had a chance to do it.)

I phoned back, missed, he calls me again soon after, around 8:20am.

I say I have the money to give him, want to arrange another time to come give it to him, pick up the accessories, measure the lathe, etc as preparation for moving it once I've arranged a truck. I suggested tomorrow. He doesn't want to agree to anything. He starts insisting it should be picked up all in one day. Claims if I take the parts on the first trip, then I'll just leave him with the lathe body, so he then can't get rid of it.

I'm astonished, think that's an insane idea but I don't say that to him. Just assure him I need the lathe, and asap. I try to explain the need to measure the base, identify lifting points, etc, to make plans for lifting and moving it.

This makes no impression on him. Which is quite unreasonable as moving heavy machinery is not something to be attempted without a plan. See this article on methods: http://www.lathes.co.uk/lifting-a-lathe/.

I say well, hope you have a good sleep. I'd like to get things moving, maybe could he phone me tonight to arrange the next meeting, when he is rested? He is non-commital. I get the impression he won't phone. Conversation ends, with no arrangement for when to do the payment and begin pickup.

It leaves me quite worried. His insistence on the 'single trip pickup' for a maybe 2-ton lathe and all the accessories scattered around, is bizarre and unreasonable. But does he really believe it, or is he dissembling? Or just plain insane? I start to get a hunch he might be backing out, or just impossible to deal with.

Even more worrying, his listing for that lathe is still showing it as available for purchase. Did he just forget to take it down now it's sold to me? Too tired, didn't go online today perhaps. But he really should have taken it down on Sunday, after I put a deposit on the agreed sale.

20170913 Wednesday

Traffic is good; I get there pretty quickly. Strangely, I find him sitting in his car parked on the street out front of the house. The garage is not open. I get a sense this is not going to be what I expected. I have to park on the other side of a big earthmover truck parked in the street.

I get out, start walking back to Nick's car. He gets out too, walks to me on the street (not to the house gate.)
He asks me how I am, I say OK, but how about you? How is your mother in law? Did you sleep well?
As I'm asking, he isn't answering, just pulls out some cash and hands it to me. Then turns and starts walking back to his car. I quickly count it, it's $200. I'm starting to go into shock. What is this!? He's... dropping the deal! Oh no!

I walk after him, upset, asking him what he's doing, why, and so on. He makes no relevant response, just some muttering about how some relative is on dialysis, he doesn't have time, etc. He gets in his car, and I'm standing by the driver's door, literally begging him to stop, talk to me, tell me what's the problem. I have a pretty strong hunch, he's just dropping the deal because he was offered a better price, I thought. He starts the car, and ignoring me, drives away.

At no time did I insult him or say anything rude to him. Neither on the phone, or then when he was reneging on the deal. In this file I'm being sarcastic, but bear in mind I wrote this after he proved himself to be a dick, by reneging on our agreement while pretending the reason was something other than greed.

When I get home and check Gumtree, the listing for that lathe shows as 'sold'. Leaving 9 active listings.
In chat just now (11:30am) with Gumtree support, they gave this URL to the original listing:
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-view-details.html?adId=1158543932&uuid=3fe8bcf0-6a3e-48bd-86a9-d2f15f89c29a&cs_call=true

One principle I try to follow, is 'don't give up.' Thinking Nick may now be in negotiation with another buyer, and perhaps that might fall through, I thought I'd let him know I was still interested in the lathe. So around 1pm on Wednesday I sent him a Gumtree message via one of his other listings; a small Hafco lathe.

As expected there was no reply from Nick.
A bit later on the electronics forum eevblog I posted in the 'what did you buy today' thread:

20170914 Thursday ...

Over the next few days I couldn't get anything done. Should be working on my car, putting that Javac vacuum pump back together, finishing off the shed clear-out I'd already done most of to make space for the lathe. But no. Very depressed, motivation totally gone.

20170921 Thursday

This is the photo set with that listing. The lathe is photo number six.

But I wasn't sure; was this just a careless oversight on his part?

Or did it mean the lathe really was still there, in the shed, with no other buyer in sight? And maybe there never was any other buyer.

I suspected the latter, but not with much certainty.

His wording in that listing is a real masterpiece:

And then... I noticed he'd adjusted some of his listing prices downwards slightly. Nothing is selling, so he's starting to think maybe his prices are a little high.

The critical point being, he's adjusted the 'all in one' listing down by an amount that implies the big lathe is still included. Which means the mention of it in the listing text and photos, is not an error. It really is still there.

This confirms — he never had a better offer, and it isn't already sold. He just flatly reneged on our written agreement of sale, then removed the specific listing for that big lathe to pretend to me that it was no longer available.

Which means he's worried I could legally enforce the agreement, and demand he completes the sale to me, at the agreed price.

So then, why not do so?
Bah. Quote: "3 LETHE 2 SMALL AND 1 BIG". He's such a jerk, I will look into my legal options.

Notice in the listing text there's his 'take it all in one go' fixation again. For the whole shed-full, that's extremely impractical. A very irrational demand.

Anyway let's give him another chance to do the right thing. I'll even offer a more than reasonable price, above that agreed. I sent him another message via the hafco lathe listing.

I didn't receive any response to this message either.

Perhaps it's possible his reading comprehension may not be sufficient to understand these messages I send him. But otoh, he was able to at least reply briefly and relatively on-point before he decided to gyp me. Now he just ignores me.

20170926 Tuesday

Ha. A form letter maybe? Well, I didn't expect them to actually do anything, like ban him. More's the pity.

20170928 Thursday

As usual, no response.

Summary, as of 20170928

Whether due to his absurd prices and nutty listing texts he's getting no serious inquiries, or whether he acts as weirdly with any potential buyers as he did with me, and scares them off, who cares.

Theoretically, with the receipt I should be able to legally force him to honor the sale. Looking into that I got bounced around between various providers of free legal advice, starting with NSW Dept of Fair Trading. Who referred me to www.lawaccess.nsw.gov.au, and that led to South West Sydney Legal Center, in Liverpool.

Apparently it would require taking it to court. With costs, hassle and delay, for what was supposed to be the quick purchase of a cheap old lathe, it's not feasible. Once again 'The Law' proves itself to be useless for ordinary people.

If I was able to legally require him to comply with the agreement, it would be for the agreed price of $500. On pickup I may optionally also make him an offer of some extra payment on completion of loading, if the lathe has no deliberate damage, he has been cooperative in locating all the listed accessories, and he did not hinder the process of extracting the lathe and accessories from the garage. Such delay would be costly with a crane truck sitting waiting.

I'm resigned to Nick's obstinancy or whatever his mental malfunction involves, resulting in my not getting this lathe. Maybe Nick will find somebody willing to pay the price he wants, or maybe it will just sit rusting in that shed. That would be quite sad. Hate to see once-fine tools being destroyed by neglect. Losing the bed-piece; sheesh! Not even bothering to wipe the machine clean, oil the bare steel surfaces, and put a dust cover over it... demonstrates an appalling level of oafish stupidity, negligence and sloth.

In any case since there's zero chance of my getting that lathe, I no longer care if Nick sees my low opinion of him. This writeup was begun as a private record for my inquiries about legal remedy, now I'm repurposing it as a post in my public NoBlog.

Currently I'm looking into an upcoming auction of a large number of much more modern CNC type lathes. May or may not be affordable for me, but we'll see. I can stretch to a lot more than I'd have paid for Nick's old, broken lathe.

20170930 Saturday

20171003 Tuesday

Meanwhile I'm busy looking into feasibility of buying a CNC lathe. They turn up in auctions fairly often, but at more commercial prices (ouch.) Having such a machine has been a dream for years, but considering the likely cost and with no specific need, I left it as a dream.
Now it's worth exploring, but I have no experience with CNC machinery at all. Lots to learn, before I'd dare choosing and paying (a lot of money) for one. My other workshop shed has sufficient space, and the necessary three-phase 415V power, though moving a large heavy machine into it will be 'interesting.'

It's a waiting game; which turns up first, a suitable CNC lathe I can afford, or a very old crappy lathe that will do the job?

So far the slow trickle of old-style metalworking lathes on Gumtree hasn't turned up another that meets my needs, while also being old and dingy enough to justify a very low price. Otoh, with the ongoing industrial decline and factory liquidations in Australia, finding an affordable CNC lathe seems like it might be possible.

20171011 Wednesday. The CNC Expedition

The inspection runs for two days, Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th. Then everything auctioning online over the following two days. It takes at least 6 hours to drive Sydney to Albury, and I wanted to have a full day for looking. So I'd drive down on Sunday, and that night camp out somewhere near Albury. Back in 2012 when I drove to Ballarat, I'd found a well secluded campsite somewhere a little south of Gundagai (I think.) But if I made notes of the directions to the spot, which side road off the Hume highway, etc, I've since lost them. Despite trying multiple times I can't jog my memory using google maps.

So that spot is out. Besides, I recall the last section of that road was rough. Fine for my old 4WD Subaru, but iffy for the little front wheel drive city car I'm driving atm while the Subaru is under repair.

There's always somewhere to camp off highways, but it's nice to have a destination. Looking at the maps, Woomargama National Park seems likely. Sunday morning I packed the car and left at 9:30am. A little later than I'd hoped, but still OK to hunt for a campsite well before dark.

Now, everyone else in my family has been aware for a week that I'd be going on this trip, in this car. I'm driving the family 'spare' third car, since mine is off the road atm. Also this car has to go to smash repair right after I return, to fix a slight ding in the rear where a truck rolled slowly into it due to the truck driver getting distracted while stopped, and taking his foot off the brake. Also I'd said goodbye shortly before leaving in the morning. So you'd think there would be no surprises.

An hour south of Sydney, on the Hume, my phone rings. It's the ex-wife, demanding in a rage to know where I am. Well, I'm ... nowhere. Pulled over on the Hume in featureless bush at least 100Km out of Sydney to answer the phone. Why do you ask? Turns out my daughter, who recently (at last) got her P plates, has left all of them in this car. Ex-wife screams at me, this is all my fault and she demands I bring them back now. Google 'histrionic personality disorder' as an aspect of Pol-Pot induced PTSD, you'll get the idea.

I say no, sorry, can't and won't. She goes incoherent and then hangs up. Sigh. Their options: a few minutes trip to go pick up a couple more free P plates. Or just draw them on white cardboard with red felt pen, they'll do for 2 or 3 days. Compared to me doing another two hours of driving, just to get back to where I am now, then arriving at destination in the dark and trying to find a campsite.

Apart from that the drive was uneventful.

At home I'd printed a google maps image for the area, then when I stopped at Holbrook for petrol an information center gave me a small leaflet map of Woomargama National Park.

I'd planned to find somewhere along Tunnel Rd, but what's this 'Tin Mines Trail'? Is that a road?

I like poking around in old mine areas, this sounds interesting.

In Sydney it has been extremely dry for months. No significant rain at all. The country down around the Darling River doesn't look quite as dry as Sydney, but it could obviously do with some rain. By the time I left Holbrook the overcast sky was getting darker. As I turned off the Hume into Woomargama Way, it started raining. By the time I passed the national park entry sign, the rain was heavy. Ha ha, pretty funny.

Actually I didn't mind, and really did think it was funny. Because I have a bit of a tradition of bringing rain when I go camping in dry areas. This always makes me smile when it happens again.

Well, I guess I'll be sleeping in the car. Also I'd forgotten to pack the propane cooker, but I had plenty of food that could be eaten cold. So I was looking for somewhere I could turn off the tarred road, and get far enough into the bush for a peaceful, invisible evening. With a bit of a slope so I can park the car nose-up for comfortable sleeping.

I stopped at the turnoff to the 'Tin Mines Trail'. This turns out to be a rough dirt road rather than a walking trail, with the leaflet and signs insisting 'for capable 4WD and dry weather only'. Looking at the start of it, I agree. But I'm driving a small 2WD city car (which isn't even mine) and it's pouring. So that's out.

Kept driving on Tunnel Road all the way to the junction with River road, taking note of potential camp sites. There is no tunnel, and also much of this park has been burned out about two years ago judging by the regrowth. It's not pretty but in the dark that won't matter.

Drove back to the most promising turnoff I'd seen. This was an old logging road that started up onto the top of a cutting for the Tunnel Rd. I walked up it in light rain. Hmm, it would have been good, except for the massive tree that has fallen across it just out of sight of the road.

Onwards to the next potential, which was an 'obscured entry'. A subtle trail leading off, where someone has pulled multiple dead tree branches across so it looks like just more scrub. I walked up it, and it's perfect. Leads to some large clearings well off the road. It's been a campsite for a long time, but after the bush fire someone wants it to stop being used so hid the entrance.

Well, I'm all in favor of zero impact car-camping. I move the branches, drive in, put the branches back. There's even a slope to park the car on, and part of that isn't underneath any huge trees with lots of high, dead branches that might fall. So that's my 'campsite'. I have about an hour of daylight left, and brief gaps in the heavy rain allow me to set up for the night.

1-3. Park entry, obscure turnoff, campsite.

4. Is it a problem staying in a small car overnight? No not at all! The book I'm reading is fascinating. Xenophon's Anabasis - The March Up Country. A true story from around 400 BC of an amazing military expedition. I am NOT going to complain about any lack of material comforts here.

5. For instance, I have a good reading light for as long as I want. This gear is intended for use in a tent, and can have solar panels connected for long term use. But it works fine in a car too. Well, except for the issue of what to hang the light from inside the car. But the land provides... while walking around I'd found a roll of rusting fence wire behind a tree. That gave me a couple of wire hooks.

6. Great literature, simple food, and peaceful patter of rain on the roof. Splendid. Also lots of thunder and lightning for dramatic effect.

7. Fading off. Car seats can be comfortable to sleep in if the car is tilted nose-up, you pad up the foot well with something like a sleeping bag in its cover to bring your feet up, and fill in the V of the seat with whatever — an old jacket or two. Oh, and some kind of pillow for the head.

I'd already written out my todo list for the morning. First order of the day was visiting road freight company Border Express, based in Albury. I really needed to get an idea of what something like a large CNC lathe would cost to transport to Sydney. Not much point inspecting at the auction, if I could not afford the shipping. I had their address and a list of questions to ask.
After that I'd go straight to the auction site, and spend the day there. Possibly I'd also camp overnight again and go back for the second day of inspection.
But actually, the very first thing I'd do in Albury, would be find a newsagent and buy a street map. I use a dumb cell phone, no data plan. Much prefer paper maps anyway. I have a couple of very old 'country town street maps' books with me, but they are way out of date.

20171009 Monday, The Factory

At the office of Border Express in Macauley St, I learn all their vehicles are Tautliners — curtain sided semi-trailers. No flatbed trucks, as required for big heavy machines. But they give me a list of names of other freight companies that could do it. Names only, no address and phone numbers. They tell me a couple of them are just around the corner in Atkins St, so I go there first. On the way I drive past OneSteel's site, so go in and ask there too. They give me address and phone numbers of two companies on my list. They're not far away, but first, to O'Brien's just along Atkins St.

The customer rep there was extremely helpful. I'm given a quick but clear introduction to freight terminology, methods and prices. Taking notes! Also I learn a new word: demurrage. Plus several small but crucial details, like its best to hire the forklift for unloading at destination for two days, not the one expected day of arrival. Because the truck might have a breakdown on the way, arrive a day late, and then you can't get a forklift.
Overall it's great news as the costs are within my budget for buying a CNC lathe. No need to go talk to multiple companies now.

Next, to the auction site. Coming up to the ASI factory in Kaitlers Road I realise how huge the place is. I knew there were a lot of items in the auction lists, but really... wow.
Online details for the inspection days said 'covered shoes, long sleeve shirt, no cameras allowed.' That last one is odd. Really? No photos allowed, of high cost items customers might want to bid on? Well OK... I'm wearing boots, etc as specified. At the entry gate I'm told the small backpack is not allowed. Sigh, also understandable I suppose. I put that back in the car, bringing only clipboard, tape measure on belt and torch in my pocket. Sign in, get given the site map. The table has piles of about 15 different Lot listings, I take only the CNC lathes list. If I took them all I'd be carrying a half inch thick stack of paper the whole day.

About 15 steps into the building I come across the first surprise. The concrete floor is painted with a cream coloured hard paint, with a surface like glass. And it's oily and wet. With a few steps run-up I can skate along it for some distance. This is the most dangerously slippery walking surface I've ever encountered in any building. Wow. How many falls a year did they have?

Anyway, I don't care. I'll be careful. Next priority question, where are the toilets? They don't know. I get several vague 'over there' directions from different people who all are not sure. I find some in the basement, lights out and taped off 'out of order'. Turning the lights on and checking there's paper and the cisterns do have water pressure, one does the job. Later it turns out there are a few others on the factory level, in the back of the closed cafferteria.

While down in the basement (actually at gound level on one side of the building) I'd noticed everything down here had lot number stickers too. I found the network servers room; five racks full of servers and switches, all with the same lot number. And also, ah ah! In an adjoining room a large three phase 415V Uninterruptible Power Supply. It had the batteries removed, cabinet doors removed, battery wires hanging out, but interesting to me. The electronics rack appears to be complete, and it's not too old a model. I made a note of the lot number.

After that I thought I'd have a 'quick random wander around the factory to get an idea of the layout.' Oh the naivety! The place is vast. Even by the end of the day I still hadn't seen it all, and was still getting lost regularly. There were not all that many people viewing, and only a handful of auction-related staff. So in that almost endless forrest of huge machines taller than a person, the usual state was for no one else to be in sight.

But when I did come across people, they were often taking lots of photos with their cell phones. Hmm... I went back to the entrance and asked if cameras were in fact allowed. No one knew any reason why not, so yes. I went back to my car again for my camera.

There's really no way to convey the scale of the place in photos. Mainly because although the factory is mostly one big open space inside, I could not find anywhere from which a panorama could capture most of it. There may have been such spots, up on top of structures, but I didn't want to climb things in sight of auction staff, and possibly get myself thrown out.
So these above will have to do. Also, oil everywhere. Including on the steel ladder for this first shot, climbed very very carefully.

1. A view of one small corner of the place. It really is a tiny proportion of the whole.
2. As shown on this floor plan. Red dot is my position, yellow is the photo's field of view.
3-5. Some outside shots. Also could not get the whole view into one photo. I didn't think to take a pano series. Too overwhelmed I guess.

Well then, to work! In the online listings I'd found five machines of the same make and model number, that from the photos seemed like they might be suitable for my specific machining need and workshop space. And I admit, that I thought looked cool — definitely a major factor.

I'd asked the Sydney Okuma distributors a few obvious questions, like were they still in support (yes), were manuals and schematics available (yes), could I possibly make and fix a faceplate to the spindle (possible), and so on. There had not seemed to be any obvious deal-killers, and one very good piece of information — all these machines at that factory have been upgraded during their lifetime. So no firmware updates needed.

But were they really suitable? I had some questions to ask of people who worked with these, but first here's two of the machines.

That's not all CNC lathe. These two Okuma Spaceturn LB250T CNC lathes are built into a 'gantry loader', to form an automated production line.

The two actual lathes outlined at left. By itself one of these would fit in my workshop, but that gantry loader thing definitely would not.

They are Lots 150 (left) and 149 (right.) The gantry sells with Lot 149, while Lot 150 is by itself. Which is a trap!

Apart from plenty of wandering around, the rest of the day (and later) involved learning one bad thing after another about these machines. (For my use.) The order of learning was chaotic, so I'll skip that. Here's a list to get though them quickly.

• The factory was closed nearly four years ago. Since then these machines have sat dead. With some roof leaks. Who knows what faults they may have developed.
• Each machine was bought for a specific manufacturing contract (gearbox parts) and virtually certainly sat there for years doing nothing but that part. This means there may be a lot of wear, and it will all be in the short turret travel range used for that process.
• Every single one of them has a custom 'thing' for a chuck, all different. These were engineered to fit whatever part the machine was bought to make. They are not usable as general purpose chucks.
• Most of them have a fold-down arm and touch sensor for calibrating cutting tool position. But one of them does not. More on that later.
• Even with that arm in the 'stowed' position, it looks like it would be in the way for mounting a face plate. And there's nothing can be done about that, except mount the faceplate further out from the spindle. Thus losing some machining space.
• For large diameter rings like I need, the limiting factor seems to not be the spindle center to bed distance, but the clearance of spindle to tool mounted in the turret. Hard to tell if it would be enough, but I suspect not.
• They are bearably narrow in width, but much deeper than I expected. Also there needs to be working access at the back, and that's where the chip conveyor sticks out too. It would be a squeeze in my workshop.
• A really big negative. Looking at youtube videos of CNC lathes, I'd got the impression that tool turrets in general have the ability to mount milling cutters that spin, driven by internals in the turret. Turns out more modern CNC machines often have that, but these ones do not. Static tooling only.
• Also, I'd seen machines in which the spindle can either spin at speed, or index to fixed position with fine resolution (to allow milling or drilling using an active cutter in the turret), or can rotate slowly under precise angular control (again for complex milling.) But no, not these ones. The spindle just spins, nothing else. I could live with that for my immediate need, but it's a limitation for future potential work.
• Whatever is used for a chuck, there's a mechanism for closing the chuck automatically. This involves a 'draw bar' running down the center of the spindle shaft. And that means... there is no 'spindle bore', ie you can't feed in bar stock down the spindle. Another huge bummer compared to a standard old style lathe.
• The factory does have all the manual sets for each machine, all filed by the factory's allocated machine number. They are pretty good quality too, not Japlish. But... on examination and asking people who maintained them, there are not actually any circuit diagrams available for the electronics. Just cabinet wiring diagrams. And if something electronic blows, it has to be sent back to the Okuma factory for repair, or replaced with new. Costs are horrendous.
  This is the kind of thing that I can deal with by reverse engineering (and then publishing derived schematics.) But it would be a huge sidetrack project, and I don't want to do it.
• For transport, all CNC lathes have to have a fixture that secures the turret in place to prevent drift and damage under vibration. The factory management didn't imagine the place would go broke and the machines would be sold off, so when machines arrived they threw away those fixtures.
• Because the machines were spec'd and installed to one job each, there seems to be no significant stock of assorted tooling (cutters, etc) for them. At least if there was among the rows of pallets of sundries, I could not find them. Neither could auction staff when asked. I did find a few of the tool holder pieces (simple bit of steel with a round hole through the middle.) When I enquired later what those cost new, I was told $400. <faints>
• Not one of them has the tailstock & center option. I knew this from the auction photos, and had been informed by Okuma that this absolutely can not be retrofitted.
• A truly terrible trap for the unwary. I'd assumed that like any sensibly engineered software, the firmware in these would contain code to deal with all possible options on the machine. If something wasn't fitted, just ignore that.
  But no... At the factory I'd enquired about what happens if a machine fitted with a gantry loader has the loader removed. Several people mentioned this wasn't advisable, and would involve 'messing around with the configuration' to get it to run.
  Well, I thought that meant it was possible. Perhaps even fun. Back in Sydney I was informed by Okuma that every machine has its own code build, unique to that machine. If any attachements configuration is changed, Okuma must build a new code image and send to the customer. It comes on a stack of 3.5" floppies, for loading into the machine's flash memory.
  I was told a customer recently had that exact situation — wanting to remove a gantry loader and use the machine by itself. The code from Okuma cost $7.5K.
  Note that one of those nice machines in the big photo above (Lot 150) is listed for sale without the gantry. That will go with the other one. So someone may be in for a shock.
• These LB250T machines all have a $2200 'removal fee', which includes making new transport fixtures, among other things. So the total cost of purchase is the bid + $2200 + auction fees + buyer transport costs. And if the machine has a gantry to be removed, or any other changes required, add up to $10K just for new software and whatever. Plus if there are any faults to be repaired, bend over and grease up.
  Total cost of ownership of these things (in the typical industrial manner) is really out of my range.
  Ownership in the self-sufficient Hacktivist sense — possible, but does carry a risk of total failure.

Towards the end of the day I'd pretty much concluded this was a stupid idea, and these machines would barely if at all be able to do my immediate machining need. Which left only the boy's toy appeal, and in general something to learn CNC machining techniques on. They use G-code files, same as 3D printers and PCB layout manufacturing. There was also the attraction of taking a machine with very corporate-controlled software, and doing some liberation hacking, just on principle. But did I want to lay out several thousand dollars for these kind of non-essential objectives?
I was mulling this over, wandering around in sightseeing and random chat mode, when time came to close the place down and the staff rounded up stragglers like me, and kicked us out (nicely.)

I'd taken nearly 100 photos. There's no point showing more than a few representative ones.

1. One with the tool position calibration arm folded out for use.
2. A tool turret.
3-4 and all the next row, general views. Imagine their electricity bill just for lighting.

1. Lot 152, the LB250T that is missing the tool calibration arm, has a completely useless spindle non-chuck, almost no tooling fitted on the turret, and is fitted with a gantry loader (see note re software cost above.)

2. Lot 153, which looks terribly worn and dirty. But actually apart from the paint it seems in good condition, has useful tooling, and no bloody gantry loader. I was thinking if I was going to bid on one, it would be this. Take the panels off, clean and respray them, it would look OK. Maybe because it looks so bad, the bidding would stay low? I wish.

3 & 4. Lot 605, a funny little free-standing cubicle, containing some customised automated machine to assemble something. At the time I didn't give it much attention.

I still hadn't seen everything, hadn't decided whether I wanted to try buying one of the CNC lathes, or if not were there any small items in the metrology lab I was interested in. So I intended to come back the next day too. I was coming down with a slight cold, hadn't had any lunch, and it was going on 4:30pm. I drove practically just across the road and had something to eat in a service station cafe.

Check phone — good news, we've received the repair payment from the company whose truck dented the back of this car. They were very professional and pleasant to deal with, unlike someone else. Why did she send two SMSs?
Called her, she's too busy to talk, it remains a mystery.
I'd handled getting the repair quote and contact with the truck company. Nice to know it worked out.

Today the weather is beautiful; clear-sky, cool. I want to camp at that 'Tin Mines' site, so head back to the park. Now it's dried out the Tin Mines Trail turns out to be OK for this car, so long as I drive slowly to avoid tyre punctures on the many sharp rocks used for surfacing. As I come out of the pine plantation a little way yet to North's Lookout, the road quality declines suddenly since there is no more rock surfacing, and it has eroded somewhat. But it still seems OK. Just avoid putting wheels in the waterholes made by 4WD-heads playing mud-splash in large vehicles.
Then, probably about 1 KM short of Norths Lookout, this:

Not the little ditch, that's fine. It's the exposed bouldery bit further up. That would be totally no problem for my Subaru, and walking over the rocks I could see this would almost certainly be OK for the little Mazda too, if I'm careful where the wheels go. But 'almost certainly' is not good enough. Once I start up it, I can't reverse out because there's no way to see where the wheels are going. If I put a wheel in a hole and floor-pan the car, I have zero recovery gear with me. Also don't want to put scrapes in this car. Drat.
Well, if I come down here again I hope it will be in the Subaru. Disappointed, I turn around and go back. There are plenty of potential camp sites along the route, but none appeal. 3rd pic was a nice view on the return drive.
When I get back to the junction with Tunnel road it's nearly dusk. Do I want to stay at that burned-forest site down the road again? No, not really. Do I actually need to go back to the auction site tomorrow? No, nothing important left to do there. OK, so home then. Unfortunately it's now after 6pm, so I'll be driving till between midnight and 1am. Oh well.

On the way back, with about 1.5 hours to go, I decided I'd better have a roadside nap. Which became a two hour stop. So I didn't get home till around 3:30am.

At 9pm there'd been a mysterious SMS. I'm used to this, it's pointless getting concerned by them. Some fixation of the moment... it doesn't mean anything, best not to reply.

As you'd expect, Tuesday was mostly a wipeout. Slept late, went to my mum's in the afternoon to do her chores and weekly shopping, didn't get home till late.
Incidentally, Sydney didn't get any of that rain at all. Still bone dry. Unwatered grass is dead, some smaller and less deeply rooted trees are starting to expire too.

20171011 Wednesday, a win for $1

Since I have to go back, was there anything else very cheap I could pick up? The Metrology lab sale was running till 5pm, so I looked through that. Crazy bidding was going on, but I found a couple of things that might stay low, that interested me. One was a dryer, that I have one of but missing a couple of parts. The one on offer was complete, so I bid low on that. The other was a rather crappy looking 'test tube agitator'. On my recent trip to Melbourne for some medical chemical analysis work by a chemist friend, I'd seen a similar one in use and thought it was neat. So bid $1. Won that, but not the dryer. Ha.

The early bidding on the Okuma LB250T CNC lathes was as expected slow. Those Lot numbers ended on the 12th (Thursday) at midday, and all the serious bidders will enter in the last hour or so. People playing 'few dollars leapfrog' now on Wednesday are silly and just wasting their time. But there are always fools...

Speaking of fools, I had decided that yes, I would like to have one just to play with, software hack, and maybe actually do some useful machining with now and then. But didn't want to pay much for effectively a toy, and considering I still have to find and buy an old lathe that could do what I actually needed. Would they go over my limit? The 'big UPS for $1' had made me a bit more hopeful for low prices. Also what would the bidding pattern be?

Which reminded me, it's been a while since I checked gumtree for old lathes. Around 9pm I clicked on my saved gumtree search link, scroll through the listings of lathes on offer. Hmm... nope, nope... Wait, what the hell?

Oh gosh. It's my old mate Lying Lunatic Nick again. Same lathe, same photo. And... all his same things are listed again. He has not sold even one thing from that shed yet.

Ha ha ha ha... <inhales> ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Wow. So apparently the poor fellow really does have some kind of mental disorder. What was all that business with taking the listings down one by one, presumably pretending they sold? Then putting them all back now? All at the same prices except the big lathe, which he's reduced from $1300 to $1200. Even the item wordings are the same, since several of them still have his first asking price in there, though the heading price is now lower. They seem to still have original listing dates too, like 02/09/2017.

Going on past performance he won't respond to me, no matter what I say. I'll consider whether I should organize someone to pretend to be a buyer but acting as my proxy, and offer him $1000. But the payment and pickup process would be complicated, by having to safeguard against repeat lunacy. Do I really want to get involved with that nutcase again? I'll think about it after the Albury auction is over. Nick's lathe is not going anywhere soon, I think.

20171012 Thursday, CNC lathe bidding

I wanted to keep track of five items, so opened five browser windows, one each. And to keep a record of bidding on each, a text editor with five tabs open. Into which I could paste bid events. The Pickles pages only show the last few bids. And once the Lot's auction is over, all information on it including the final bid becomes invisible.

In summary, four of the five went way over my limit long before close. Those included Lot 153, the 'bad paint day' one, that I'd hoped would lag. So I didn't bid on it at all. Its final bid was $2800, the lowest of all the Spaceturns, despite that functionally it was probably the most useful. Appearance matters!
Lot 152, the one with the calibration arm missing was starting slowly. One hour before close it was still just $13 and I wondered if it might not take off, so I joined the bidding. But was quickly left behind. My max bid was $1350; the final bid was $3,050.

Lot 149 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 12:12PM $3,550 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 12:12PM $3,500 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 12:11PM $3,450 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:11PM $3,400 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 12:05PM $3,350 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:05PM $3,300 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 11:59AM $3,250 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:59AM $3,200 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 10:19AM $3,150 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 10:19AM $3,100 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 06:31AM $3,050 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 06:31AM $3,000 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 06:31AM $2,550 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 10:19AM $3,150 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 10:19AM $3,100 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 06:31AM $3,050 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 06:31AM $3,000 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 06:31AM $2,550 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 06:31AM $2,500 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 06:30AM $2,150 Lot 150 V.V. Matraville NSW 12/10/2017 10:48AM $5,050 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 10:48AM $4,850 V.V. Matraville NSW 12/10/2017 10:48AM $4,800 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 10:48AM $3,750 V.V. Matraville NSW 12/10/2017 10:48AM $3,700 E.H. Winthrop WA 12/10/2017 10:19AM $2,650 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 10:19AM $2,600 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 06:52PM $2,550 S.G. Campbelltown NSW 11/10/2017 06:52PM $2,500 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 06:52PM $1,550 S.G. Campbelltown NSW 11/10/2017 06:52PM $1,500 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 10:55AM $260 Lot 151 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 06:05PM $4,450 R.B. Point Cook VIC 11/10/2017 06:05PM $4,400 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 06:05PM $4,050 R.B. Point Cook VIC 11/10/2017 06:05PM $4,000 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 06:04PM $3,450

Lot 152 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:11PM $3,050 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:09PM $3,000 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:09PM $3,000 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:04PM $2,950 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 12:04PM $2,900 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:56AM $2,850 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:56AM $2,800 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:54AM $2,250 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:54AM $2,200 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:50AM $1,550 S.Y. Woolloongabba QLD 12/10/2017 11:50AM $1,400 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 11:50AM $1,350 S.Y. Woolloongabba QLD 12/10/2017 11:49AM $1,300 S.Y. Woolloongabba QLD 12/10/2017 11:49AM $1,300 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:48AM $1,250 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 11:48AM $1,200 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:47AM $1,150 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 11:47AM $1,100 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:46AM $1,050 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 11:46AM $1,000 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:45AM $860 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:03AM $760 S.Y. Woolloongabba QLD 12/10/2017 11:03AM $750 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:03AM $510 S.Y. Woolloongabba QLD 12/10/2017 11:03AM $500 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 10:59AM $13 V.V. Matraville NSW 12/10/2017 10:21AM $5 S.T. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 10:21AM $4 V.V. Matraville NSW 12/10/2017 07:37AM $3 R.B. Point Cook VIC 11/10/2017 06:06PM $2 E.H. Winthrop WA 11/10/2017 11:48AM $1 Lot 153 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:52AM $2,800 M.S. PEAKHURST NSW 12/10/2017 11:52AM $2,750 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:52AM $2,500 M.S. PEAKHURST NSW 12/10/2017 11:52AM $2,450 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 11:52AM $2,400 P.M. dandenong south VIC 12/10/2017 09:22AM $2,150 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 12:52AM $750 D.E. Bibra lake WA 12/10/2017 12:52AM $740 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 12:52AM $730 D.E. Bibra lake WA 12/10/2017 12:52AM $720 R.B. Point Cook VIC 12/10/2017 12:52AM $710

Oh well. I'd been conflicted about whether I should even try to win one of those potential albatrosses, so failing to win one was kind of a relief. Also it means I have more cash left in the fund for 'buy an old lathe, that I actually need.'

On the other hand, disappointing — no boy's toy for me. But wait, I do have to go down there for the UPS, and there's another auction ending around 4pm. I was going to watch that anyway, to see what ridiculous price an old Dean Smith & Grace lathe sold for. An old machinist I'd met there on Monday had commented he'd pay no more than $500 for it. I thought maybe a bit more, but I expected bidding to go wildly over that, so I'd stay out of it. Not to mention that while shipping a heavy CNC lathe from Albury to Sydney may have made some sense, shipping a heavy old lathe that distance absolutely does not make sense.

In the meantime, why don't I skim through the listing to see if there's anything I might win for entertainment value, that would also fit in the trailer? This turned up: Lot 605 Assembly machine cubicle. Which I'd seen when I was there and thought was an amusing Heath-Robinson contraption. I'd taken one pic — #2 below.

Now I give the photos some more attention. Huh. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T-slot. The aluminium framework — it's expensive and very useful stuff, and I will need to buy some anyway for an intended project. Here there's an abundance of it, with plenty of slot nuts and stainless button-head screws. Plus oodles of nice pneumatic controls and actuators, and that control cabinet will be full of goodies too. Also those two huge pneumatic cylinders —, hey there's enough there to make a neat general purpose press. And the windows; I bet that isn't perspex. Lexan maybe? I could get that thing converted to a smallish pile of juicy parts in less than a day, I think. There's a massive welded steel base frame; they can keep that for recycling with all the other scrap steel I expect they'll end up with.

Yet, when I looked it was still sitting at $54. No... it couldn't, could it? I decided I'd bid up to #130 (ha ha), and jumped in at 15 minutes to go. Sigh... straight into an incremental bidding war, with some guy who also could see value in it and wasn't going to give up. (Or who works for Pickles. You can never know.)

Lot 605 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:19PM $420 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 04:19PM $410 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:19PM $410 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 04:14PM $400 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:14PM $390 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 04:14PM $380 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:14PM $380 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 04:09PM $370 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:09PM $370 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 04:03PM $360 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 04:03PM $360 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 03:57PM $350 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 03:56PM $340 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 03:53PM $310 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 03:53PM $300 G.D. East Hills NSW 12/10/2017 03:44PM $130 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 03:37PM $110 S.S. NORTH ALBURY NSW 12/10/2017 01:11PM $54 N.W. Footscray VIC 12/10/2017 01:11PM $53 S.S. NORTH ALBURY NSW 11/10/2017 10:54PM $52 P.B. baranduda VIC 11/10/2017 10:53PM $5 S.S. NORTH ALBURY NSW 11/10/2017 10:53PM $4 P.B. baranduda VIC 11/10/2017 10:53PM $3 S.S. NORTH ALBURY NSW 11/10/2017 10:53PM $2

Bah. That took all the pleasure out of it and wasted 20 minutes past the auction supposed end time, by repeatedly extending the run-time. At $410 I decided this was getting ridiculous, and had broken the fun per buck ratio for me. I quit.

There was still some entertainment in store though. Not long after that I checked email. Assorted bumpf from Pickles about being outbid (several times, and thanks for reminding me.)
Also two Dear John letters:

But this raises the question, what were the reserve prices? What proportion of items 'passed in'? I have a hunch it was large. The existence of reserves didn't seem to be mentioned in the advertising for the auction. But I suppose I should have known.

Anyway, all up that auction cost me $2.16, according to my bank statement. For the big UPS that's excellent, even adding in petrol for the two trips.

Oh, and that old lathe?

Silly price? I think so.
Hmm. I wonder if that 'passed in' too?

Note to self: If participating in any future Pickles auctions, on any item of interest make one bid while it's under $10. That way you at least get to be informed if it is passed in. And therefore may be available again in future.

20171014 Saturday. The MACSON

One good thing that had come from the day of wandering around in the factory, was meeting people who knew something about second hand lathes. I'd been given several names of Sydney and Melbourne people who traded in them, and so talking to them was high on my todo list. I'd start that on Monday.

Meanwhile it's Saturday. There's still the matter of whether Mister Nick might somehow be persuaded to actually sell his rusty, missing-bed-gap-piece lathe for a reasonable price. Around 3pm I had a look at Gumtree again.

Yep, there's Nick's woeful mistreated old thing...

Right below his entry there is a much better looking big old lathe, for $900.

It'a a MACSON Model 17-17.
36" between centers, 14" swing.

I contact the seller. It has a faceplate that is big enough for my job, it's not very far away from me, and there's a guy coming down from the Nth Coast to see it tomorrow. I arrange to go over immediately to inspect it.

It's well cared for, has a bed gap (in place as opposed to lost), 3 & 4-jaw chucks, all the tooling and change gears together in boxes, comes with the original 3-phase motor as well as the mounted single phase motor, speed changing via gearbox (so no messing around with belts), has a screw cutting sync dial (I don't know the correct name) and best of all the owner (an old guy who is moving to WA to be with family) and others there are all nice people, pleasant to talk with. The owner demonstrates the machine running, and his main concern is that his lathe, which has given him much enjoyment over the years, will be looked after sensibly. I assure him it will.
Interestingly he has photocopies that were taken from microfiche in a library archive, of engineering drawings of some parts for the lathe. One date visible is "25.9.47", so the drawings and probably the lathe are older than me.

These are all positives. The price was listed as Negotiable, but I like this lathe so much that I don't bother haggling. (Doh! I should have. Never mind.)
A few minutes into looking at it I agree to buy. Give him a deposit and he writes out an appropriately worded receipt. (A very welcome contrast to illiterate Nick.) Woo hoo! The 'finding a lathe' problem is solved, replaced by 'how to move it.'

Which is actually not easy at all. Number one issue is that they are leaving for WA the following weekend. So I have one week to move it. And although it's right next to the lift-up door of the small garage, that garage is at the end of a long narrow driveway. I'd brought a tape measure and clipboard, and meant to measure the lathe and access dimensions, but what with chatting about the machine and things that came with it, I forgot. However I did notice a distinct lack of useful lifting points on the lathe.
Later that evening I messaged them, asking for the driveway width and garage door opening height.

20171015 Sunday

On Sunday morning I'd dug out a robust steel beam I had, left over from Project Blue Beam.

This beam and the four large mounting bolt holes in the pedestal feet of the lathe were obviously made for each other.

Here's what I imagined by around midday. It provides good lifting points for the crane, and (I thought) could be dragged like a sled. Having all these materials lying around as scrap is also a strong appeal of this plan.

I was still expecting to only have to drag it about 4 meters out of its current location in a shed, so it could be picked up by the crane. But that drag would be difficult. My little 2WD car probably couldn't do it. I hoped a friend with a big 4WD could help.

Early in the morning they had replied with the site dimensions I'd requested. I drew sketches of the layout of the pickup site, and the destination. Put them online with some pics of the lathe and a text description of the job, to show transport guys. The driveway is only 2.1m wide, which seems very tight. Perhaps transport operators could suggest something?

Back when I was trying to deal with Nick, I'd learned that flatbed trucks with cranes are called "HIABs" (HIgh Ability) and a friend had recommended one company — Reach Crane Trucks. Speaking with them I'd learned HIAB hire involves an hourly fee (somewhat over $100 per hour for large ones suitable for lifting a lathe), and the hours are base-to-base ie include all travel time. Reach are based in St Marys, which is a long way from my area.

Obviously it would be preferable to hire a HIAB locally. I'd been intending to make a list of them and do some phoning, right after I gave Nick the remainder of the purchase price and picked up the lathe accessories. Then he blew up our deal, and later the Albury CNC auction happened, so I still hadn't made that list. Now I urgently need to solve the lathe moving problems and locate a HIAB hire. On a Sunday, ha ha.

By the time I had a list of several HIAB hire companies that showed up in web searches as local, it was Sunday afternoon, so I really didn't expect to achieve much more that day. To try anyway, I phoned the first one on my list — Shiftrite Crane Truck Hire. Fortunately the HIAB operator who answered didn't mind being called on Sunday, and very kindly offered to come over to my place around 6:30pm to look at the job details.

Comically, around 5:30pm my mum phoned, to tell me she'd lost her TV remote, and simply couldn't find it. Could I come asap and help? Actually to her it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. When standing up is painful, and a powered reclining chair is the only way you can be comfortable, being able to watch TV is quite important. I had to apologise and say I'd be round sometime after 7pm. In the meantime, could she have dropped it on the floor then kicked it under the recliner chair?

When the HIAB guy arrived and saw the pics, he had bad news. Both the driveway and the low door clearance were insurmountable barriers to his HIAB, and certainly all others. Too narrow, too low for extended crane arm and slings. Also at my place a large HIAB would not fit under our carport roof. He thought a fork lift would be needed, at both ends. He gave me an approximate idea of what forklift hire would cost. Another problem he pointed out was that a forklift front part probably would not fit under the low opening of the garage door. So really, no forklift.

Ouch. OK, so this is a problem I have to solve myself. In a few days.
Right after he left, as I was preparing to drive to Oatley my mum phoned. TV remote found. It was under her chair. She used a grabber to retrieve it. Sigh. Wish I could move the lathe so easily.

The requirement is to manage all the onsite movement of the lathe myself, both ends. Allowing a HIAB to work the simplest case — pick up and set down right beside the street.
Even with Nick's lathe I'd assumed I would have to deal with moving the machine down the back here and into the shed on my own. My original idea had been to construct a kind of sled, allowing it to be dragged across uneven grassy ground. Using rollers if needed. This idea mostly driven by my already having a big sheet of structural flooring board, and plenty of hardwood 2x4 beams. Options to drag it include hitching it to a heavy 4WD vehicle, or using a chain winch.

At 1am Sunday night I emailed the seller to let them know how the planning was going, and to say I'd be coming on Monday.

20171016 Monday

1. An early start; 6:30am and about to cut the bar up.
2. Cutting eight 31mm holes through 3mm thick steel takes a while. With only a few to go my hole saw became too blunt. Here's where I resharpened the teeth by hand. Angle grinder with thin cutting wheel held in the bench vise via a bolt screwed into the grinder handle mounting. Hole saw hand held, teeth cut by eye.
3. The bars done. Except for the lathe base mounting points.
4. At Caringbah. I'd arrived about 10:30am, in this photo had used crowbars to walk the lathe out far enough for the new bars to clear the wall and doorway. The lathe is still sitting on the concrete.
5. With crowbar and wedges, I'd gradually worked the lathe up onto bricks. I was cursing myself for not thinking to make and bring some large hardwood wedges, which would have been much more convenient than a box of small ones. Ha ha, now I need to make some new small wedges, since pine gets badly squashed by a lathe. Here the beams are under the lathe, chocked up hard against the bottom. I'd used squares and a ruler to get the beams centered and parallel. Then I just scribed through the pedestal mounting holes onto the beams.

Between photos 4 & 5 there was a messy and unanticipated stage I forgot to photograph. When originally put down here, decades ago, the owner had placed pads of bituminous felt under the pedestal bases. These did a good job of avoiding point stress on the cast pedestal against uneven concrete. Unfortunately by now they also made a fine, hardened glue. The crowbar had been able to break the machine free of the concrete, but the tar pads stuck to the underside of the pedestals. The crowbar wasn't sharp enough to scrap it off. It had to come off for mounting the lift bars. I hadn't brought any old chisels or small hammer.

Thankfully we found a suitable chisel and hammer among the tools there. Then I spent some time lying on the greasy, tarry floor, both hands in the brick-sized gap under the pedestal, chipping away at stiff tar. Thinking 'great way to lose both hands at once.' Of course the tar is tar-black, so the torch light didn't help much. Mostly I did it by feel.
Also the tar had oozed up into the pedestal mounting holes and gone hard, so those had to be chipped clear with a screwdriver and hammer.

Oh, and most important: knowing I could get the lathe lifted over the bars by myself.

Once that was done it was time to leave. I'd given them most of the remaining price (now paid $700 of the $900) so they were happy for me to take all the accessories. I was happy to not have to deal with these at truck pickup time. I also removed things from the lathe I thought best to not have on it during transport — the planet lamp, tailstock and tool post.

I'd planned to go straight from Caringbah to my mum's place in Oatley, for her Monday Chores. But now I had a car packed with greasy stuff (no room for her shopping) and was filthy, sweaty and starving. Really needed to go home first, unload the car, have a shower, change of clothes, bite to eat. But among her shopping is always a trip to the chemist. This can't be omitted. They close at 5pm, and it was really going to be tight. Racing, no time for the sit down I badly wanted. Left things like buttoning shirt for some traffic light stop on the drive over. Made it to her place with just time to run in, grab her medications list, then make it to the chemist 5 minutes before they closed.

On return to her place, finally I could sit down for a while. All the other stuff could wait. Didn't get home till after 8pm.

20171017 Tuesday

1. Four M16 bolts. Stainless steel because why not. Plain steel M16 nuts, for welding. Washers too. But the nuts have to be inside the blue beam. If I just weld them in, I can be sure they will not quite match the lathe pedestal boles, and then I will be screwed. So there has to be some play in the position. But for strength any loading must be distributed across the face of the beam. I'll do a floating internal plate with an oversize hole in the beam face. The black steel bar is 90 x 10 mm, 1m long.

2. Cutting the plates. I love angle grinders and thin cutting disks! I really do. Wish I'd had one in my teens.

3. Pilot holes, and the nuts with coating cleaned off.

4. 17mm holes in 10mm thick steel; definitely a case for bolting down the machine vice.

5. Welding a nut. The bit of old brass plumbing is just to protect the bolt threads from weld spatters.

1. Crucial. When welding the nut, the centering bolt must be spaced evenly from the hole. Otherwise the actual bolt will likely bind on the hole edge.

2. The plates. And cutting the polyethylene foam blocks used to make them a firm sliding fit inside the channel.

3. Foam blocks with center holes cut using a cork borer. The nuts go in the holes, so the blocks and plates are locked together.

4, 5. Assembled.

Next, I should dig out some hardwood 2x4s from the lumber heap, and cut them to length. According to plan, right?
Ha. Nothing ever goes to plan, you should know that. There's always something. Today there are three somethings.

Firstly the timber. My lumber heap is quite neat. It's salvaged timbers from when we demolished the old weatherboard house. It's on termite capped pillars, has sheet metal rain cover, and is stacked to allow most bits of timber to be easily pulled out lengthways. It's intended to provide more than enough timber for internal fitout of my 'barn' shed. The one the lathe is going in. It's close by that shed, so the timbers can't be pulled out in that direction. They were meant to pull out the other end.

Back in Nov 2016, a friend of mine was leaving for a world trip, and asked if he could park his car in my yard. He would be away 'a couple of months'. OK, I said. Sigh. It's now going on a year, and he's still in Poland. Rebuilding his grandparent's home, a worthy pursuit. But his car is parked up against the other end of the lumber pile. And is definitely not easily startable by now. If I spent some time on it, probably could get it going, with a new battery. But time...

Oh... I can't get any timber out. What, any? Um... by futzing around, I extracted enough pieces off the long side to use as sled rails.
But wait... I've been developing a nagging doubt about this sled idea. For one thing, I'm not having any luck obtaining a volunteer big 4WD pull. Everyone is either away, or working. But worse... I'm thinking about the driveway at Caringbah. It's pavers, apparently laid on sand. I know the base is soft, because down near the front fence cars have made the pavers sink several centimeters, forming two wheel ruts. So do I make the sled to ride in the ruts, or on the central ridge? And then... in that ridge there is a plastic sewer pipe cap. Sticking up a little above the pavers. Great. What I really need is to break their sewer access cap, just before they have a house open day for buyers. Not. Also, supposing dragging the sled actually just drags a bunch of the pavers? That won't be good either.

It's a bit over 1.3m between the steel beams I'm adding. The 2x4 runners span that distance. Hardwood 2x4 is pretty strong, but is it really strong enough? Suppose the whole lathe weight came to bear on one bump under the center of one of the sled rails? And it broke. The lathe can't tip over because the steel beams are there. But a broken sled rail could dig in and make it unmoveable. With the anticipated logistics of a quick move from the shed to the street, for a scheduled HIAB pickup... I smell the smelly smell of potential major f*ck-up. Either that or of a broken sewer cap.

And then... I have some cats. My favorite is a gray one called Tiny. The weather has become warmer lately, and she's switched to sleeping outside. Apart from that, seeming to act normally, if a bit more remote than usual for her. Late in the afternoon today I gave her a pat in passing, and decided to pick her up. Hand under her chest, the other supporting her back legs. She always enjoys a hug, but as I picked her up I felt something odd on her chest. Had a look. Urrgh! She has a gaping wound. Has obviously been there a while, she's licked all the fur off around it. Two nasty, puss oozing holes.

Pic taken later, a day after vet and antibiotics, it looks much better now.

Fantastic. It's too late to take her to the vet now. And I've decided the sled idea is a no go. So now I have to come up with a way to do the only alternative - wheels. While I'm worried about Tiny. Thing is, she's had this exact same problem two or three years ago. Unknown if it was a bite, or she somehow got a sharp stick in her chest. It developed to an abcess, then broke through before I noticed it. Trip to vet, antibiotics, it healed up perfectly. Cats are amazing for the wounds they seem to just ignore, and recover from. Maybe this is a return of the same thing, perhaps due to a splinter or something still in there? Or just another bite in the same place? In any case, she can wait till tomorrow morning for a vet visit.

I go back to thinking about designs for wheels, using the existing steel beams as starting point. The huge weight makes every option potentially a complex problem. A trip to Bunnings confirms what I expected — they have nothing at all that comes near to rated for the expected load. Say the lathe weighs one ton. (I think it may be more.) There's not going to be any sprung suspension, so on uneven ground one wheel might be off the ground. The thing has a heavy end, and that end will always drive both its wheels to the ground, so they will approximately share load. But with an unknown total weight, and unbalanced load sharing, who knows? It would be good to allow for 600Kg wheel loads. Bunnings has nothing even close. Also I exclude pneumatic tires, because what if they burst?

As for rollers, using round logs under a board, that has all kinds of pitfalls. Not least is that I can't fit the 2.4m uncut pine logs in my little car. Plus I hate CCA timber. CCA stands for Copper Chrome Arsenic. They're impregnated with waste liquid from the electroplating industry. What do I do with the poisonous things afterwards?

The local industrial area to the rescue again. For the same project as the blue beam was for, a couple of years ago I'd bought four heavy duty castor wheels from an industrial supplier. The lathe needs thick-axle wheels, and I know that place will have them.

Style Steel do some really heavy duty wheels.

The catch is I want to be able to remove the wheels, leaving just the bare beams, as they are now. That's because I may want to leave the lathe on those beams permanently. The shed it's going into doesn't have a concrete slab, it has pavers on sand. Big pavers, on compacted special paver sand that sort of sets hard, but still... with that narrow base I'm worried the machine could develop a tilt.

Also for axles I'll use a harder grade of steel. If I just welded the axles to the beams that will damage the steel temper.

Time to let the owners know how it's going. Very late Tuesday night I email:

20171018 Wednesday

The plan is in my head, this mess is just dimensions of parts needed. Added to as I went.

1. Wheels and steel. L section was a mistake.
2. Cutting axles. It's 20mm medium tensile steel. Can't use 'hard' because I have to drill holes in it.
3. Wheel and axle with U section.
4. All the wheels done.
5. Had worked out required bolt length, bought them. (And a 20mm drill for the axle holes.)

1. Four axle brackets cut, one drilled with pilot bolt holes, now transferring pilot holes to the remaining three brackets.
2. Drilling out to size.
3. Cutting the backing pieces, from old stock bar I had. Have had for about 30 years. Finally using it for something.
4. Drilling those. Oh boy, 4 x 2 x 2 = 16 holes. Transfer drilling, only measured and marked the first one.
5. Test assembly. I got it close enough that there's no appreciable skew looseness.

1. Trying out the brand new 20mm drill. Biggest one I've ever had. Definitely bolted down the machine vice, though you can barely see it in the pic. And yes I did intend to drill to intercept the inner web radius, that makes drilling the last few mm a jam-prone pain. Was grasping for every bit of ground clearance, when the wheel bracket is one way up. The other way up it doesn't matter.
2. An assembled wheel.
3. The base bars with wheels, done! Great, except this was about 8pm. Well past any chance of taking them to fit to the lathe today.
4, 5. A late-night afterthought — adding a center tow point to the lathe-head end bar.

Time for an update. They must be getting nervous (and so am I):

20171019 Thursday. Serendipity Again

The plan was to simply push the lathe on its wheels, down the driveway by hand. Or using my climbing rope and climbing pulley sets for advantage. Probably with another rope at the rear of the lathe, around something as a safety capstan to prevent any chance of the lathe running away on the slight slope. I couldn't actually think of anchor points for either the front haul or rear safety rope. Even to me it sounded like a very iffy plan.

I got up at 6am, with a better idea. How quickly could I make a kind of rigid tow bar, to link the lathe to the back of my small car? That should be easily able to tow the lathe on wheels. Could not use a plain rope, since then the lathe could potentially rear-end into the car. I would not be popular. I hunted in the metal stock and found a quite suitable long square tube. One end even had bolt holes perfectly suited to attach (via a shackle) to the lathe bar center tow point I'd added as an after-thought last night.

The other end took me about an hour to adapt to the measly tow-point loop under the rear bumper of the car. So little space! Also I had to put a bend in the tow bar, to clear the lip of the lathe pedestal. Cut, bend and weld... it looked like it should work. Better chance than the rope tricks, anyway.

Then it took a while to pack the car. Really trying to think of everything I might possibly need. I got away by 9:40am. Still no vet for Tiny, which made me feel bad. But she did seem to be fine, and the wound was looking a bit improved, as opposed to worse.

1, 2. Pics of the quickly improvised tow bar.
3, 4. Lathe on wheels. Oh, and yesterday I'd remembered to make some nice big hardwood wedges. They made a huge improvement to the rate at which I could lift the machine.

But between pics 2 and 3, something amazing had happened!
While driving from my home to Caringbah, on a main road about 10 minutes from my destination, I'd noticed a big HIAB truck parked on my side of the road. Which struck me as one of those absurd potentials that should be grasped with vigor. I jammed the car into the next parking spot I could find, about 50 m down the road. Hopped out and started running on the road to the truck. The driver was in the cab, and looked like he was about to drive off. I waved wildly, he saw me. To make sure, I signed 'hey you' and 'wait a moment'. He looked curious, and waited. Or maybe hadn't actually been about to leave.

I reached the cab, and standing on the road at his driver's side, cars going past a couple of feet away, his window was well above my head. He opened it. I said "Hi, do you want a job this afternoon?" He laughed, and wanted to know details. I described what I needed — kerb-side pickup of a lathe from Caringbah, kerbside drop off in East Hills. This afternoon or Friday. Turns out he's based in Cambeltown, was doing a run from around here to down Cambeltown way this morning, has the afternoon free. And is going overseas tomorrow, ie Friday. My job would actually suit him well. I ask him what he'd charge. It's a fixed price, and a good bit cheaper than any other estimate I've been given. I accept.

Then he asks about lifting points. I describe. He says oh no, I only have one chain with me, that needs two. A moment of dismay, while we both think maybe this won't work. Then I remember - hey, one of the things I threw in my car at the last moment, just in case, was my big drum of climbing gear. Including a 50m 12mm rope. The lathe has a 'light' end; my rope could do for that, doubled over if not sure. He says, OK, if you're happy with that, let's do it. Phone me back in an hour and give me the address. I get his number and we shake on the deal, introductions. His name is Mav. He has to go, and so do I. I had the impression he was a really nice guy. Cheerful, good sense of humor.

5. Sighting along the lathe, into the bright open space it's soon to inhabit. Theoretically it should go in a straight line. I found I could roll it easily by hand on the smooth concrete. But the owners had to move a lot of stuff from the yard into the garage now, in preparation for the open house visitors. I'd backed the car in, ready to try the tow bar, but didn't get a chance to attach the lathe to the car and try it. But hey, after that serendipitous HIAB hire, I'm willing to trust the towbar function to fate. I drive the car out again.
This sure is a narrow driveway. Even with my little car I have to be very carefully backing up it, and getting out of the car doors is a squeeze.

With the car out on the street again, I phone Mav. Leave a voicemail. I'm packing up some more stuff when he returns the call. It's all still go. He says he can drop by the depot and pick up more chains, then be in Caringbah at 3pm. I've been told by the owners that I should wait till 3pm to ensure the open house stragglers have left, so I ask him if he can wait till 3:30pm. To give me some time to get the lathe onto the kerb. He says OK.

I drive to my mum's place, surprising her with an unexpected visit. We have lunch, and instead of needing to phone anyone we pass the time chatting. I show her the recent days' photos, tell her the HIAB story. I'm still a little worried about the dip in the pavers beside the sewer hatch, so leave a little early to see if I can find some tossed out chipboard or anything to use to pad up the dip. On the way back I do find a small sheet of 4mm MDF, together with a couple of nice street-toss finds in the same pile.

I get to the house in Caringbah at about ten to 3. There's no one home. Oh oh. I call them; they are on their way home, will be a few minutes. Say it's OK if I start, the garage is unlocked, feel free to move stuff out of the way. I open the garage, move some potplants, then go out to the car to get things. As I do, Mav arrives, parks the HIAB just up the street. It's 3pm. I explain I still have to move the lathe, owners will be home in a few minutes, he can wait if he finds the situation suss. He laughs, says no, do I want a hand? Yes please! Mainly right now, to guide while I back the car up this squeezy driveway. I've attached the tow bar to the lathe, need to get the car tow point right over the bar coupling. Having that help is really useful, since geting in and out of the car is quite awkward with so little side clearance.

As we're doing that the owners arrive, so then it becomes a public spectacle. Quite fun, because... IT WORKS. Car feels very very strange pulling such a massive inertia, and there's about a centimeter of coupling slack in the tow bar, but it's fine if done very slowly.

In the rushed morning, one thing I hadn't had time to do was verify that the wheel bars were parallel. There's a few millimeters of deliberate play in the bolt positions so they can be out. It turns out they are well out, which makes the lathe follow a trajectory curving slightly to the right. Into the fence. Two or three times down the driveway we have to stop, and lever the machine back into line. With the weight on the wheel bars it's easier to just adjust the trajectory rather than fix the alignment. But it goes quite easily.

1. Success! Now to toss it into the car boot. Just kidding. I'm a little sad I forgot to take a photo before removing the tow bar. I'd uncoupled it and put it in the back of the car, then remembered the camera.
2. Lathe, meet HIAB. Skyhook at the ready.
3. Unplanned group photo. Previous owner near the crane hook watching his beloved old lathe going, son in law to his right. Mav in sunlit action pose. By this time it really was mine, as I'd given them the last of the payment and got a receipt in full.
4. In the air, flying away.
5. On the truck really to roll.

1. At its new home, just unhitched. Note the two slings coiled up on the brick wall.
2. Putting the wheels back on. A few minutes after he'd left, I spot the slings still sitting on the wall. Phone him to let him know. He says never mind, he's going overseas tomorrow, and they are getting a bit frayed anyway. I can keep them. I say OK, but they are here if you need them when you get back.
3, 4. Rolled in a little way. Still not lined up. I had however, this time made sure the wheel bars were parallel.
5. A moment of truth. How would the wheels go on the dirt? It instantly became impossible to push by hand, but that was expected. Turns out my Subaru can haul it across lawn with no problem. Doesn't even require 4WD engaged.

1, 3. By the time I got it down the side and out of sight of the street, the daylight was gone. My neighbor helped, which I greatly appreciated since by now I was getting seriously exhausted. The towing was easy, it was lugging all the other stuff back to the workshop and doing lathe realignments to go around the driveway corner, that were proving my final straw.

Incidentally, do you see why I couldn't use the little car to tow it here? A: because if I had, the little car would be trapped in the back yard until I winch the lathe the last 15 meters to the shed. Whereas my Subaru is already trapped in the yard, because it's out of rego atm.

With the lathe safely under a tarpaulin (double layer) and the mosquitoes being a nuisance especially to my neighbor who they seem to love more than me, we quit. I removed a couple of high projections consisting of the old oiler tubing, so the tarpaulin would sit better, and bricked the tarpaulin well around the edges to ensure it couldn't blow off. Had a short rest then went and bought a pizza. Sitting at my desk, web-news reading over pizza, I had a new 'getting old' experience. I actually fell asleep for a moment while eating. With a mouthful of pizza. Weird experience waking up with a start, still sitting up, wondering for an instant what is in your mouth. Sigh.

Well, I expect tomorrow will be busy too. There's still a long, long way to go before it's in the new workshop and set up. I went to bed.

20171020 Friday Surprise!

Around 3am I woke to the sound of rain on the metal roof. A very pleasant and welcome sound. Apparently the 'camping out' thing applies to my lathe too. It's in a tent, of sorts. But it will be fine. I go back to sleep, smiling. In the morning I check the Ventusky beautifully animated weather page. Well would you look at that! We get a good soaking rain for the one day my lathe is in its 'tent', then fine weather again afterwards. Cool.

Pics 4 & 5 above are early morning, with rain continuing and puddles of water around. It's such a welcome sight.

Finally I can take Tiny to the vet, at 8am. It's no big drama, just an antibiotic shot for her. By evening the wound is already looking a lot better.

Since it's raining, and will most of the day, I take a rest day. One of the things on my to do list that I've been putting off during this lathe-moving rush, was phoning Pickles about the UPS pickup. I do so, looks like it's all good. And... they tell me there's still a chance to buy one of the Okuma spaceturns CNC lathes, if I'm interested. I ask what proportion of items in that auction got passed in. He says about 50/50. I assume if they admit that, then it may have been much higher. He asks me which I bid on and how much. Wants me to submit an offer for an Okuma spaceturn, and he'll see what he can do.

Hmm... this is interesting. I wonder how many of them passed in? At the prices I recorded, perhaps they all did? He's with Benson Machines, what is the nature of their link with Pickles and the company in liquidation? Who gets final say on sale prices?

Anyway, realistically, now I have a big lathe I don't need the CNC at all, other than as a toy. I'm not even sure I could fit it in the shed in addition to the Macson lathe. Not to mention my poor mum having already helped me with some cash for the Macson. For instance she paid for the HIAB. And all my reseve funds went to it as well.
But the potential is still a once in a lifetime thing. I'll have to ask her.

I think I had better just concentrate on getting my car fixed and registered. And the trailer. And the trip to Albury.

20171021 Saturday

1. Predictable result. Bogged immediately I tried to roll the lathe any further across damp lawn.
2. Solution: more force. I rigged a rope and pulleys system, jacked the bogged wheel out and packed under it, then applied lots of pull. This worked. The wheels sink in a bit, but not as much as that first bog spot. I can move it by myself.
3. There'd been no immediately obvious anchor point for the rope. Till I thought of using the stormwater retention pit manhole. The pit below is half full of water from the rain, so getting the lower beam and clamp in place without dropping anything in was lucky.
4. This move stage completed. It's on a concrete slab at the entrance to it's new home (shed.) For the last few meters of drag I'd shifted the anchor point to a tree further away. Didn't have enough chain to reach that earlier.
Incidentally that's the single phase motor, and yes, it needs a better mounting.
5. Some preliminary cleaning. Scraping a lot of gungy black oil and sediment off the lathe tray and pedestals. Also went over the whole machine (including my newly made bare steel wheel mounts) with a very oily rag. Since it's going to be outside under a tarp for a few more days while I finish preparing the shed space.

I've realised that the interior of this larger pedestal was originally a sump tank for cutting fluid. It's missing associated parts like the tank side hatch, pump and plumbing, but I like the idea in general. I add restoring this feature to my todo list.

20171022 Sunday Sorting

Anyway, neeeerly ready to move the lathe indoors.
In between, I've been going through the things that came with it.

1. The old 3-phase electric controls, that appear to be original 1940s vintage. Really only of historical curiosity.
2. Name plate on the main solenoid-actuated 3-phase contactor and overload cutout. Too bad the 'ratings' are long gone.
3. Original cloth-insulated wires. To be fair, there was originally an inner layer of rubber. Now just brittle fragments.
4. A sump pump that turned up later. Not sure if it's original to the lathe. Probably not? The motor is 3-phase.
5. The original old 3-phase motor. If the windings are still OK I'll restore and remount this on the lathe, as it allows reversing. Also I can then add a variable frequency electronic drive for speed control.

1 - 3. The faceplate. Serial #419, 34cm in diameter. This is what I need to machine the parts required in the vacuum system.
4. Travelling steady. This attaches to the saddle and travels with the cutting tool.
5. Fixed steady. This bolts to the lathe bed, and doesn't move.

1. Tool post. 107mm square, 47mm slot height. Still no quick-change tool holder for me, sob.
2. The 3-jaw chuck. I'd wondered why the 4-jaw instead of the 3-jaw was mounted on the lathe. Just by chance, or...
3. One of the jaws on the 3-jaw chuck turns out to be cracked. I wouldn't use it like this, due to the risk of a fragment flying out. Hazard of projectile, or it jamming into something while part way out. But I don't see any way to fix it, and chances of getting a replacement jaw would be zero.
4. Some extra gears. I've no idea what a complete set is. Notice one of these (top left) has had a teeth-loss accident, and been repaired with brazed metal and apparently hand filing teeth.
5. Assorted cutting tools, with holders ranging from small to large. Several boring bars. Two parting off tools, one the anti-jamming springy type. Two knurling tools. A set of outside jaws for the 3-jaw chuck. A live center for the tailstock.

1. The tailstock. There's at least three layers of paint on this lathe, with much of it flaking off. Here I was seeing how hard it is to scrape off. Cleaning up and repainting the entire lathe would be a lot of work. On the other hand, one of the things to set up in that shed is the sand blasting kit that's still in its original crate.
2 - 3. When I was first looking at the lathe, I'd been offered a large, rusty old 3-jaw chuck that doesn't fit this lathe. I'd thought it would be scrap due to internal rust seizing it up, but accepted it anyway. Lucky! Now I know the smaller 3-jaw is broken, this big one remains an option, if I can fix the rust. Pity I didn't take a photo before starting to work on it. The jaws were rusted solid; would barely move even with WD40 soaking into the slides. It really did look rust-ruined. Here I've started disassembly.
4. "CHAS TAYLOR BIRM Ltd - TAYLOR CHUCK - Made in England." And of course it has a completely different mounting scheme to this Australian made MACSON lathe.
5. At this point it was starting to look hopeful. The rust hasn't reached the spiral thingy, and after some whacking (with soft hammer and rod) one of the jaws could be worked free. There didn't seem to be any significant surface damage.

1. All the jaws out. Why yes, I did check they are numbered for their slots before removing them.
2. More cleaning. The old grease was solidified. There's amazingly little rust penetration, easily removed.
3. Cleaned and reassembled. I used Duralith grease which was a mistake. It's too viscous, making the chuck stiff and slow to adjust.
4. The rear. The bolt holes are 7/16" Whitworth and I'd already bought some. The centering lip is much larger diameter than the MACSON's spindle flange.
5. "B52 F90"stamped on the chuck. What does it mean?

1. "Plate must clear this face". I presume the chuck should sit tight on the outside rim, where the bolts are. These bolts not only secure the chuck onto the spindle (or adapter plate), but also hold the parts of the chuck together.
2. Removing the 4-jaw chuck from the lathe. There's no facility in the lathe for locking the spindle shaft, so I clamped the crowbar in to use as a handle while I undid the chuck mounting nuts.
3. Some monkey had been in the habit of hitting this chuck face with a hard hammer. Denting it. All the faces are dented in the same way. Why on Earth would you do that? It's risking damage to the lathe spindle and its bearings. Presumably it was like this before the old guy bought it.

20171025 Wednesday. Accessories After the Fact

I went round in the morning today, and this is what I was given:

1. Dividing head bits. I figured out the left-most piece slides into the spindle bore and locks in place. But the mystery - there's no means to mount the rest of it on the lathe with the worm gear engaging the spindle cog. And oddly the worm gear seems to be too short to engage that cog properly. Hmm...
2. There were a few rust spots starting on the index wheel, so I took it apart for cleaning. Only then I discovered the worm gear isn't actually attached to the shaft at all. I realised this is a partially completed home machining project. The index wheel is commercially made, the rest is home made. Nicely done, but he'd hit a snag with that worm gear and apparently stopped there.
Well, it's close. Not much more work needed to implement spindle indexing on this lathe. Or my little Sheraton Model A.

Here's another mystery. While there this morning, talking with the son in law, he'd mentioned the old fellow had built a large powered telescope mount. Designed and had castings made for the casing, then machined the gears himself. Supposedly using this indexing system. But it can't have been with this, it isn't finished enough to be workable. Oh, and they threw that telescope mount out not long before I came to see the lathe. I nearly cried. I have a big parabolic dish, for which I want to make a computer driven mounting. Dammit.

3 & 4. The index wheel numberings.
5. The QUORN kit of parts. Are they all present? Don't know, and it will take some reading to find out. This is a serious machining project, I wonder if I'd be able to do it? Maybe... But no time at present. For now I'll just remove some rust that's starting on the shafts, oil it all, find a better box, and store it away.
6. It comes with a copy of an article from Model Engineer, 4th January 1974. And a book, which at least for the first couple of pages appears to be the same text. Albeit with much better illustrations.

Back to the the shed clear-out. I'm not going to show pics of that mess. Just one comical example of my tech-hoarding tendency. Years ago a dumpster-diving trip near where I worked yielded a ridiculous number of identical, new stepper motor assemblies. All in original shipping bubble wrap. I'd stored them - three boxes full. Now the box heap excavations have reached that strata. I still can't bear to throw out the steppers. But I can volume reduce them, by discarding all the useless attachments. So, a brief (2 hours?) interlude of stepper motor stripping, reverse production line style.

Rightmost photo above: Good grief. Later in the boxes excavations, two more boxes of these stepper motors turned up. From different times in the past when I'd disassembled a few, but given up on doing all of them.
Anyway, they are Minebea PN 23LQ-C036-G2V, which means 2.3" OD, precision hybrid, 5° step angle, 2 & 4 phase motor. Two windings, no center tap, about 1.1Ω each. Too bad about the helical gear shaft, but I guess a tight-fitting sleeve and grub screw won't care.

Something had been nagging me about the lathe. On the gearbox top cover, there were some unoccupied screw holes. Do those go right through the casting, I wondered? If so the holes are potentially letting grit into the gearbox. Besides, I want to look inside the gearbox anyway. So I opened it for inspection, and to get an understanding of how the two gear ratio levers work.

The lid comes off easily. Four bolts, and there's no oil seal gasket. Just metal to metal.

1. Shiny. I'm greatly relieved to see there are no chipped teeth. Although someone in the past was in the habit of changing gears with the machine running, and so a couple of the driven shaft (top) gears have badly worn ends.
2. The levers. Now I understand. The left one has three positions: A, B, and Disengaged (center.) That slides the castellated cylinder on the main spindle, to engage either the left or right big gear.
The right hand lever has four positions, 1 to 4. It slides the 2-gear unit on the central shaft.
Note to self: Never, ever change gears with the clutch engaged.
3. The gear ratios.
4. Checking run out on the spindle. Hmm... about 0.04mm. Also there is a little end play observable.
5. Those open screw holes do go all the way through. They are 1/4" and 3/16" Whitworth thread, so some short gutter bolts can serve as plugs. Ha, and now I look at the photo, I notice yet another open screw hole on the rear side of the casing.
6. A worn brass plaque. All these cry out for restoration. That will be something to do when I'm repainting the machine. Here the difficulty is extracting the hammered-in hardened steel securing pins, without damaging the soft brass plaque. Or shearing the pin off in the hole.

20171026 Thursday. Inside Finally

1. The clearout continues. Here we see nearly $1000 worth of steel sections, bought cut to length a loooong time ago, that were supposed to become welded shelf upright frames almost immediately. That didn't go according to plan, then the pile of stuff on top just got deeper and deeper. Now they are accessible again, the shelves can go back on the todo list.

2. Another victory over accumulated stuff. Reaching the wall where the lathe will go. The last thing to move elsewhere is this largish compressor. It was only parked here temporarily, for, uh, at least three years?

3. It's now going where intended, in that corner by the sink, recently cleared of other stuff. The compressor is very heavy and is mounted on 'temporary' castors. Problem... that whole end of the shed has a loose dirt floor, about 15cm lower than the level of the paved floor area. There's a reason for this, and it isn't slackness or running out of pavers. The intended use of that area is metal casting. One does not carry crucibles of molten metal anywhere near a concrete floor. Because if you spill molten metal on concrete, the heat causes the concrete to explode. (The hydrate component of the cement disassociates with a bang.) This throws spatters of molten metal upwards, which might penetrate the faceguard, leathers, etc you'd be wearing. And so, the safe floor material for such areas is sand or gravel. I'll be using gravel, since I have cats. You work it out. I just didn't do the gravel fill yet.

Anyway, there's some boards for the compressor castors, thwown wuffly to the gwound. (Monty Python fans will understand.)

4. Compressor in place. It will sit higher once the gravel fill 'floor' is there. The small sign above the (salvaged) sink says "No pollutants in sink" since this drains to the stormwater pit. Now and then I clear out the accumulated mulch from that pit, and spread it on the garden. The land slope made it not possible for drains from this shed to go to the sewer. And besides, I'd rather any water used in the sink goes to feed the trees. Hmm... Now I have a colour laser printer, I should do a more fancy sign.

That blank wall beside the compressor, and the one at rear in the photo, are two of the three that will be floor to ceiling shelving.

1. Oh hi Lathe. Come in, make yourself at home. Sorry about the mess.

2. Couldn't resist a little bit of quick fixing. The rear lip of the lathe splash tray had been badly bent at some time in the past. Here I'm starting to straighten it. An iterative process, it only took a few minutes, and now the lip is acceptably straight.

4. Swinging the lathe into position, approximately. The method is to get one wheel where it should go (black marked line on the pavers), wedge the wheel so it stays there, then crowbar the other end of the lathe around. The whole thing pivots on that one chocked wheel.

4. In place! And it's started raining again, so this move indoors was well timed. I haven't yet decided exactly how far out from the wall to have it. Best to be able to walk around behind it. For one thing the wall is a pinboard for tools, and even if hard up against the wall the lathe is awkwardly deep to lean across. Also I want to be able to get at the rear side of the lathe.
These things aren't urgent though. There's a lot to do yet, with the lathe, this shed, and most urgently, getting my Subaru fixed and going down to Albury to pick up that big UPS.
Now the lathe is out of the weather, other things are going to take priority for a while.

So I think that's it for this story. Further progress with the lathe, the machining, the shed, car, UPS, etc, will all be separate articles. Not to mention finishing the <counts them> five NobLog articles I started since July, but didn't yet complete enough to post.