Another great vid Mark, and pleased to be part of that. Thanks to all the tips and suggestions in the comments here!

Hi Mark what a nice lathe! If it was my aquisition, because the headstock is splash lubricated, I would lift off the headstock cover and inspect to be certain that the oil passages to the bearings are clear and oil flowing nicely. also drain and flush the old oil and replace with new.

He is off to a great start with the machines he has. A huge advantage is all of the space he has and the ability to move things. I'd be in a similar situation to you having to find creative ways to move machines of that size into a basement. I've started small with things that can be hoisted by a couple of guys or loaded on furniture dollies.

That's a pretty nice lathe. Good size for 99% of the work. I completely agree with you, spindle bore is a key feature, I only have a 24mm bore in my lathe so for anything bigger i have to cut chunks out of the bars but you inevitably have waste material. Probably in the future I'll find a bigger and, more important, sturdier lathe.

Anton really got a great one! One of the benefits of buying younger lathes, they don't have an additional 30-40yrs of use or storage damage.

Those little boxfords were well build and very accurate little lathes. I had an 11.30 industrial. The speed range was upto 2240rpm I think. I totally stripped it and repainted it. Looked brand new when done. I'm sure you've got a brilliant machine

Grate lathe! Looks like he is going to set up a very nice shop to work in. Hope you had a good trip.

British Boxford lathes are great. Most were sold to Education so never had much wear.

Nice lathe, never knew Boxford maufactured industrial lathes. Excellent idea on having controls on top of headstock , happy electrician, no knee deep in oil 👍. Good check on spindle droop, some high end tooling to boot 👌. Thanks for sharing

That was a good buy for sure, it's in great shape! I've just bought a lathe myself, should be arriving this week, it's a WW2 era Lodge & Shipley model A. Will most definitely need more work to clean up than this Boxford but that's the fun part!

Damn You boys ganged up on the old lathe. Looks like a very good piece👍🏼

Made in Great Britain Label *exists* "Sort of a warning label, eh?!" Truer words were never spoken.

Looks like it was a lovely day out sailing on Hauraki Gulf

"one thing missing here,where is the dataplate??" i allmost fell out of the chair there🤣🤣

Beautiful machine. Thanks for taking us with you

The lever for sliding feeds is mounted in that loose block with square spring washers behind it, it's a clutch, so pull that lever all the way up to engage. The spring washers are the holding force for the clutch so need adjusting using the block screws to allow full disengagement with the lever down and tight engagement with the over centre lever up. Also, you'll want to make a new mounting plate for the compound slide. The original design has a large diameter recess cut in it for the graduation ring to sit in under the flat surface of the bottom part of the slide. When you tighten the slide down at any angle you set it at, the clamping force bends the bottom dove tail part of the slide into the recess on the base plate. I made a new plate, totally flat with three clamping points instead of the two on the original, marked the graduations directly on the surface of the new plate and scraped the underside of the slide to match the new flat surface. Now when it's fully clamped down there is no bending force and adjustment of the slide gibs is easy and consistent with no binding regardless of how tightly clamped down the assembly is. Otherwise, I found the travel of the saddle along the bed quite prone to stick slip, probably due to the relatively narrow contact areas on the vee way. I solved this with a bit of machining under the saddle and turcite lining for both the vee and flat ways. Now it slides so smoothly and without any significant stick slip to point I can repetitively adjust the carriage position by microns just using the highly geared hand wheel. It is now a really nice lathe, basically a top spec, reduced size Harrison m300 clone, just with a proper gear train that does true metric to imperial conversion using a 120/127 gear set, rather than the very close approximation you'll get on the Harrison and larger Colchester lathes (except the bantam that is).

The short throw on the feed engagement shoudln't worry you unless the lever pops out under heavy load or slips. It's just a friction clutch pack. It seems going into the cross feed just bypasses the clutch pack. Now the looseness of the lever block may be to compensate for improper /setup/shimming.

I love your passion towards lathes! It speaks my language! :D

Nice Lathe 👍👍😎👍👍 - the only thing better is if it could tell stories about the parts it has made over the decades.

very good video rotarySMP

I wouldn't add DRO to tailstock, but topslide for sure. It's very handy being able to back off when single point threading and know the movement exactly without dealing with any backlash or something. Also, being able to get a good tool post and programming in different tools in your DRO so there is no touching off is another nice thing. You should convince him to put a rotary encoder on the spindle, and a servo on the lead screw and do away with all of those gears haha. That is my plan once I get my own.

That's one hell of a find. It's a real beauty. The promise of hours of chipping fun :)

Great video, very timely as I am currently rebuilding a Boxford STS which is very similar to the 280T. Anton looks like he got some really nice accessories, like that original Boxford ball turning attachment. Regarding the cross feed engagement lever, those screws are used to adjust the safety clutch pressure on the feed mechanism, take a look at the manual which explains it. I don't think you should be able to engage the threading lever unless the feed plunger is set to the middle "neutral" detent for obvious reasons. There is a spring-loaded pin inside the apron which should prevent this, mine was actually damaged or cut short (intentionally?) by the previous owner and will be replaced. The name plate is missing, it should be attached to the four holes on the back of the lid (electrical cabinet) on the top of the machine. If you guys want any more info or just see some of the stuff I have done to mine you can check out the reels on my Instagram account which is linked in my about page. Cheers, Jeremy in Auckland, NZ.

Nice lathe, very similar to my Harrison cousin that from the same era that I upgraded to last year. Mine had been on coolant as well which had crept into gear change and saddle boxes so had fun cleaning out the sludge and varnish. Nice haul of accessories

Looks like a good solid lathe. Really nice to get so much with it. 😀

Beautiful lathe. I'm not sure a compound DRO would be worth the while on such a small turn diameter lathe. Best wishes all.

That's about what i'm looking for but not many of those here in the US seems most of them were thrown in the bay with the tea. I did run across a Monarch a while back but it had lead a very hard life and I don't want to rebuild I just one one I can use without a year of rebuild costing as much as buying a new lathe...

Just like a kid in a toy store 😍

5:47 it doesn't look like a Norton gearbox. Fine looking machine!

Very nice bit of kit. I'd put in a multi-fix tool post before the DRO.

The power feed block on the front of the apron is not loose on my Boxford 270T. The power feed engages almost as soon as one starts to lift the lever but, letting go causes the lever to drop down and the feed disengages. To lock the feed on I move the handle all the way to horizontal. This is the same behavior as another 270T I used some years ago. All the best!

That lathe would look great in my garage.

Great machine. Clean it and run it. I regret passing up a tooled up boxford years ago . I'm trying to find a Harrison M250. I just found out they were also sold under the Clausing label. Smaller lathes like this are hard to find in the US.

Nice pickup. Need to make some boxes to put the bit and pieces in.

Good purchase

Hi again , after pausing the 1ms flash of the cross feed diagram, there are springs under the 4 bolts holding the engagement level. this suggests that some float was built in ,as you no doubt concluded. the fact that it works as is does now suggests stop using immediately and investigate something is assembled wrong or something has failed

My weiler condor came with a dro on the top slide from factory. It’s nice with the summing feature on the ancient elesta digital readout. But if I didn’t have it I definitely would miss it for the work I do anyway

Very nice. Think the pair of holes on the back are for a taper turning attachment but might be wrong. My Hardinge was a similar find with loads of multifix tooling. Some wear but will live with it.

Haven't watch the entire video, but I would look for good speed control on a lathe if I ever was going to buy one. Also an easy way to install a DRO.

What a deal! Definitely add a DRO to the tailstock. Ciao, Marco.

I've never used a Boxford (nice looking lathe, though!), but, remember one lathe (brand not remembered) in the Machine Tool Technology class I took in the early 90's that had a very similar drive engagement lever. What I really remember is that under the load of a cut, sometimes it wouldn't disengage! You couldn't apply enough force to make it STOP.... Ruined a nice thread practice piece (with an Acme, a Square, and a standard V thread sections) on the last few passes when it wouldn't disengage even with bruising my hand beating on it. Maybe having those bolts loose was to "fix" something locking it up under load? Or, you know, they were just loose....

The most important thing to look for when buying a used lathe is that it is actually a lathe and not a pencil sharpener or a carrot slicer.😊

Nice lathe like that? Clean it up, oil it, run it. Particularly with that xmas morning haul of accessories 🤩

You need to exercise great restraint with well-intentioned slight disassembly for cleaning... in the blink of an eye you'll have the whole machine in bits on the bench. I am still putting mine back together...

Not all 50's lathe have a small spindle bore. Mine got 36mm spindle bore, good gearbox (but not as good as the boxford), real steel hardened ways (less than 0.03mm wear). The only downside is a threaded spindle (huge M64 thread). It was a pretty advanced lathe for this time. For measuring wear on ways, use a good straight edge and feeler gauge, check what gauge goes under the straight edge. Check also for bearing runout from inside the spindle bore, as there is always less wear than on the chuck taper.

the one from that russian worker vid, then that's a collectors item right there 😂

Awesome find

Perhaps a complete teardown would reveal the data plate. I mean, what's a machine without a clean data plate?

I'm considering adding a DRO to my tail stock but not on the top slide for two reasons: I rarely use the top slide (it spends most of its time stored away as I have a rigid block to replace it) and when I do, the travel distance is set by the part I'm tapering. By that I mean the tool just runs out of the part at both ends of the taper at least for the simple parts I make!

Definitely add a DRO. At least for the two main axes. On auxiliary support, only if the difference in price between 2 axes and 3 axes is small. And make it a "dumb" DRO - no math on angle and movement of auxiliary support, it is PITA for DIY lathe IMHO ;-). On tailstock the DRO is least useful. I would buy a cheap Chinese one. Look at the videos for replacing that auxiliary support with a chunk of steel, like many KZfaqrs do. Solid toolpost will improve stiffness and you do not need auxiliary toolpost that often. And you can swap them if needed. I personally would just clean the lathe and start using it. You should also inspect whether internal oiling system works and look up oiling points, so that Anton can oil the lathe properly with way oil, so that his grandson can inherit a lathe in a perfect working condition. The last thing I might do is make a holder for my small die grinder and grind in the chuck jaws. Again there are many, many videos of how to pre-tension the jaws for grinding and only grind them the tiniest amount to bring them into perfect alignment. Oh ... one more thing. Anton might want to get a couple of precision ground stones and stone those small dings in hardened bedways smooth.

Bi-catch, good term for accessory’s.

I have an 11.30 industrial and the drive engagement lever does go up into a horizontal position. It may have something to do with the amount of shims in the assembly.

Very nice machine :) Personally, I'd clean the surface rust off and touch it up, just to prevent anything deteriorating. Otherwise, assuming it worked well enough, I'd run it as is. Being a British machine, it's not leaking, it's just marking its property 😂 EDIT: It looks like Boxford is still on the go and still making things in the UK. That's a nice change.

You need to set the auto feed handle distance. That’s why it has shims. Looks like you’re misinterpreting shims, need to space it out further so the cam can go all the way and it can cam over and lock.

I feel like I'd enjoy doing CNC conversions more than actually using the machines afterwards

Fun fact, working in a 200:189 set of gears into the clockwork will get you _very_ close to a 4 TPI inch leadscrew.

I would ask my friend Nico to convert it into CNC, that would keep me busy for a while😂😂😂, sorry Nico!

Nice Lathe, I have the 10.20 STS version, to be honest your wasting your time fitting a dro to this machine, they are very accurate machine. Its worthwhile reading up the manual as many good bits of info in there.

The holes in the rear of the bed are for the tapper unit - thought I never seen one IRL. Likewise, the holes in the cross slide are for a stop. You may have trouble mounting a scale there anyway as the gib screws will be in the way unless you can offset it. I have tried a few glass and mag scales and none are thin enought to fit in the gap so I've ordered Newell NMS300 DRO kit. Not the cheapest but at least I know it will fit on my STS. You can tell the age by the serial number thats at the tail stock end of the bed. The first 2 numbers are the year and 2nd are the month - 8610 = Oct 1986. Fun fact, most of these types of lathes (known as an X10) in particular the STS (training) where sold to schools and training facilities. I beleive they were all sold through Aotea Machine Tools in Auckland - no longer in business I think. Anyway nice lathe and accessories. BTW whats you thoughts on importing a Maho from europe? Not found any decent machines in NZ. Know it wont be cheap but just wont tell the wife!

Yeah nice lathe!

Love the lathe, your mate has a nice machine there. Regarding "Made in England" being more of a warning label, I have to say that I was deeply offended (once I stopped laughing). Are you saying that we make sh#t products? I think you are. Actually, if it had been a car you'd probably be right. - Heather

VERY COOL

Beautiful machine! I would do like you and your friend with clean and go....

Used a modern Colchester with a 3 axis dro and the hassle of having to set up the angle of the topside in software every time made me hate that dro. Either don't have 3 axis or have it be a dumb one

Could anybody help my son decided to clean our boxford sts and striped the crossslide took the hand wheel off and we seem to think it’s gone in the bin my freind has kindly offered to let me use his lathe but I’m in need of the dimmensions for the hand wheel could anyone help

Hello! If you don't mind me asking, how much did this machine set you back? Asking for a friend 😅 thanks!

Are Bridgeports common on your side of the pond?

Hi guys, interesting video. I have an Industrial 1020. Occasionally I need to change the change gears for threading, what do you recommend as the best way to change the change gears?

I have the STS 10-20 version of this in the more desirable RAL6011 😊. The power feed lever on mine is at right angles to the carriage assembly when engaged Looking at the unboxing of the accessory’s it appears to the be the bargain of the year, the traveling and fixed steadies are like rocking horse poop to find and when you do find them, they are mega money as are the change wheels interestingly the reducing bush for the headstock spindle is the same as the Colchester Bantam and Chipmaster lathes. The lathe would have been originally available in both 3 phase and single phase but 3phase would be the choice of most buyers. Now would your colleague be able to draw the fixed steady out in CAD as I’m in need of one 😊.(mans got to ask) Two axis DRO fits easily although the cross slide needs a bit of thought.

Is it secret how much did the lathe cost or I just didn't hear it? I would like similar lathe to this, but don't have any idea how much it can cost. But the lathe look beautiful.

Saddle would wear not the harden bed

Damn I want one too :D

"If you want to buy a lathe, what should you look for?" I mean just spitballing here but my guess would be "a lathe".

0:03 since having wife and kids, a donation probably...

Top find metric lathe; how much was it?

Muito bom ! Parabéns.

💪

Eh, checking runout on a surface you just cut is pointless …

Nice lathe!!

Excellent video! -- QUESTION -- Can you help me understand this - if a lathe has a bedway wearing "belly" of 2 or 3 thousands of an inch wear, how does that translate into your precision cuts on a shaft? I was watching Keith Rucker restore his Monarch k lathe (looked excellent) and he left the beds alone even though he found a 2 or 3 thousands wear. Is that a big deal? Would it ruin your work?? I really can't figure out if this matters much (maybe it is my girl brain but I can't visualize if it ruins a straight cut on a long shaft)

Why did you talk him into getting a smaller less rigid lathe? It seems he was on the right track with an older, larger heavier lathe. That little lathe is fine for hobby but if he is starting a machine shop.... Total fail! At very min, he should gotten a 14X44 lathe. Im sorry but, he wuz right, and yoo wuz wrong.