My "Shed"

[Dr Jo]

Hi Pete,

Isn't it strange how prices change. A new BCA was last year just over the price of a top of the range new Myford lathe and yet a second hand Mk 3 BCA is often available for half the price of a second hand Myford of similar quality. (At the Guildford ME show last year we had two second hand ones at about £750 including lots of goodies.)

Quality? Even without DRO's I can easily get within 0.01mm on my BCA. The compound rotary table is useful as well. But I am biased, consequently my advice would be if you can get one grab it with both hands and whatever you do don't let it get away!

All I now need is a nice little "house lathe" ...something like a Cowells would be very nice.

Jo

 

[pete]

Hi Dr Jo,
They still build new BCA jig boring machines? As far as I know that's what they were designed to do, So yeah the accuracy shouldn't be questioned by the likes of me anyway. Shipping from the U.K. to Canada adds up real fast. For example, I bought a Vertex universal dividing head from RDG in the U.K. last year. It weighs approximately 150 lbs. Shipping was in excess of $400.00. Even with that, It was still a bit cheaper than what I could buy it for over here. So, Any ideas of a rough weight for a Mk 3 BCA? Their size and capability's would work very well for my shop.

LOL, Just from the little I know about them. I sure can't blame you at all for being biased. And a Cowells? You have more than a very refined taste/standards in machine tools. Most manual British built machine tools are at least the equal if not better than anything we've built here in North America.

Oh yeah, For anyone here that just might think machining is a bit odd for a woman to have as a hobby? I might suggest you Goggle Miss/Mrs? Cherry Hill/Hinds. She is arguably the best in the world. To me there's no doubt. She's also British, But now lives in Florida as far as I know.

Pete

 

[///]

...
Oh yeah, For anyone here that just might think machining is a bit odd for a woman to have as a hobby? I might suggest you Goggle Miss/Mrs? Cherry Hill/Hinds. She is arguably the best in the world. To me there's no doubt. She's also British, But now lives in Florida as far as I know.

Pete

I have seen some of Cherry's work in Model Engineer magazine over the years, absolutely amazing work.

 

[Dr Jo]

I have seen Cherry's models :bow: :bow:. If only I could make models half as good as her's I would be extremely happy.

Jo

 

[Blogwitch]

Isn't it strange how prices change. A new BCA was last year just over the price of a top of the range new Myford lathe and yet a second hand Mk 3 BCA is often available for half the price of a second hand Myford of similar quality. (At the Guildford ME show last year we had two second hand ones at about £750 including lots of goodies.)

When I got rid of mine about four years ago, a good second hand BCA Mk3 would command a price of between 1200 and 1500 UK pounds. But as Jo has said, the bottom has fallen out of the market.

With regards to the weight, I don't know exactly, but two really burly chaps who took mine away really struggled to lift it down off the bench and onto a trolley. My guesstimate would be somewhere around the 250 to 300 LBS mark.


John

 

[pete]

Thanks John,
Their a bit lighter than I'd guessed.

Pete

 

[doubletop]

Hi Dr Jo,
..............Shipping from the U.K. to Canada adds up real fast. For example, I bought a Vertex universal dividing head from RDG in the U.K. last year. It weighs approximately 150 lbs. Shipping was in excess of $400.00. Even with that, It was still a bit cheaper than what I could buy it for over here............

OK this is off topic but I had a similar experience with Vertex equipment. I was looking to purchase a Vertex product and RGD priced shipped was cheaper than I could buy in NZ. I realised this was stupid so went to the source.

http://www.vertex-tw.com.tw/

Their site is hopeless but I made an "inquiry" (their spelling) about buying direct. I quickly had an email from the NZ agent and now I can purchase at prices better than RGD with shipping. They also have a nice catalog which makes identifying stuff way easier. An order I placed didn't have stock in nZ but it arrived direct ftom Taiwan in 4 days. Find you way around the site give them your details.

Pete

OK back to the topic.........

 

[Dr Jo]

Update: I have finally got around to using the DRO's to drill the PCD mounting holes for my grasshopper cylinder stand: Aren't they good !

Normally I would have machined up a drilling guide to slide into the mounting hole in the base and over the stand, hoping to get them square. But using the DRO's, it was so easy to drill the 8 mounting holes "square", do the same on the stand, bolt the two together and then using the DRO drill the 12 mounting holes for the cylinder, which also fitted , no need to open up the holes or tweek them with a file. Amazing! I am never going to use the rotary table to drill a series of PCD mounting holes ever again!

Now I need to learn what some of the other settings do.

Jo

 

[dalem9]

Having a dro sure will spoil you,they are so great. Like you said you will never go back to the old way of doing things . Dale

 

[peterw51]

Hi Dr Jo, I am new to this form & like you I have a Prazimat DZL 180 x 450, but I cant work out how to set up the gears for screwcutting, also inside the gear box cover there is a chart, this is missing from mine. I am new to turning & need some help and as prazimats are quit scarce I am having problems finding information on this machine. I did buy a very expensive photo copy of the hand book, but this did not seem to help me,
Would you be kind enough to give a little help to a newby please?

Peter

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Dr. Jo--Very nice set-up. I envy you all the windows and natural light in your shed. My small shop has one window, but I still need a lot of auxiliary lighting to see what I'm doing on the lathe and mill.---Brian

 

[Mosey]

Sadly much of this equipment came my way when my ex-husband closed down the local college machine shop. At the time they were accepting scrap metal prices for any of the tools anyone wanted.

Jo

Hope you got a good price for the Ex.