Last Friday, I was doing daily ritual of surfing Craigslist in the tools section hoping to find someone that just discovered they had some lathe parts that might fit my Delta lathe. Speficically, I've been looking for a pulley cover and a lathe specific tailstock, as the one I have is a piece of junk that I modified to fit the lathe I'm using. I noticed someone was selling a Rockwell lathe. I looked at the pics, and didn't say anything to my wife, and then Sunday we planned to bug bomb the house on Monday, and couldn't be there while the fumes were present. She asked where in the desert could we go for about 4 hours, so I mentioned that this lathe was near where I like to go looking for rock and wood. Without blinking and the usual, "You don't need another lathe", she said, "Why don't you call him and see if he still has it". I did the right thing and gave this guy a call, and set up a time to be there.
The lathe he was selling is a Rockwell 46-450, and is in perfect condition. We talked awhile, and I gave him the 400 bucks he was asking, loaded it and brought it home. The first thing I did was remove the tailstock and put it on my existing lathe. It lined up perfectly. As far as I was concerned, I just recovered my money by now having a tailstock that fit properly..... I then removed my chuck and threaded it onto the new lathe and it went on solid. Chuck plated a piece of mesquite, and did a little turning. With only a 3/4 hp motor, it performed really well, even though the Reeves drive kept losing the speed I set it for. I discovered the screw was loose on the handle, tightened it, and now its ok.
So now, I have 2 good lathes that are the same swing and length with one good tailstock, and one crappy tailstock..... . What is a guy to do?.......... Jerry (in Tucson)
Ps, as you can see in one picture, there is another headstock housing and spindle that came with the lathe
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