How old is that CJ18A?

[MJP]

I'm probably going to buy a CJ18A mini lathe soon.

There's usually a couple around on offer, but can one take a guess at the age of one of these by the colour of a label, position of a switch, and so on? I see them around but have no way of knowing how old they are - and from what I understand, recent ones are probably going to be a better bet than early ones before the Chinese QC got up to speed.

I know about the different standards to which these are built - that Clarke ones are not as good as Amadeal ones and so on, but other than this, are there any general signs that one can use to guesstimate the age of a machine (other than the dirtiness and signs of use, of course)?

For example, have the splash guards of Amadeal CJ18As always been grey and the drip trays always been blue?

Incidentally, if you have a nice recent one for sale, or something similar, give me a shout please do!

Martin.

 

[woodfarmer]

I wouldn't worry too much about age. Condition, features and tooling are more important. I have a 90 year old Holbrook, it will still repeat to 2/10 of an inch. and do left and right hand feeds and threads including multi start threads all off the gearbox (no changewheels needed)

 

[MJP]

Thanks Woodfarmer.

Yes, I agree that condition is far more important than age for something like a Holbrook, a Myford, a Colchester, and so on, but for these Chinese lathes, I think it's different -

From what I've read, Chinese lathes from ten/fifteen years ago were pretty rough - slapped together for the buyer to get into working order, basically.

And I suppose some of these are still around, with hopeful vendors trying to find some unsuspecting nooby to buy them.

On 'tother hand, I understand that current production is pretty decent, quality varying only by the spec given by the importer - so if one looks only at the better labels like Warco, Amadeal and so on, there's a good chance of getting a decent machine.

Martin.