Seen as we are apparently in some kind of post apocalyptic hellscape (with power, food in the shops, internet and water) I thought I had better invest in some old iron to replace the toy Wade lathe I got last year.
Specifically a Drummond type M lathe (
http://www.lathes.co.uk/drummond-m-type-post-1924/ ), best as I can tell later world war 2 series shortly before Myford took over (and continued to release essentially the same lathe for a few more decades). Whole load of tooling (all the drills, chucks and reamers for it) in addition to what you see there in the drawer (all the gears and face plate and what have you) and the bench it is on there for £250 which is a complete steal; doing the research I found threads on machining forums from a decade ago where someone got a scrap one in need of a hardcore restore with no tooling for more, the others on the forum considering that a bargain. Only thing I don't have is the spanners for it but Whitworth stuff is not hard to come by if I do fancy a dedicated set (naturally I have sockets and spanners but would rather not kick them to just the lathe and find myself wanting in the field).
It is old but cuts metric and imperial (though geared, pun intended, more for Whitworth on that side of things but TPI is TPI) threads, has power feed in the long axis at least and is enough for what I need around here -- I try not to have to surface brake drums or
make giant hoops.
Going to have to go hunt for a 4 jaw chuck and maybe a collet chuck but all good.
It is also most of my fun stuff money gone for a while. Does allow me to feel like a proper engineer again though and less like a complete cowboy, though I shall probably now start thinking I could really do with a proper mill, surface grinder, or a shaper and then a(nother) shed to put it all in. Tools is an expensive hobby.
Bit of fiddling still to do but first chips were already had as came out of a working workshop (only a tiny fraction of the swarf there is mine) .