Hey, gun guru!!!

What do you know about Harrison Lathes??? Been looking to purchase one that was manufactured in the 70's. All the info I can find is that it's similar to the Clausing Colchester..

Thanks
Keith & Shawn(Gold Medal winner)

I have never ran a Harrison Lathe. I did however see 1 of them at a large Machine building company 6 years ago when I bought my Bridgeport. It was a 10HP with about a 15" swing I think. It looked solid and was not a heap of crap. If it is a similar to the Colchester then it is a good machine. What are they asking for it.
Things to look for when buying.
Does it run, obivous.
Bring an indicator and check the spindle runout.
Bring a test pc. to cut like a 2 foot long pc. of aluminum rod. Take a .030 cut and be sure the carriage tracks straight. Bring a micrometer too.
Run it threw all gears.
Run forward and backward.
does the apron lube work
Run the crossslide and compound back and forth the full way.
Check for motor overload, heat mainly.
See what tooling comes with it.
Is there only 1 chuck or does it have a faceplate.
Does the tailstock come with a drill chuck and live center.
Steady rest? Follow rest?
Be sure the half nut lever works
be sure the cross feed and carriage feed work too.
How much is the machine?

All your posts end with Keith and Shawn (Gold medal winner) Fill me in on this. Who is Shawn?

Just My Opinion.. Harrison lathes are good, but not quite in the class with a Colchester. Still, if you find one in good shape, they are a good lathe. The only way to check a lathe is to turn some parts on it, checking for taper, chatter, etc. Look for excessive backlash in the carriage feed and crossfeed cranks. Excessive wear of t6he ways near the chuck is bad, but I think that a 70's Harrison had hard ways, so they should be decent, unless it was really used or misused..

Thanks for the info.
Shawn is my son, he is a Special Olympics Gold medal winner in Powertlifting. I coach Special Olympics here in eastern Oregon.

Here is a picture of Shawn in a Gold Medal lift.

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e329/Keith-OR/?action=view&current=Shawn3752.jpg" target="_blank"> </a>

Wow, that is some weight on the bar. Makes my back hurt to think of lifting that... How much did he lift?

That is 385 #

He is doing 410# already and we have 4 weeks until competition.
He squats 425#


Keith &amp; Shawn(Gold medal winner)

The school I went to had some Harrison lathes. They were pretty good but the teacher liked the Standard Modern lathes better. I remember the Harrison's had a clutch lever to disengage the drive(without turning the motor off) if you needed to stop the piece or change tooling etc. That was a nice feature. Dave