Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

I've been looking for a setup like this for a few years now.

You can either buy new - at a pretty stiff price for the base machine - then remortgage the house to buy tooling & accessories, or try and catch one on Craigslist or Ebay.

In my experience while searching, these rigs only come up for sale used (very infrequently) via death or inheritance. That's the case in this rig. It belonged to a mans twin brother, who died about 13 years ago. The surviving brother had no interest in machining, and the rig sat in a spare-room collecting dust (and unfortunately some rust). I don't know why he finally got 'round to selling it, but for once I was in the right place, at the right time, with the cash-in-hand.

It's a Sherline 4530 lathe, with (new) would be the "C package" worth of accessories. Also it has the optional milling head conversion kit attachment.

This guy bought well. There's nearly a 1K-worth of additional accessories & tooling... boring heads, fly-cutters, collets, toolposts, carbide tool blanks, milling cutters, dial indicators & stands, 3 & 4 jaw chucks... everything a decently equipped machine shop would have for a lathe & mill.

A little work with some oil & a scotch-brite took care of the surface dusting of rust on the bedways & slides, and a few hours with the dial-indicator got everything square & tight.

I won't say what I paid for it, but I did feel a tad guilty - it was a steal.

(Hopefully there'll be some good karma left in these tools & machine... the previous owner used them to build custom parts for RC boats)