Used lathes for sale.
View our available used lathes for steel turning and metal working. Check the distance between centres, motor power and swing over bed to find your preferred used lathe. We sell our second hand metal working tool room and larger second hand lathes for engineering workshops in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia. Looking for new lathes? Click here.
All of our used machine tools are:
Multi-point checked by our fitters and electricians
Quality checked and/or refurbished and painted
Supplied with a working guarantee (where applicable)
Can be supplied at your request with new wear and tear parts such as blades, vee dies and other tooling.
What is a used metalworking lathe?
In a metalworking lathe, metal is removed from the workpiece using a hardened cutting tool, which is usually fixed to a solid moveable mounting, either a tool-post or a turret, which is then moved against the workpiece using handwheels and/or computer controlled motors. These (cutting) tools come in a wide range of sizes and shapes depending upon their application. Some common styles are diamond, round, square and triangular.
The tool-post is operated by lead-screws that can accurately position the tool in a variety of planes. The tool-post may be driven manually or automatically to produce the roughing and finishing cuts required to turn the workpiece to the desired shape and dimensions, or for cutting threads, worm gears, etc. Cutting fluid may also be pumped to the cutting site to provide cooling, lubrication and clearing of swarf from the workpiece. Some lathes may be operated under control of a computer for mass production of parts.
The workpiece may be supported between a pair of points called centres, or it may be bolted to a faceplate or held in a chuck. A chuck has movable jaws that can grip the workpiece securely.