lathes and sourcing them

Gentlemen!
As Lowell said bigger is better! It is also cheaper in the long run. Simply put, buy the longest bed and best quality you can afford. You will never regret the investment. As machine shops move ever more toward CNC equipment, precision long bed lathes can be found found for a fraction of their original cost.Often these lathes will be complete with both metric and imperial gears and have a multitude of tooling thrown in. Try ebay as a start point. I recently bought an additional lathe for home this way. My MYFORD Speed 10 with just about every concievable extra piece of tooling was advertised as near new on ebay from a firm that had ceased trading. Mine for just £450-00!

Really good deals can be had and looking for them is half the fun!