Brake lathe

[sleepy127]

New guy, 1st time post. I have a question about brake lathes. I have found a bear setup (atlas lathes?) with both lathes for the rotor and drum on a cart with a fair amount of adapters. I was wondering how useful this is to do other metal turning projects? Can you buy chucks for it? Is it a good price? It is a EB 1410 and EB 1469. Thanks

 

[ken w.]

A brake lathe is pretty much made just for drums and rotors. Some had adapters to cut flywheels.

 

[wafrederick]

Before buying,make sure you can get parts for it first.Ammco is a much better choice for brake lathes and you can get them used for a decent price.Plus you can still get the adaptors for the older models.

 

[greasemonkey44]

We have one at work; for my time I would rather sell new rotors.
Haven't used it in the last year and a half; need to store it in the back of the shop somewhere

 

[A_Pmech]

They're a special-purpose machine designed just for brake parts.

 

[Fedwrench]

Bear/Atlas is probably a pretty old unit. If it powers up, you may want to stick a dial indicator on the shaft to see how true it rotates.

I've never seen anyone use a brake lathe for anything other than its intended purpose.

 

[Farmall450]

I don't think you can use it for anything other than rotors and drums.

 

[sleepy127]

Here is the lathe;
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204585194090064&set=pcb.10204585210890484&type=1

Looking for a quick way to attach the picture. I appreciate all of the advice so far. Not really looking for someone to tell me it will work, kind of wondering if anyone has any experience trying to make it work for what I am wanting.

 

[sberry]

You don't want that. ,, Well you might until you get it and find out why the last guy sold it.

 

[Steinmetz]

Some of these old brake lathes required an asbestos abatement.

 

[ken w.]

Those were a pain in the **** to use compared to a Ammco lathe. I see Ammco lathes on CL from $400.00 and up. I see regular lathes on CL from $ 250.00 and up. If your patient , and look at the ads everyday , I'm sure you could find a lathe at a reasonable price.

 

[Murphy4570]

Brake lathes are pretty much obsolete. Waste of money and shop space IMO. New rotors and drums can be had for dirt cheap these days, and they aren't very thick anymore. Most used rotors, even in good shape, are too thin or too close to minimum thickness to cut them safely.

Only thing it'd be useful for is resurfacing old obsolete rotors and drums from cars where you can't buy new parts anymore.