Colchester Triumph 2000 lathe

In my workshop I have a little (2 1/2" x 14") Emco Compact 5 lathe which has proved to be extraordinarily useful but is obviously limited by its size and power.  In the garage I also had a Colchester Triumph, on indefinite loan, which was only a year younger than the Frazer Nash and only suitable for rough work.

Emco Compact 5 Mine is badged as an Elliot Microturn	1930 motorised Colchester Triumph en route back to its owner

 
One day, when talking to a friend who has an agricultural engineering business, he mentioned that someone had a lathe for sale which he described as being like theirs (a long bed Triumph 2000) but smaller, so I guessed that it might be a Student or Master. I phoned the seller who told me that it was a short bed T2000 in good working order.  At that point I didn't think that there was much point in asking him how much he wanted for it (expecting it to be at least £1500) but,  purely out of interest I did. Much to my amazement he said £250. I jumped in the car, drew the cash out of the hole-in-the-wall and an hour later it was mine.

As you can see, it has a Dickson QCTP plus several toolholders and an Ainjest rapid threader.

It was fitted with a 7.5hp three phase motor but I don't have three phase and a converter or inverter would have cost several times the price of the lathe. I had a spare 2hp single phase capacitor start motor which I thought was worth trying but expected it to be a bit pathetic; I fitted it and have hardly ever had to ease off. I've now got a 3hp cap start/cap run motor which I think will do all that I want when I get around to fitting it.

I've done a couple of write-ups on the workings of the headstock and gear cutting gearboxes which can be downloaded as PDFs from the following links. The gearbox one has a table of all possible thread pitches - quite a lot more than on the faceplate - e.g. a pitch of 0.813mm which is very close to 2BA. Versions have also been done for the Student 1800.

Triumph 2000 headstock gearbox  (230k)

Triumph 2000 screwcutting gearbox     (140k)

Student 1800 headstock gearbox (230K)

Student 1800 screwcutting gearbox (215K)