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Wizard lathe

I didn’t mean to buy a Wizard lathe - I actually started out looking for Super Adept lathes on Ebay. Once I’d bought the first Wizard I decided to do some research and came up with the following advert from Model Engineer magazine dated October 20th 1949:

Wizard lathe advert

I suppose the advert couldn’t have been more right when it said ‘The small lathe you will eventually buy’!

This is the first Wizard all set up and ready to use:

1st Wizard set up for use with 3 jaw chuck

A few days later I saw another one - this time unidentified but clearly a Wizard to my eyes. Most importantly it came with a 3 and 4 jaw chuck as well as the original faceplate and tailstock chuck. The picture above shows the 3 jaw chuck from the 2nd lathe mounted on the first one.

Both lathes have obviously been modified by previous owners - the 2nd one pictured below - more so:

2nd Wizard lathe

The cross slide action on the 1st Wizard had been replaced by an interesting geared action which incorporated a position dial:

Cross slide action on 1st Wizard

Unfortunately this was quite stiff and I suspected that the threaded rod was bent.

I stripped it down and replaced it with a simple handle. This handle drives a new threaded rod made out of a 1/4 BSW and M5 machine screws glued end to end!

In the following photo - the original is the bottom and the one I made is at the top. Of course neither is the one actually supplied with the lathe when made.

New cross screw at the top

The new cross screw doesn’t have quite the travel of the old one - but it will do until I can fix it properly. The handle itself is made from a M5 wing nut with 2 washers epoxy resined onto the wings:

Temporary handle for Wizard


A small practical job with this lathe - making a new
screw for the sink!

All text and images Copyright © 2000-2011 Roland Givan, unless otherwise stated. All Rights Reserved. Game artwork copyright their respective publishers.

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