New Zealand Datsun Club

I have a good Lead on an old German Lathe

Its the old one from my work , its a 3ph but i work for a Power Lines Company full of electricians who could change it over for me

It sounds like its about 30 years old, but the History of it is quite well known and it had a full recondition about 15 years ago.

And because it belongs to the workshop manager ( He is a good guy ) i might get this thing for around a $1000 mark

In my opinion the most important things whether chinese or otherwise are to make sure 1) the swing over bed and cross slide, spindle bore and distance between centres are what you require, 2) There isn't too much wear in teh slideways, spindle bearings and feed screw (usually look "sharper" closer to the headstock where most threading is done if worn), no broken teeth on the drive gears and they're all there and there's not too much backlash in any of the leadscrews. Also make sure it can screw cut the threads you need. Any tooling is a bonus hopefully you should get a 3 jaw and 4 jaw chuck, some sort of face plate and maybe a fixed and /or travelling steady. And some tooling and maybe a live/dead centre and a couple of morse taper adapters if you're lucky. and make sure it's single phase if you don't have 3 phase power
A quick change toolpost is also a handy device