Collection of an Evans Ornamental lathe

The Society of Ornamental Turners on their sales page had an advert:

Donated to the Society by the son of its maker in 2024, this has the potential to make an impressive OT/woodturning lathe.

Iron bed with common headstock, unnumbered but marked EVANS & SON LONDON, 5″ centre-height. Division plate and index. Usefully, and like several other Evans lathes, the mandrel nose thread is 1″ x 8 tpi. There is a hand tool rest and tee, tailstock, and the top section of a user-made OT slide rest (it needs a mounting for a banjo and cradle). There are user-made cutting frames with 9/16″ stems, an ECF and a drill. There is also a VCF with 1/2″ stem. Hold-down bolts, winch handles.

The very substantial double mahogany frame is 43″ long x 20″ deep (excluding front projection of feet) and 40″ tall to top of bed

I contacted the disposals officer for the SOT and after a phone call I decided to take the project on and went to visit him at the storage location in early September 2025. These are the photos from the original advertisement.

To fit it into my workshop I had to resite one cupboard, dispose of another small cupboard and add 2 additional 240v sockets for one of my existing Rose Engine lathes and reposition it and actually it is now in a better location.

Luckily the lathe was already disassembled and so we loaded it in to the back of my car for transport back to Lincolnshire.

Once back home I put all the parts in the workshop and now I will start to clean it and put it back together and make a mounting for the cross slide and any other parts necessary. The first task will be to sand down the mahogany frame and then oil it before starting the assembly. I will detail the progress on making this lathe usable again on this site.