Question about Hercules Ajax Lathe

[Peter Miles]

Does anyone have any familiarity with Hercules Ajax lathes from perhaps the mid 1950s?

I'm going to go look at one, a 14" model, on Tuesday.

Any input on these would be appreciated, as I have no familiarity with the Hercules brand, but I will do some searching online.

Thanks in advance, Peter Miles

[Doug98105]

Hi Peter,


Let me guess...you're looking at the one from the estate sale down in Burien.

If so, it's a great deal. Originally they were asking $2500, but I bet they're getting anxious by know. I'm trying not to buy any more manual machine tools, otherwise I would have snapped it up in a heartbeat.

Hercules Ajax are basically Mazak, Yamazaki Mazak in Japan, that is. Mazak originally made these until they got out of the manual lathe business. They licensed a Korean company to continue making them. They're world class machines. It's not clear if this machine is Japanese or Korean, no tags whatsoever on the machine. Doesn't really matter, Koreans make just as good machines as the Japanese.

Doug