May be cheaper to use one belonging to a local association if you're a member.
Yes, borrow, don't buy, Bernard.
Local BKA should have one to loan.
I began with a cheap 4 frame Chinese stainless steel hand wind tangential unit. It did the job but a lot of the components simply weren't stainless so it became an annual clean up and decontamination job. It also had some very sharp internal edges to be wary of. The next bee auction sale buy was an old model Thorne's polypropylene manual wind 9 frame radial model which during it's time with me I improved with stainless steel rotor and other parts before osteo arthritis made winding the handle an unpleasant chore. Without that consideration I'd probably still be using it. That gave way this year to a second hand excellent condition 6 frame (Abelo) Lyson motorized tangential from an association member. Ok it's a bit of a faff to turn the frames over during extraction but my wrists don't suffer doing the winding and it's a good quality bit of kit. In each case I've offset the cost by selling on the previous model. There's always a market for a used extractor in good condition so buy the best you can afford and work up from there.
If it's Lega, the quality is very good.
Not sure of the make, but build quality is spot on, we dropped lucky for our first extractor and at a great price.
