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real old lathe is gonna follow me home

H

historicalarms

Ultra Member
Not a Kijiji find but a phone call from a very considerate neighbor should land a very old lathe in my shop next week.
I havent seen it yet but he describes it as "in pretty good shape for its age". It has 2 patent # on it that date 1892 and 1894. Pretty sure it started its life as a steam shaft/leather gang belt driven machine but it has an electric modification added to the top drive.
I need the thing like a hole in the head ...but....those damn "old things" intrigue me enough to go get the thing, yes it has a tail stock Craig...in fact he says a "damn heavy tailstock". he thinks the machine weights close to 3000 lbs ( 40" C-C and the chip tray is 1/2 thick plate).
One interesting point he made was that there is no oil sump gearbox for the headstock, sole lubrication of the bearings is with a "doit-doit" squirt oil can as it is running. Probably babbit bearings/bushings that the headstock turns in so will be interesting to check run-out
 
historicalarms said:
Not a Kijiji find but a phone call from a very considerate neighbor should land a very old lathe in my shop next week.
Click to expand...

Sounds an aweful lot like my old girl. Mine is an FE Reede. She was made sometime in the mid 1880s. Converted to a rear motor flat belt drive sometime after electric motors became readily available. Served me well for 40 some odd years. Only used as a polisher now.

Not nearly that heavy but has no chip tray. A 1/2" thick chip tray would be mega pounds!
 
Canadium said:
Would love to see pictures!
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The guy is still cleaning up some spring farm seeding so may be a couple days before he has time to show me but, ya there will be photo's.
Like I said earlier. I dont need the damn thing nor do I need a 3000 lb move at this point but there is enough farm equipment in the area to lift it onto my trailer and I have a couple 2-ton engine hoists in my shop ( one on each end) that should easily land it on the floor.
 
Well, the thing landed home last night...and it's a beautiful outfit.
I expected it to be a "old style everything" with a couple hand wheels to move a cross slide & saddle with a S B sized belt drive system...man was I wrong, this thing has a massive heavy overhead drive system- it has a transmission box for feed/treading- it has power feed to the cross slide- it has a taper attachment also.
It only has one malady that I can see so far, the top slide is seized up and will require some attention before use but other than that this machine looks and works good enough to fit into someones hobby shop and provide many hours of enjoyment.
It was still hard wired into the electrical system when I arrived to look at it and when fire up that thing was as smooth running as a new machine. Of course this machine started out as a overhead belt driven outfit but somehere along the line it was converted to electrical use. Again my expectations were a cobbled up home done conversion....couldnt have been further from the truth, that entire conversion is a factory supplied purpose built thing of beauty & sturdiness. no expense was spared in the conversion at all ( probably a US military financed deal). The story behind this thing is purchased in Butte Montana by the owners FIL at a gov. surplus auction as part of a US navy lot. Because of the lack of wear on the machine, they surmised it sat aboard a ship for some amount of years, not being used much.
I expected flat ways as well but they are v ways, the ways and lead screw are "as new" showing no wear or abuse that I have seen so far with a "first cursor look at the thing".

I do have few photo's on my phone if I could text them to somebody that can download them to the site...for some reason I cant get my phone to link to my computer.
 
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historicalarms said:
I do have few photo's on my phone if I could text them to somebody that can download them to the site...for some reason I cant get my phone to link to my computer.
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Txt them to me Doug. I'll use my moderator powers to add them to your own post. I'll PM you my phone number if you don't already have it.
 
Yes, I have pictures on my phone, however my brain will not link to the phone to send them. Even worse, is the phone did an evilupdate and some things I could do and find are "in a more accessible/ easy to use place" now. And so, where might that be!
And I am dumb enough to PAY for it. Hammer, phone, hammer, phone.
I will stop now.o_O:mad:
 
historicalarms said:
Well, the thing landed home last night...and it's a beautiful outfit.
I expected it to be a "old style everything" with a couple hand wheels to move a cross slide & saddle with a S B sized belt drive system...man was I wrong, this thing has a massive heavy overhead drive system- it has a transmission box for feed/treading- it has power feed to the cross slide- it has a taper attachment also.
It only has one malady that I can see so far, the top slide is seized up and will require some attention before use but other than that this machine looks and works good enough to fit into someones hobby shop and provide many hours of enjoyment.
It was still hard wired into the electrical system when I arrived to look at it and when fire up that thing was as smooth running as a new machine. Of course this machine started out as a overhead belt driven outfit but somehere along the line it was converted to electrical use. Again my expectations were a cobbled up home done conversion....couldnt have been further from the truth, that entire conversion is a factory supplied purpose built thing of beauty & sturdiness. no expense was spared in the conversion at all ( probably a US military financed deal). The story behind this thing is purchased in Butte Montana by the owners FIL at a gov. surplus auction as part of a US navy lot. Because of the lack of wear on the machine, they surmised it sat aboard a ship for some amount of years, not being used much.
I expected flat ways as well but they are v ways, the ways and lead screw are "as new" showing no wear or abuse that I have seen so far with a "first cursor look at the thing".

I do have few photo's on my phone if I could text them to somebody that can download them to the site...for some reason I cant get my phone to link to my computer.
Click to expand...
I’m willing to help out, if I’m not too late to the party
 
Here are some photos of the new machine:

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See my next post for descriptions.
 
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I cant get any action between the photos as Susquatch planned so we'll do it this way.
Photo 1 shows the heavy old saddle this machine has, notice the T-slots cut into it to attach something, the opposite side that rides on the way also has T-slots. One thing that this saddle differs from our modern machines is that it doesnt have a rack& pinion advancing advantage. this thing moves very smooth but man it takes some torque on the hand wheel to make it move....a machinist that run this machine all the time ould have arms like Popeye.
Also notice it has no thread dial and I have not seen anywhere on would mount.
 
photo 2 &3 is just a shot of the full machine so you get a scale idea of its size & massiveness of the old overhead drive of that day. The 4 jaw is a 9 inch( only attachment with the machine) other than a live center spudded in the tailstock & a really big Morse taper adapter 5> 3 i think it is.
 
#4 shows the width of the lathe bed & taper attachment, I think that is the longest taper bar that Ive ever seen on a lathe.
I can get about 34 inches between centers with the tail stock slide back so it will still lock to the bed.
#5 shows the patent dates of 1892 &1894. The bed frame also has a big 16x6 cast into it not sure what it means, prob 16 " throw but the 6 is a puzzle to me.
I am not sure if this lathe dates back as far as I first thought with the threading transmission & power feed on it, it definitely appears to be OEM and not an add-on. It was definitely manufactured before the electrification was commonly available
 
#6 shows the electrical modification and addition of a back gear drive to the original machine.
This is the part of this machine that fascinates me. This aint no "one off, cobbled up affair", some company went to an awful lot of detail for this. All of the orange painted pieces are part of the retro-fit. I am just surmising here because the previous owners father in law bought it at a US govt surplus auction that was part of a US navy lot. Im wondering if the US navy bought a train load of these lathes and then commissioned a company to build the retrofits...it had to be somebody with deep pockets to pay the freight on the quality product that was added. there had to be a lot of identical units to change over.
 
# 7 is of course the headstock. It doesnt have any bearings but we are unsure if it runs in babbit or brass or bronze. once I got it on the ground today I put a block and a pry bar under the chuck, there was not so much as a hair of slack movement of the spindle shaft.
the small orange collar on the left houses the back gear engagement gear pivot, the large orange ring on the right side houses a pin& pocket engagement clutch to run the headstock solely with the original belt drives...all part of the electrical retrofit.

If you have any questions on the thing dont hesitate to ask, Ill be back at the moving and a few other things tomorrow. I plan on trying to spin the chuck off tomorrow , the previous owner had never had it off ( he aske me if I thought it was threaded on) so no telling how long its been locked on.
 
historicalarms said:
# 7 is of course the headstock. It doesnt have any bearings but we are unsure if it runs in babbit or brass or bronze. once I got it on the ground today I put a block and a pry bar under the chuck, there was not so much as a hair of slack movement of the spindle shaft.
the small orange collar on the left houses the back gear engagement gear pivot, the large orange ring on the right side houses a pin& pocket engagement clutch to run the headstock solely with the original belt drives...all part of the electrical retrofit.

If you have any questions on the thing dont hesitate to ask, Ill be back at the moving and a few other things tomorrow. I plan on trying to spin the chuck off tomorrow , the previous owner had never had it off ( he aske me if I thought it was threaded on) so no telling how long its been locked on.
Click to expand...
My only question is whether this can machine a cannon barrel? If you’re now taking commission work, that is
 
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