Newest tool

[rafe]

  A ton+ of fun .......ol'school but soooocool....

[tubeswell]

Nice lathe. Whaddaya goin' to make?

[Ritchie200]

Those SB were built like tanks - as long as the previous owners kept some oil in the cups!  Is that a collet chuck bar?  Those are handy if they don't run out too bad.  I had an old Hardinge set up with collets - that was nice.  All I have now is an old Atlas.  The three jaw is within .002 and the spindle bearings show only .0003 deflection.  I've got a 4 jaw if I need something close.  It's amazing what you will use that thing for!  Plus it looks like you have a nice vise that you can mount on the slide.  Throw an endmill in the chuck and you can do some light machining.  My wife keeps asking why I still have mine, even though it has fresh chips on it - all the time!  I hope you don't have to fight that war!

Jim

[DummyLoad]

very nice!   

whaddya gonna turn? 

--DL

[rafe]

very nice!   

whaddya gonna turn?

Nice lathe. Whaddaya goin' to make?

  I have 2 small atlas's one set up as a mill....I really like them but they limit what you can do .....this one believe it or not didn't cost that much more........It's funny how the big iron is somehow less appealing.....
I have a few projects pending....really just couldn't resist ...has quite a lot of tooling, that's worth a good bit .....
there is really not too much that can't be done on a good lathe this will swing 14 1/2 as is and can be blocked up for more ...yes collets, some brake drum arbors, tool post grinder ( ) the list goes on......

[PRR]

1923:

[rafe]

I wonder how long the pay-off wason a top of the line guitar? This one is a bit newer than that it's a "47" I loaded it up on my trailer with the help of two friends and the 83 year old guy I bought it from ....He restored Hudsons pretty much all his life , as soon as I saw his shop and cars I knew the lathe was cared for ....needs nothing but I'll go over it, clean everything and replace all the felt in the oilways ......I need to make some money out in the backyard so I'm hoping this will help....they were made to run 24-7.....and this has had an easy life for the last ten years or so......I started on a boring bar
(for SBend) today with my small atlas....for inside turning and threading.....unfortunately the lathe is still on the trailer....
But I have been cleaning it and working on it .....

[Ritchie200]

PRR, those overhead drives just give me the heebies!  I remember talking to the old toolmakers that worked with them years ago.  The way they used to throw the belts onto the moving pulleys....  Guys getting caught in them....  Man that would have scared the crap out of me!

Jim

[jjasilli]

 

[billcreller]

When I was a kid, a lot of local machine shops had the line-shaft drives for their machines. They sure made a lot of racket, with all the belts slapping around on those big pulleys.  Seems like things changed a lot with the advent of WW2.

[PRR]

> things changed a lot with the advent of WW2.

The end was in sight when electric motors became common and affordable, 1920s.

With all machines working, line-shaft losses could be more than the actual useful load. Inefficient. (A "good" rig was not bad, but many of these things were under-maintained and mis-matched.) With only a few loads working, line-shaft losses could greatly exceed the actual work done.

An existing line-shaft mill would not convert-over the instant it made sense. Especially in the Depression when money was tight and business was slack.

So as you say, it may have been the sudden tooling-up factor as we entered the War. New machines would be individual motors. Old machines would do new tasks and the power might be reconsidered. When it was decided to abandon the line-shaft, that's good because the steel would go back into the furnace to make swords and tanks (my father remembers collecting scrap iron For The War; I know some large iron on the side of a mountain that vanished in the early 1940s).

[HotBluePlates]

Judging by the ads, one of those lathes would set me back about 4 years of fun with my Gibson banjo...

 

[billcreller]

I also remember the scrap drives of WW2. As kids back then. we were always scrounging up scrap rubber, like old tires etc, and the price was a penny a pound !  We figure we were getting rich !

I spent some time on a South Bend lathe, for the aircraft operator I worked for.  I built some tooling for GE turnbine engines, the 610 & the CF700,  like pullers & pushers for turbine wheel removal & installation, among other tools.  Also built a shroud grinder for the Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engines.
  I bought ( for the company) a new Bridgeport mill, with the longest table available at the time...48 inches.
Between that & the lathe I got by to fabricate what we needed.