Antique Lodge and Davis Lathe in Portland OR

TRistick307 · Jan 20, 2018

Hello all,
First time poster here. I am not mechanically inclined so when it comes to actually describing this lathe, please bear with me.

My family inherited this beautiful Lodge and Davis lathe several years ago. From what I understand and have seen, it still runs. No issues that I've ever heard of. Definitely needs some love though. I've matched it to similar models in the Lodge and Davis machine tool catalog. Based on the history of this company we can determine that the main body of the lathe dates somewhere around 1886 and 1892. I'm not sure how to even go about dating the actual motor / speed control unit. Before my family and I post on craiglist or ebay, I thought that I would reach out to some knowledgeable folks and see what we can find out about this antique lathe before we go about listing it for sale. From what I've gathered by reading about these older lathes, is that whoever/whomever decides to buy it will definitely need to be a machinist through and through. Unfortunately none of my family, including myself has any idea how to go about describing this piece of equipment to anyone that actually cares. From the research that I've done so far, it appears that the measurements of the swing and the bed are good starting points. To get the swing, I measured from the center of the gap between the bed to the center of the chuck which was about 7". This multiplied by 2 is 14" so if my measurement is correct it appears to be a 14" swing. I wasn't sure how to get an accurate measurement of the bed. The entire length of the lathe is about 8 ft. If I'm excluding the headstock, the bed is about 7 ft.

Oh, and yes... this lathe is in our basement. It should make for an interesting removal.

Here are a few questions that I have for you all.

1. What other key things are you guys looking to know about this lathe if you were purchasing it?
2. What are some of the factors that help best determine the value of this lathe?
3. Are there any additional photos (other than the attached) that would be helpful for determining the overall condition and capabilities of this lathe.
4. Do you have any additional information about the history of this lathe? Links, resources, etc.

I'll be monitoring this post for awhile, so if you need any additional information or pictures, I should be fairly quick to respond.

If anyone is located near Portland, OR. or you know someone out this way that may be interested, definitely feel free to message me directly.

Thanks in advance for your time and thoughts!

Travis

DeSelle · Jan 20, 2018

That is a beautiful thing

It's amazing what is still hiding in basements all over the states

partsproduction · Jan 20, 2018

Interesting workhorse. Funny, the time is 7:53 but I see you posted this today at 8:46, time travel?

It's rare to see a lathe of that era in such good shape. Looks like it has all the gears too.
Would you say your measurement equals the distance from the tailstock center to the first part of the bed that a swinging part would hit? I got a sense that wasn't what you measured.

johnoder · Jan 21, 2018

What are some of the factors that help best determine the value of this lathe?

First, you need a customer that is willing to struggle it out of your basement - without one of those, assigning a value is moot

Paolo_MD · Jan 21, 2018

Travis,
I second John's regarding the final price. However, I would venture more on the side of proposing a very negotiable starting price.
First of all, my compliments for your homework, especially considering that you do not have too much interest in antique machinery.
A quick look at Kenneth Cope's book, shows that, yes, Lodge (who, I believe, wasn't an easy person to be partner in business with) left Lodge & Davis in '92. However the name of the company changed into "Davis & Egan Machine Tool Co." only on September 1 1896. In Cope's book the only mention I see about a 14" lathe is about one introduced in 1895. I suspect that yours date indeed 1895-96.

Regarding the pictures, the more pictures you take, the better. In particular, I suggest to take pictures of the rich collection of accessories scattered near the lathe. The leadscrew on these lathes runs in the middle of the bed. I suggest you to try your best to take a few pictures that show the back and the bed from the top.
You can describe the lathe as a 14"x8', meaning that 8' is the total length of the bed (the distance between centers is generally described in inches).
Now, the tricky topic of adding a price tag.
It's something hard to do, especially without knowing what accessories are included and the presence/conditions of the leadscrew. I see at least a couple of chucks and face plates and, possibly, a steady rest. As mentioned earlier, it looks like you have a complete set of change gears (do all the gears-including all visible gears on the lathe-have all their teeth?), and that is yet another positive point.
The bad news is that old lathes, especially medium-large ones, are not worth a ton of money, unless (like John mentioned) you do find somebody who falls in love with it.
Assuming the leadscrew is there and functioning, that all the gears are in order, I'd suggest advertising it around $8-900 on Craig's List and placing on eBay with a "buy it now" price of $1200 and a reserve price of $700. Later, when renewing the listing, you can lower both.
You definitely need to disclose that it is located in a basement and you need to provide more detailed information (e.g. walk-out basement? Straight stairs leading to truck-accessible area outside? Width of the stairs? Etc.). A couple of pictures of the path to get it out of the basement could also help the person interested in buying it.

What would be a bottom-line price for the complete lathe, in the case you find somebody willing to preserve it would be at least $4-500.

One word of caution: anybody who is interested in that lathe will buy it only if it is complete with the legs and all the accessories.
As you are likely aware, there are several people who hunt for cast iron legs from machine tools to build steampunk artifacts. Such people will disappear once they have stripped down "all the cool stuff", leaving the bed and a bunch of heavy chunks of cast iron in your basement.
To avoid that, I strongly suggest you to keep the gears, steady rest, chucks, etc. aside and allow the buyer to take them away only after the bed of the lathe has been hauled away.
Since, most likely, the late will have to be disassembled to be hauled away, I strongly suggest that you get paid before a single bolt has been unscrewed from the machine.
Be aware that disassembling that lathe in manageable components will take at least a whole weekend, or a few evenings.

Those are my 2 cents.

Good Luck!

Paolo

TRistick307 · Jan 21, 2018

PartsProduction -
That definitely is interesting about the time stamp. Must be a bug in the system?

Would you say your measurement equals the distance from the tailstock center to the first part of the bed that a swinging part would hit?

Yes. I went down and double checked. It's 7".

Thanks,
Travis

TRistick307 · Jan 21, 2018

DeSelle said:
That is a beautiful thing

It's amazing what is still hiding in basements all over the states

It certainly is!

TRistick307 · Jan 21, 2018

johnoder said:
First, you need a customer that is willing to struggle it out of your basement - without one of those, assigning a value is moot

Yes, that certainly is the key component to this equation isn't it.

iwananew10K · Jan 21, 2018

Donating it to a museum might be a good option, or even to an established member here.
It should be preserved somehow..and I don't think its worth your trouble to have to deal with CL @&$@ kickers who might make a mess of things.

TRistick307 · Jan 21, 2018

Paolo_MD said:
Travis,
I second John's regarding the final price. However, I would venture more on the side of proposing a very negotiable starting price.
First of all, my compliments for your homework, especially considering that you do not have too much interest in antique machinery.
A quick look at Kenneth Cope's book, shows that, yes, Lodge (who, I believe, wasn't an easy person to be partner in business with) left Lodge & Davis in '92. However the name of the company changed into "Davis & Egan Machine Tool Co." only on September 1 1896. In Cope's book the only mention I see about a 14" lathe is about one introduced in 1895. I suspect that yours date indeed 1895-96.

Regarding the pictures, the more pictures you take, the better. In particular, I suggest to take pictures of the rich collection of accessories scattered near the lathe. The leadscrew on these lathes runs in the middle of the bed. I suggest you to try your best to take a few pictures that show the back and the bed from the top.
You can describe the lathe as a 14"x8', meaning that 8' is the total length of the bed (the distance between centers is generally described in inches).
Now, the tricky topic of adding a price tag.
It's something hard to do, especially without knowing what accessories are included and the presence/conditions of the leadscrew. I see at least a couple of chucks and face plates and, possibly, a steady rest. As mentioned earlier, it looks like you have a complete set of change gears (do all the gears-including all visible gears on the lathe-have all their teeth?), and that is yet another positive point.
The bad news is that old lathes, especially medium-large ones, are not worth a ton of money, unless (like John mentioned) you do find somebody who falls in love with it.
Assuming the leadscrew is there and functioning, that all the gears are in order, I'd suggest advertising it around $8-900 on Craig's List and placing on eBay with a "buy it now" price of $1200 and a reserve price of $700. Later, when renewing the listing, you can lower both.
You definitely need to disclose that it is located in a basement and you need to provide more detailed information (e.g. walk-out basement? Straight stairs leading to truck-accessible area outside? Width of the stairs? Etc.). A couple of pictures of the path to get it out of the basement could also help the person interested in buying it.

What would be a bottom-line price for the complete lathe, in the case you find somebody willing to preserve it would be at least $4-500.

One word of caution: anybody who is interested in that lathe will buy it only if it is complete with the legs and all the accessories.
As you are likely aware, there are several people who hunt for cast iron legs from machine tools to build steampunk artifacts. Such people will disappear once they have stripped down "all the cool stuff", leaving the bed and a bunch of heavy chunks of cast iron in your basement.
To avoid that, I strongly suggest you to keep the gears, steady rest, chucks, etc. aside and allow the buyer to take them away only after the bed of the lathe has been hauled away.
Since, most likely, the late will have to be disassembled to be hauled away, I strongly suggest that you get paid before a single bolt has been unscrewed from the machine.
Be aware that disassembling that lathe in manageable components will take at least a whole weekend, or a few evenings.

Those are my 2 cents.

Good Luck!

Paolo

Thanks for the in depth response Paolo! Your info from the Kennith Cope book is certainly noted. Thanks for the heads up about the parts scavengers. I wasn't really aware of those individuals. You've definitely provided me with some useful bits of info. I truly appreciate it Paolo. I'll get some more pictures and check those gear teeth!

TRistick307 · Jan 21, 2018

iwananew10K said:
Donating it to a museum might be a good option, or even to an established member here.
It should be preserved somehow..and I don't think its worth your trouble to have to deal with CL @&$@ kickers who might make a mess of things.

That's definitely something to consider for sure. I'll have to look into the museum options, is there a good resource for antique museum listings? Guess I could just google it, but if there's any additional resources I'm all ears.

Thanks!

handsome devil · Jan 23, 2018

Is there something about this lathe I am missing here? I agree it is pretty and appears to be in wonderful condition for an old lathe. Guess I am questioning the asking price or perceived value of an old lathe in a basement. Maybe in Portland area old lathes bring a premium? I kind of thought that if you got $300 and were able to get it moved out of your basement you would be doing extremely well. Around this part of the country you might have to offer it free just to get it moved. I may be all wet, it happens often that my perception is way off too. For the OP sake I hope I am wrong. You definitely need to find the right person to one take it out of your basement, two to pay you a lot of money for the adventure of doing it. There might be someone out there just to prove me wrong? It does look like a nice one but I don't know about getting much monetary value out of it. Even with the tooling and pile of parts and attachments? But maybe things are different in Portland. I know the midwest has much more selection of iron laying around than other parts of the country and maybe old lathes are in higher demand out west? Good luck on this project. I also hope you get big money on this. Right now on Craigslist there is an older lathe with a fair amount of tooling and looks to have a lot of extra gears in a box. It has been at $300 or BO for about 3 months now. It is not in a basement either. This one posted above at least looks nice in the fact that it is painted and not all full of rust. That will certainly help. Regards, John.

partsproduction · Jan 23, 2018

Thanks for the heads up about the parts scavengers. I wasn't really aware of those individuals.

I'm a collector of old lathes, hoping to live long enough to restore them all, but I found a Lin Huan 8X16 lathe which predated the Asian invasion of the 1980's, the only manual lathe Lin Haun made, very heavily built, the pan is cast iron as is everything on these early ones (It weighs at least twice as much as a small South Bend 9")
A friend who has 40-60 lathes also has a Lin Haun exactly the same as mine, but when he found it for sale it was sold to him without the cast iron legs! It seems someone saw the lathe for sale and came pretending interest in it, but offered the owner $100 for the legs alone.

He offered me $300 for the legs from mine, but of course I wouldn't do that.
Since I consider him a friend I took the legs off and took them to a foundry man to get the price to make new one's from mine for his lathe, $400.
My friend didn't go for that, but it illustrates how those guys ruin the value of a collectors lathe, not so they can use them as lathe legs, but who knows why? What a waste!

Andy FitzGibbon · Jan 23, 2018

This lathe does have a lead screw, but it's hidden inside the bed, under the front way- a design feature that carried over to early American Tool Works machines.

Finding a museum that would want it for static display would be challenging. Machinery is difficult to move and store, and unfortunately holds very little interest for most museum customers. A working museum might have more interest. In both cases, the supply of machines available for donation far surpasses the number of organizations willing to accept them.

Andy

garyphansen · Jan 23, 2018

My Lodge Davis lathe was built in 1888. They latter changed the name to Lodge & Davis so yours was made in 1889 or later.

Paolo_MD · Jan 23, 2018

garyphansen said:
My Lodge Davis lathe was built in 1888. They latter changed the name to Lodge & Davis so yours was made in 1889 or later.

Is yours a 14" as well, or larger swing? The only reference to a 14" lathe I've found in Cope's book refers to the 1895 model.

Paolo

Robert Lang · Jan 28, 2018

Paolo_MD said:
Lodge (who, I believe, wasn't an easy person to be partner in business with)

I would not say that at all.
Lodge wanted to build just lathes and his various partners wanted to build a full line of machine tools.

Here is a bronze tablet put on the shop wall by the employees of Lodge & Shipley after William Lodge died.

American Machinist

Rob

garyphansen · Jan 30, 2018

My 1888 Lodge Davis is an 18".

Antique Lodge and Davis Lathe in Portland OR

Plastic

Attachments

Cast Iron

Titanium

Diamond

Stainless

Plastic

Plastic

Plastic

Diamond

Plastic

Plastic

Hot Rolled

Titanium

Diamond

Titanium

Stainless

Stainless

Titanium

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