Help identify this old Auerbach lathe?

I'm new to this forum, and machining in general, so please forgive my lack of knowledge of machining terms if i screw up names...

I recently started tinkering with this lathe that my Dad was given a few years back. The nameplate says Auerbach & Co, Dresden-Pieschen and that's basically all the info i have on it. The 4 jaw chuck that came with it has a mfg date of 1895, but i haven't been able to find any date or other info on the lathe. Searching the internet, i found a picture of a 1926 auerbach catalog that might offer something similar, but the picture is too grainy to tell...

It has a capacity of about 12 inches diameter, and about a 2 inch hole down the center of the spindle.
It has a new flat belt, and was fitted with an electric motor some time in the past. I have made a couple small things on it, it seems to function fairly well. The spindle carrier bearings seem good, and oilers work. The ways are a little dinged, and definitely slightly worn in the middle(the ?carriage? moves easier in the middle than it does on the ends), but still seem to be pretty true(to a woodworkers eye). I am amazed how good the condition is on this old piece.

A couple of questions i have:

How old is this thing?
What was it originally for?
Anybody have experience with one of these, or other pieces from that era?
What the heck is the attachment in the last 2 photos? It attaches to the back(left side) end of the spindle, and has a handle with a gimbal that seems to push a slider left and right. Thanks for any help, this old machine is fascinating, and i would love to really get it working properly.





Mystery attachment


attachment removed:

Link toTony's site

Hope this helps:Tony' Sites

Del
Ps. Nice looking lathe!
Even has the con rod chuck key holder

the attachment is a 'lever collet closer'. A collet is like a precision chuck for a specific size material; a little searching on google or hear should turn up an excess of information.

The presence of the lever collet closer and the turret cross slide suggest that this lathe was used for production purposes. The lever closer allows a bar to be fed into the machine without stopping the spindle, and the turret allows multiple operations to be performed without tool changes.

Helpful Links:
Lathes Helpful hints
Lathes Buying advice (I know you've already got the lathe, but still good info.)
http://wswells.com/data/htral/htral_index.html Steve Wells' South Bend site, where he hosts some .pdf s of the How to Run a Lathe Book. It's SB oriented but still has lots of useful information for any old manual lathe.

Good Luck, have fun, and take that chuck key out of your drill press before you post pics here or you'll get yelled at.

Yeah, i realized i'd left the chuck key in the press about a minute later and placed it in its proper resting place. Rookie mistake, but that's what i get for stopping work mid process to take pictures... fortunately, i don't generally start the drill press without a bit in it.

I had figured it was set for production, that turret is really handy for multiple tools, indexed to six stopping points, so i guess up to 6 operations could be done without tool change. wish i had the collets, so i could get a better idea what it had done in the past.

Thanks for all the helpful info!

Thanks, It looks like one of the smaller lathes on the left side of the catalog pic near the bottom of the page. so, possibly a 20's lathe, maybe there's a date somewhere under all the grime. Just have to wait until i get it cleaned up better to tell.

I can see in the pictures that the lathe has a thread chasing feature, similar to that used on the Hardinge HCT chuckers. A male master thread of the desired pitch is mounted on the left end of the spindle and a follower on the left end of the pivoting bar behind the headstock causes the cutting tool on the right end of the pivoting bar to cut a thread of the same pitch and of any diameter, internal or external, on the work piece.

That is a neat and rare machine, but a bit limited in capability compared to a standard engine lathe.

Larry

How about a pic of the rear of the headstock? The lathe appears to have a chase threading device similar to that found on Hardinge HC chuckers. Tony's web site did not have a clear photo from the rear of this type of lathe so I am not sure. You might have a box of chunks of metal with a center hole and partial thread(s) on the periphery. These are the threading hobs or masters. The sorta rectangular block slightly above and behind the headstock would take the threading tool. The hob follower swings down (lever at the left hand end) into engagement with the hob on the spindle and the cutting tool traverses right or left to form the thread.

Nice lathe and attachment.

Carl

lathehand and l_vanice:

It's certainly rare, but that generally only makes things more difficult.

I'd be glad to take some more pictures next time i'm out there, but it's still at my dads place, about a half hour drive... probably be out there tomorrow.

It is indeed a threading attachment on the slider behind the headstock. Missing many pieces.

I'd figured out how the threading attachment worked in theory, unfortunately i don't have the master threading cylinders, they were gone before i got it. I'd love to make 'em myself, but i don't have a working threading tool yet. So here's my conundrum. Having little experience with this kind of work, i'm a little hesitant to just jump right in and experiment with making tooling i've never seen before, and only even have a rough idea what it *should* look like.

I'm trying to figure a way to bootstrap myself into a working thread cutting attachment...
I have a hardware store tap & die set, and this lathe, and a low quality drill press(it's rather loose, was made cheaply, 30 years ago)
Any ideas?

I can get metal, but would rather not pay someone else a bunch of money to make pieces for an obsolete lathe when i could probably buy a much newer one with more capabilities for a few hundred dollars...

I was thinking maybe i could chuck a bolt of the proper thread pitch on the back of the spindle and use that as a master to cut a small master cylinder, and then work my way up to the proper size. the first problem i see with that is damage to the star wheel, which i think is bronze, and verrry fine pitch, so probably easily damaged. I can't remember exactly off hand, but it has 4 thread pitches, i think from about 20/inch to 40/inch.

Is there any way to cut inside threads with a tool like this? In order to make a new master, it would have to eventually thread onto the back of the spindle, requiring an internal thread.