Lets play a variant of the game "Name that Lathe."

We'll play "name those legs." Sort of like the lathe game - but you have less to work with.

We don't need to discuss the loss of a 19th century machine tool to the vagaries of style and fad and historical preservation - but if you want, you can.

Here they are:

Cast Iron Lathe Legs - general for sale - by owner



My guess is late WC Young.

Treasure what you have while it lasts - another generation will see the elimination nearly complete.

Yunno - like AM radio - does anyone actually listen to AM channels?

Joe in H

Joe in NH said:

Yunno - like AM radio - does anyone actually listen to AM channels?

Joe in H

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Actually, yes. The signal travels much further than fm. That matters a lot out here where its a long way from town to town. Even so, I'm commonly in areas where there are no radio signals available on either channel, nor is there cell phone service.

The two canadian stations come in great here in peekskill. The one has comedy and mystery every night.

gbent said:

Actually, yes. The signal travels much further than fm. That matters a lot out here where its a long way from town to town. Even so, I'm commonly in areas where there are no radio signals available on either channel, nor is there cell phone service.

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A minor point for those who care. There is no difference in the distance that AM travels relative to FM. The effective distance that the signal can be clearly understood depends on the power of the transmitter and the design of the receiver. Actually, all things being equal, FM can be received with less interference than AM. I could go on and on but won't.

You'd think that some foundry in a second- or third-world country would get wind of this market and buy ONE pair of antique legs to use as a pattern, then make 2,000 pairs to sell in the US & Europe. If the foundry itself didn't think of this, why doesn't some import/export type business think of it?

We've discussed one vendor of "retro" cast legs. Why aren't there dozens of vendors? The bar to entering the market does not appear to be very high.

John Ruth

SouthBendModel34 said:

You'd think that some foundry in a second- or third-world country would get wind of this market and buy ONE pair of antique legs to use as a pattern, then make 2,000 pairs to sell in the US & Europe. If the foundry itself didn't think of this, why doesn't some import/export type business think of it?

We've discussed one vendor of "retro" cast legs. Why aren't there dozens of vendors? The bar to entering the market does not appear to be very high.

John Ruth

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Didnt Grizzly do this already? Their legs are right around $600 a pair, plus freight. And they are shipping hundreds of thousands of pounds from China a month, and I would presume they get pretty much the best prices from suppliers and shippers.
My guess is that since the price of cast iron these days is in the $4 to $6 per pound range for very roughly ground castings, in small amounts, (under a few tons at a time) plus shipping, packaging, paint, deburring, etc, the wholesale price of legs like this is gonna be more than the average customer would pay, and, retail is double wholesale.

Ries said:

Didnt Grizzly do this already?

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Poor imitation - and more closely designed to actually be placed under a bench. Unlike the "make-do, use-er-up, expediency of a "steam punk" side table - which attempts to capture that "we're busy but ingenious" genre that true industrial art embraces.

Cast Iron Workbench Legs | Grizzly Industrial

An Ebay seller is closer to the desired genre. 28" Cast Iron Table Legs - Industrial Vintage Farmhouse Black | eBay



Only $650/pair clams plus $125 shipping.

Joe in NH

There are machine legs everywhere. I've seen a lot in; Antique stores, architectural salvage stores, eBay, etc. The only problem I see from a duplication standpoint in the realm of repurposement is that the less rare something is the less "one of a kind" it is. There for typically sells for much less. I've seen a few super ornate pairs on ebay that I would have liked to saved just for the sake of it. However when the price tag is 800+ for a pair of legs I'll pass.

marka12161 said:

A minor point for those who care. There is no difference in the distance that AM travels relative to FM. The effective distance that the signal can be clearly understood depends on the power of the transmitter and the design of the receiver. Actually, all things being equal, FM can be received with less interference than AM. I could go on and on but won't.

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Not so. Radio waves are bent by the ionosphere, the amount varying from none at all to in effect piping them all around the world. The main effect is from ionized atoms in the ionosphere. You can think of it as sort of a screen where the closer the mesh, the smaller objects it will reflect instead of letting them pass through. The reflecting layer bends the waves to follow the earth's surface instead of going straight off into space. Since the wavelength of AM signals is around 100 times that of FM, the ionization has to be that much denser to reflect FM. Clear channel AM stations like KMOX, WLW, WWL, etc. can be heard all over the US at night.

This is a simplification of a very complex subject, but the overall answer is that the range of AM signals around 1 megacycle is far greater than the range of FM around 100 megacycles.

Bill