Bench mill & lathe parts ID needed

I picked up a Hardinge toolroom lathe yesterday, a TLP-59. I can find mention of a TL, and an LP, but not a TLP. I wasn't able to talk the seller down in price, but I was able to get him to throw in some extra goodies, including a bench mill that I can't identify:



Anyone have any ideas what it is?

I also got an Ames bench mill that's missing part of the compound:



This one is in very, very good shape, except for the missing bits. I would really like to make this one work, but it doesn't seem likely that I'll find the parts for it. The story was that the Hardinge and the Ames were bought from a woman who was getting divorced, the stuff was disassembled in her basement and they couldn't find a couple of parts for the Ames or the Hardinge. It's got a ball bearing headstock, and takes some collet I don't recognize - very similar to a 5C, but just a little bit smaller, whereas my Ames bench lathe has, I think, the much smaller 3PN.

I also got a bunch of random parts:



Most of this stuff is parts for the Hardinge, but the he said the two headstocks in the front were better off cluttering up my shop than his. I know what the one on the right is, I'm curious who else can identify it. I think the one on the left is a P&W, it doesn't fit my Ames or Hardinge, so I'm pretty sure it's neither of those.



This shows the missing compound bits from the Hardinge on the left, and a potential donor on the right, although it doesn't look like a good match. Can anyone ID the TLP compound well enough to guess if it was used on another model? Anyone got any spares?



This is the whole TLP. It' looks like a well built little machine, and a fraction of the price of a dovetail bed machine. I've got a bunch of split-bed tooling already, so that's actually a plus for me. This one has more wear that I'd really like, so I'll need to do something about that. Not sure if I'm brave enough to try it myself. I'd love to hear about it if anyone knows someone who can recut the bed for a reasonable price.

PM sent.

Mel

The lathe looks like the "High Speed Tool Room Lathe" shown in my 1946 Hardinge general products brochure. Except in 1946 the cabinet had the newly introduced knee hole design. Yours has the 1945 or earlier type cabinet. In the 1946 brochure, no model designations were used; only descriptive names. People call them T-10 or TL based upon the page numbers in the owner manual.

So what is your serial number? That will tell when it was made. And where did you get the "TLP" model? Is on the lathe somewhere, or is it just a legend from the previous owner?

The tailstock looks wrong. The split bed tool room model was the only lathe Hardinge made with a set-over tailstock, but yours is solid.

Your slide rest is a 1950-1960 type made for the DV59 and available as mail order for the 9 inch split bed lathes. I suspect it would be challenging to use much more than the crank handle to replace your missing parts.

Larry

The item you are considering using for a donor for the lathe's compound, is
very very close to an early white dial toolmakers compound from a DV59 or
a split bed hardinge lathe. But it does seem to be missing the swivel part!

The part you want will have a full coverage casting that covers the dovetail
ways and feed nut for that. The ideal correct one will have a conical dial
and a retraction lever that turns around the axis of the feed screw.

The little ames milling machine seems very sweet. Worth assembling if you can.

Jim

tom_boctou said:

I also got a bunch of random parts:

Most of this stuff is parts for the Hardinge, but the he said the two headstocks in the front were better off cluttering up my shop than his. I know what the one on the right is, I'm curious who else can identify it. I think the one on the left is a P&W, it doesn't fit my Ames or Hardinge, so I'm pretty sure it's neither of those.

Click to expand...

The left hand one is definitely P&W. The one on the right is a quill rest attachment for high precision work. It could also be P&W, if the bed profile matches the one on the left.
Andy

The little gray mill is a Lewis. They were kits. I have one too...Bob

L Vanice said:

The lathe looks like the "High Speed Tool Room Lathe" shown in my 1946 Hardinge general products brochure. Except in 1946 the cabinet had the newly introduced knee hole design. Yours has the 1945 or earlier type cabinet. In the 1946 brochure, no model designations were used; only descriptive names. People call them T-10 or TL based upon the page numbers in the owner manual.

So what is your serial number? That will tell when it was made. And where did you get the "TLP" model? Is on the lathe somewhere, or is it just a legend from the previous owner?

The tailstock looks wrong. The split bed tool room model was the only lathe Hardinge made with a set-over tailstock, but yours is solid.

Your slide rest is a 1950-1960 type made for the DV59 and available as mail order for the 9 inch split bed lathes. I suspect it would be challenging to use much more than the crank handle to replace your missing parts.

Larry

Click to expand...

The serial number stamped on the end of the bed is TLP-59-13786.

What do you mean by a "set over" tailstock? The lathe has been repainted at some point, and the chips in the paint don't show much, so it's easy to imagine that some parts aren't original.

I don't think that slide rest will be a good donor. I am guessing that I will wind up replacing everything from the pivot pin up, which seems like the easiest way to go if I can't find the original parts.

Andy FitzGibbon said:

The left hand one is definitely P&W. The one on the right is a quill rest attachment for high precision work. It could also be P&W, if the bed profile matches the one on the left.
Andy

Click to expand...

You are, in all probability, correct! I identified the quill rest from pictures, and the bed profile of the headstock on the left does match. I am going to keep the quill rest, but if anyone needs the headstock then drop me a line, I have no use for it. The bearings aren't in that great a shape, but if you have a damaged spindle then this one might be better,

aametalmaster said:

The little gray mill is a Lewis. They were kits. I have one too...Bob

Click to expand...

Can you add any details about the machine? At least a rough age? It's in really good shape, any chance there's anyone out there with a clapped out Ames that would want to trade?

tom_boctou said:

Can you add any details about the machine? At least a rough age?

Click to expand...

-Virtually impossible to tell. According to Lathes.co.uk, Lewis started making kits in 1935, and I was led to believe they continued to do so through at least the fifties.

The kits were semi-finished castings, designed so that vocational school classes and budget-minded home-shop types could finish a given kit with little more than hand tools. The kit could have been cast in '35, sold in '37, stored 'til '59, and then finally finished in '72. Or the kit could have been cast and sold in '55 and finished later that year. Unless the builder stamped some information on it, there's no way to tell.

Doc.

tom_boctou said:

The serial number stamped on the end of the bed is TLP-59-13786.

What do you mean by a "set over" tailstock? The lathe has been repainted at some point, and the chips in the paint don't show much, so it's easy to imagine that some parts aren't original.

I don't think that slide rest will be a good donor. I am guessing that I will wind up replacing everything from the pivot pin up, which seems like the easiest way to go if I can't find the original parts.

Click to expand...

Serial number 13787 was made in January, 1937, so your lathe was perhaps the last one made in 1936. The 59 simply means it takes 5C collets and has a 9 inch swing. I am not familiar with TL (or TLP) serial numbers, and can't say what the letters mean. In the 1950's Hardinge began putting numerical suffixes like -1, -2 etc. after the serial number to indicate design changes. In the 1960's, they began using alpha suffixes, -A, -B etc. These suffixes were only used on machines that had their own serial number sequences, not machines in the original number sequence that began with the first machines made in Chicago.

The Cataract quick change swing tool room lathe and the TL that replaced it had set over tailstocks. The tailstock body was made in two parts. The upper part could be adjusted fore and aft using a pair of opposed set screws. This was a common feature on virtually all metal lathes, but Hardinge only applied it to these two scarce models. So it is extremely rare for a Hardinge set over tailstock to be found for sale by itself. The 9 inch solid tailstocks for Hardinge or Elgin split bed lathes are very easy to find by themselves. Actually, you have an Elgin tailstock on your lathe. They are visibly different from the Hardinge tailstocks.

I think the compound slide for an HLV or TFB (the 5 inch wide bed model made from around 1954 to 1960) may fit the TL. It will not be the same width, but a complete HLV compound may well fit on the TL cross slide and may be the correct height. I had an HLV compound and traded it to a friend with an HLV some years ago and have not seen one since. At least the feed screw and retracting mechanism would be correct. That compound would be a very rare item, of course.

Larry

DocsMachine said:

-Virtually impossible to tell. According to Lathes.co.uk, Lewis started making kits in 1935, and I was led to believe they continued to do so through at least the fifties.

Doc.

Click to expand...

Aaah, I found it on lathes.co.uk - there isn't an entry in the milling machine manufacturers, but there is a link to the miller from the Lewis shaper.

Having looked it over a bit, there is a chance that this one has never been run. There isn't so much as a nick on the bed, and there's a couple of small drops of the gray paint inside the V of the drive sheave, on the surface that mates with the belt.

Hopefully whoever built put some identifying marks on it someplace. I'll give it a good look when I wipe the grime off.

Thanks for the ID!

There is a Lewis Yahoo Group also http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/LewisMachineTool/
...Bob

L Vanice said:

Serial number 13787 was made in January, 1937, so your lathe was perhaps the last one made in 1936. The 59 simply means it takes 5C collets and has a 9 inch swing. I am not familiar with TL (or TLP) serial numbers, and can't say what the letters mean. In the 1950's Hardinge began putting numerical suffixes like -1, -2 etc. after the serial number to indicate design changes. In the 1960's, they began using alpha suffixes, -A, -B etc. These suffixes were only used on machines that had their own serial number sequences, not machines in the original number sequence that began with the first machines made in Chicago.

The Cataract quick change swing tool room lathe and the TL that replaced it had set over tailstocks. The tailstock body was made in two parts. The upper part could be adjusted fore and aft using a pair of opposed set screws. This was a common feature on virtually all metal lathes, but Hardinge only applied it to these two scarce models. So it is extremely rare for a Hardinge set over tailstock to be found for sale by itself. The 9 inch solid tailstocks for Hardinge or Elgin split bed lathes are very easy to find by themselves. Actually, you have an Elgin tailstock on your lathe. They are visibly different from the Hardinge tailstocks.

I think the compound slide for an HLV or TFB (the 5 inch wide bed model made from around 1954 to 1960) may fit the TL. It will not be the same width, but a complete HLV compound may well fit on the TL cross slide and may be the correct height. I had an HLV compound and traded it to a friend with an HLV some years ago and have not seen one since. At least the feed screw and retracting mechanism would be correct. That compound would be a very rare item, of course.

Larry

Click to expand...

That's older than I expected. It's a very nice machine for that era.

I see what you mean about the tailstock. I think Hardinge is the only lathe I've ever had that didn't have set over. It's ironic that the TLP, with a taper attachment, is one of the few that's had set over. I noticed the tailstock didn't look like the one in the pictures, but it appears to be as high a quality as Hardinge, so I didn't think anything of it.

It does look like it's HLV parts I need. That's unfortunate, but they must be out there somewhere.

Thanks for the info!

Tom there is a photo of the compound slide you are
trying to replicate, in the 'show us your vintage tools'
thread.

Also if you want to help fund the search for parts, you
might consider selling that little BC Ames milling machine
to a board member.....

My daughter goes to college near springfield so I am
in the boston area on occasion....

Jim

jim rozen said:

Also if you want to help fund the search for parts, you
might consider selling that little BC Ames milling machine
to a board member.....

My daughter goes to college near springfield so I am
in the boston area on occasion....

Jim

Click to expand...

Ok, how's $10 sound? No, wait, I'm just kidding. You can pry it from my dead, oily fingers.

I'm going to put it together even if I have to buy a whole second mill to get the one part I need. Then I'll do the same for the mill I robbed of the part, and so on, until I've engulfed all remaining Ames mills.

Ok, ok.

But just remember, if you ever change your mind and have to
pony up 'big money' to get the compound slide for your TL, I'm the
guy to contact.

Hmm. At this point there's some advantage in trying to locate the
one remaining TL compound slide in the entire world.

Jim

jim rozen said:

Ok, ok.

But just remember, if you ever change your mind and have to
pony up 'big money' to get the compound slide for your TL, I'm the
guy to contact.

Hmm. At this point there's some advantage in trying to locate the
one remaining TL compound slide in the entire world.

Jim

Click to expand...

You might well be able to buy the one last TL compound, since these things seem to be pretty scarce. But it looks like an HLV part will fit, and there might be even more donors if I'm willing to replace parts starting further down. So it may be expensive for me to replace, but at least you won't be able to back me into a corner!

I have two other bench mills - a P&W #00 and a Lewis that appears to be unused - that will be surplus to my needs once I get the parts for the Hardinge and Ames, until then I'm going to hang on to them in hopes of a trade. I would consider trading either one for a clapped out Ames miller that can donate the parts I need.

This Ames miller appears to be a relatively late model, all of the pictures I've found have plain bearing headstocks, this one has the ball bearing headstock with the motor mounted under the unit, just like the later lathes did.

I'm dead set on keeping the Ames partially because it's a good tool and is in very good shape, but partially because I have an Ames #3 lathe as well, so they'll make a good matched pair.

tom_boctou said:

Anyone have any ideas what it is?

I also got an Ames bench mill that's missing part of the compound:

Click to expand...

I have one of these, complete. I would like to sell it. Does anyone know how much they go for? The only thing it is missing is the belt. I would love to keep it but i have had it for about 10 years now and have not worked on it.

aametalmaster said:

The little gray mill is a Lewis. They were kits. I have one too...Bob

Click to expand...

Nope, it is NOT a Lewis...... nothing like it at all when you look at details.....

Knee is wrong shape, base is wrong shape, the pulley cutout is exactly opposite what it should look like if a Lewis, and the table is wrong, as is the drive. I have a Lewis also.

Could be a "Minton", they are apparently rather like a Lewis, but I think it is something else entirely.

Pic of Lewis mill

mil_bars.jpg picture by jstanley - Photobucket