16" engine lathe? Too big?

PaulWilliam · Apr 24, 2018

I'm looking at buying my first lathe, and found a very nice 16" x 36" Imperial (Italian) Engine lathe. My past lathe projects have involved machining rollers, wheels, misc. small fittings on a 12" jet lathe. Nothing has exceeded 2 inches in diameter. Now I am looking at this beauty:

In the future I'd like to make some big acme threaded rods (1" diameter) but this lathe doesn't have a follow rest, and it is rare enough that I probably can't find one for it.

I'd also like to to be able to make tapered turnings but I probably will never be able to find a taper attachment for it.

Is this lathe a 'dead end' for me in that I won't be able to use it for making acme rods and tapered parts? What do people use 16" chucks for? Turning gas cylinders into canons? Should I look for a different lathe to do smaller work?

- Paul

Orange Vise · Apr 24, 2018

Bigger lathes are often RPM limited, although 16" is not that big.

What's the max RPM on that machine? What size spindle nose?

Conrad Hoffman · Apr 24, 2018

If this is for a home shop it seems pretty big. OTOH, if you've got the space and power to run it, it might be OK. Personally, I'd want something smaller with more readily available tooling. You can probably make a follower rest and, if you're really dedicated, a taper attachment. Have you got a mill?

Mtndew · Apr 24, 2018

If the largest you'll be turning is 2" dia, I would go with something smaller and has a faster max rpm.

thermite · Apr 24, 2018

PaulWilliam said:
I'm looking at buying my first lathe, and found a very nice 16" x 36" Imperial (Italian) Engine lathe. My past lathe projects have involved machining rollers, wheels, misc. small fittings on a 12" jet lathe. Nothing has exceeded 2 inches in diameter. Now I am looking at this beauty:

Beauty it may indeed be. "Condition, condition, condition..."

But that could be a possible "Unicorn" rather than dead-end.

Google-search PM. back to 2006, perhaps earlier.

This rare bird MAY have been a badge-engineered "Alfeo", which Tony has some info on ("Imperial", he has not):

Alfeo Lathe

"Too big". No.

Awkward for some work, yes, but nowhere NEAR as awkward as trying to do large work on a small lathe that cannot even mount it.

Side-issue, but folks seldom turn Acme threaded much-of-anything, modern era.

Threaded Acme, stub-Acme, left and right handed, basic grade, better grade - all the way to precision-ground, has become a commodity item we buy as easily as ignorant all thread. Just priced accordingly, of course! Ditto taps and dies, LH as well as RH.

2CW

sfriedberg · Apr 24, 2018

I find a 7.5HP 16x40 with a 2+" spindle bore to be a very convenient size for the sort of stuff I do. Large enough to swing a decent faceplate. Very common D1-6 chuck mount. Beefy enough to take real cuts on steel.

It would be typical to use a 12" 4-jaw chuck on a 16" swing lathe. So you are not limited to the existing full-size chuck. Without going out and looking at the rack, I believe I've got four 3-, 4- or 6-jaw chucks for my lathe, plus a 5C and a 22J collet chuck, plus a couple of face plates, plus a dog driver plate. At least one of the 3-jaw chucks I picked up simply because it takes the cheapest common size of American Standard soft jaws.

With a collet chuck, I routinely turn stuff under 1/2" diameter, and would not be very fussed unless I spent a bunch of time working on stuff under 1/4" diameter. (Disclaimer: I also have a small manual turret lathe for turning out repetitive small parts.)

Do not neglect the old-school option of turning between centers. In addition to giving you nice concentric turning operations, you can do a certain amount of taper turning between centers through tailstock set-over. For this, you want to pull off the 16" mega-chuck and put a dead center in the headstock and tailstock spindles.

You can make a follow rest without too much pain from a weldment of cut plate. Perhaps ugly but totally functional. You may be able to make a taper attachment, depending on whether the cross slide is/was set up for one already.

mancavedweller · Apr 24, 2018

I decided to go with a big lathe and mill for my hobby shed. 80mm bore and 1.5 meters between centres, 7.5 hp motor, 25mm tooling. The bore size, swing diameter, and length have came in handy several times, as has the comprehensive gearbox that can cut all manner of threads. It's also great when you just want to eat some volume of metal and don't want to be taking a hundred light cuts to get the stock removed. I bought a chunky 25 mm boring bar and it puts a smile on my face when I bore out something meaty.

However, I would also like a little cutie bench lathe with high rpm for the small stuff. I don't even run my big lathe at its highest rpm (1800) because it vibrates too much. Maybe that's the Chinese chuck out of balance, never checked.

I'm only speaking as a backyard guy, not doing any commercial work, but if you think you could also afford a little bench lathe down the track in addition to this one, I'd get this big one now. Like having a small hammer and a big hammer.

PaulWilliam · Apr 24, 2018

1200 RPM. L0 spindle MT4 tailstock. 'Mint' condition.

thermite · Apr 24, 2018

PaulWilliam said:
What do people use 16" chucks for?

Not sure. I could tell yah what I use 3" through 8" for. Or what I used to use 20" through six and eight feet for.

Some here on PM would class an 8-footer as "small" BTW. Think big pumps and turbines.

Others use instrument or "watchmakers" lathes I could mount onto my 4-way toolpost if/as/when needed - just to save bench space.

There's just sort of a gap in my personal exposure as to the small ones between 10" and 20"..

..smell that coffee aroma now? Big world out there. Small parts. Medium parts.. Bigger parts, too!

sfriedberg · Apr 24, 2018

PaulWilliam said:
L0 spindle

This would give me pause. L-mount chucks are much less common these days than D1-mounts. Personally, I would find being limited to a single large chuck for an extended time unpleasant.

On the other hand, if you know you can score L-mount tooling without too much trouble, it's not an issue.

thermite · Apr 24, 2018

sfriedberg said:
This would give me pause. L-mount chucks are much less common these days than D1-mounts. Personally, I would find being limited to a single large chuck for an extended time unpleasant.

On the other hand, if you know you can score L-mount tooling without too much trouble, it's not an issue.

L0 is indeed scarcer and costlier NEW.

OTOH, used goods often go wanting for buyers on eBay for lack of enough present-day spindles to mount it that are not already well-tooled.

Easy enough to find Sjogrens, Rubberflex, etc. for it. And there are still CI backplates aplenty to mount flat-back chucks of any pedigree one might care to deal with.

Hodge · Apr 24, 2018

If the price is right I would strongly consider providing enough room and ability to power up. It can add to the cost a fair bit if you have to upgrade panel, wiring, add converter of some sort.

RC Mech · Apr 24, 2018

PaulWilliam said:
What do people use 16" chucks for?

Uh, everything and anything. I routinely use a 20" 4-jaw for everything, but parts are usually larger than 8". We had a 12" 3-jaw, I'd rather have a 16" 3-jaw on the machine.

HuFlungDung · Apr 24, 2018

PaulWilliam said:
1200 RPM. L0 spindle MT4 tailstock. 'Mint' condition.

Note that the 16" 4 jaw likely has a recommended top speed about 600 rpm or so, there may even be a plate on the machine saying as much.

If the machine has a good selection of threading options, that can be worth something. The coarser pitch lead screw also makes it easier to cut coarser pitch threads. I hate the rinky dink little half nut levers on small lathes, something you operate with your finger tips. Doesn't make for quick and accurate retractions. I like man size lathes, with a lever you can get ahold of with your hand, and operate with your arm and shoulder. A 4 tpi leadscrew seems about ideal for cutting regular screw pitches from 20 to 4. It's not spinning so fast that it makes it difficult to get the half nuts properly engaged. Of course, you can go slow with any lathe, but I don't like taking more than 2 or 3 minutes to cut a thread, and that involves keeping the rpm up to the top of one's (practiced) reflex reaction time, for the sake of getting a better finish and better tool life.

thermite · Apr 24, 2018

RC Mech said:
Uh, everything and anything. I routinely use a 20" 4-jaw for everything, but parts are usually larger than 8". We had a 12" 3-jaw, I'd rather have a 16" 3-jaw on the machine.

If even I had any tolerance for 3-J at all, I'd want 4-J on anything over about 6".

Thing is...as swing goes up, the probability it will be working round shafts goes DOWN. The swing gets used up because of the shape of the part, not its diameter.

Very often, we need 8" to 72" to turn a modest 2" or 3" journal on the end of a long crank-arm, or to bore a hole a few inches from one side of a rectangular or odd-shaped item.

4-J can do all those weird body shapes reasonably well before one is driven-away to special fixturing. Or a milling machine. And the 4-J can still do round. Really well, too.

3-J? Round, CHECK. Triangular CHECK. Square? meahh. Hex CHECK. Octagonal? Aw f**k!

Irregular? Ohhh Kaaay. Where's the catalog with those "pie" jaws? Ah s**t. One-piece jaws in the chuck? Where's that carbide plunge mill ... and WTF am I always out of dowel pins?

etc..

adammil1 · Apr 24, 2018

Best advice I got when considering a larger milling machine than I had room at the time to comfortably run was "I never said damnit I need a smaller table than the one I have, but I have said damnit I need a bigger one.!"

upthebikes · Apr 24, 2018

My advice on dealing with older italian machine tools is as follows: without a manual/diagrams, walk away no matter how “mint” it might look. Italians kind of did it their own way on lathes, i.e. tapered pins where you would expect straight dowels, non-standard gear profiles, and a birds nest of electrical. The oil systems and transmissions seem to have a great deal in common with italian coupes of the mid-century.

This looks like an interesting lathe. In addition to the items you mention, you’d need to find/make a steady, add a trav-a-dial (there doesn’t appear to be a micrometer dial on the saddle), make some missing knobs, make/adapt a thread dial, and other odds and ends. Make sure to check the gear train for threading/feed box to make sure you have the right ratios installed for the “common” t.p.i. and pitch.

1200 rpm is pretty limiting for your only lathe, unless you can get a 2nd smaller lathe w/ higher rpm as another poster suggested above.

Just my two cents worth. Kinda cool looking though.

My two cents.

Garwood · Apr 24, 2018

It does not look like a machine I would get excited over in terms of quality, but it will probably suit you just fine. That would be a good first machine if the price is appropriate.

L0 is a really small spindle for a 16" lathe. L1 would be normal.

The little compound on that thing is cute. Looks like the same ones the Chinese lathes use.

partsproduction · Apr 25, 2018

You may be able to make a taper attachment, depending on whether the cross slide is/was set up for one already.

It's possible to alter one from another lathe too, but read up on TA's as a telescoping TA would take a lot of extra work to fit up, a new feed screw, rear thrust bearings. You might be able to alter the original feed screw, anchor it from the back with needle thrust bearings, and bore the operator end and add a "feather" (A key so the whole screw can move to the taper while the cross feed handle stays in place.)

Another idea I've read about but never tried; make a stand at each end of a flat bar so you can set it to be your taper master at the back out of the way of chips etc. Attach a dial indicator on the cross slide so it rides the flat, and as the taper is being turned moderate the "Zero" with the cross feed handle.

I always wanted to try that but two of my manual lathes have TA's so it seemed like a waste of time for me. You may find it to be pretty easy to keep the needle on zero.

iwananew10K · Apr 25, 2018

I like it...follow rest is no biggie....it's got the VERY useful t-slots on the saddle...hany for all sorts of goodies including a simple fabbed up follow rest.

16" engine lathe? Too big?

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