Evaluating a lathe that's not under power

Not sure if this should be posted in one of the lathe-specific forums, and didn't find sufficient information with a cursory search, but here goes. I have a line on a 50-year old Weiler Matador VS toolroom lathe, but it's not under power. This would just be for my home shop, and I don't anticipate wanting to make things to a few tenths tolerance over long lengths, but I would like to be assured that the machine is in good working order other than any issues the current owner has mentioned. Advice on how to evaluate the machine under the present circumstances would be much appreciated. A similar machine to the one in question is shown in the photo.

Mike

Those are one of the better tool room size lathes available but one broken part will likely kill any deal. If the owner has power in the building take a phase converter with you and hook it up? Really other than looking for excessive wear and tear it's a tough one; all functions need to be tested, each gear operates as it should and the VS unit works like it should. Remember when making an offer that the Weiler isn't like a Southbend with extra parts and accessories in every owners garage/shop.
Dan

Owner/user can give good reference if he seems a trustworthy guy, takes care of his other stuff, actually ran the machine for a time and you feel you can trust him. A machine flipper is not that guy..You can run down bed and try the lock at points..look at the gears and such.. but a clutch and the like hard to tell if not running..

Why is a machine with chips not running?

I like to say a running machine is worth $1000 more because it can cost that for a part if a part can be found.

Well its best to inspect it the best you can. Talk to the guy a little ask him about his shop and get an idea of what kind of person he is. If he is trustworthy maybe trust his word, if he seems sketchy maybe back away or take what he says with a grain of salt. They're great little machines, pretty hard to break without some major crash or being damaged during some move. make sure they didnt grease the ways, and if they replaced the spindle belts recently and properly thats a huge plus. To replace the belts you have to pull the spindle. Also it does not have a clutch its just a switch.

It's like buying a car that's a non runner, ...... at the end of the day you do not know what you are getting, ......so price yourself accordingly, and remember ;- machine tool spare parts are not even reasonably priced let alone cheap.

Also try posting here - you might get lucky and find a member who runs that machine http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/schaublin-cazeneuve-weiler-graziano-mori-seiki-lathes/

Mikel Levy said:

Not sure if this should be posted in one of the lathe-specific forums, and didn't find sufficient information with a cursory search, but here goes. I have a line on a 50-year old Weiler Matador VS toolroom lathe, but it's not under power. This would just be for my home shop, and I don't anticipate wanting to make things to a few tenths tolerance over long lengths, but I would like to be assured that the machine is in good working order other than any issues the current owner has mentioned. Advice on how to evaluate the machine under the present circumstances would be much appreciated. A similar machine to the one in question is shown in the photo.

Mike
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Mike, there is no really definitive way to test everything, even with the power, you can spend half an hour, check the spindle bearings for play, but that doesn't mean they aren't noisy, best you can do is grab the ckuck with the chuck key in its slot and try turning it in evry gear, you want be able to turn it in lower gears but you can check all the shift forks are ok and it dosent have streeped gears, at the end everything is a gamble, i've taken lots of gambel's like this not the worst way to lose couple hundred bucks.

Mikel Levy said:

Not sure if this should be posted in one of the lathe-specific forums, and didn't find sufficient information with a cursory search, but here goes. I have a line on a 50-year old Weiler Matador VS toolroom lathe, but it's not under power. This would just be for my home shop, and I don't anticipate wanting to make things to a few tenths tolerance over long lengths, but I would like to be assured that the machine is in good working order other than any issues the current owner has mentioned. Advice on how to evaluate the machine under the present circumstances would be much appreciated. A similar machine to the one in question is shown in the photo.

Mike
View attachment 203510

Click to expand...

Mike, there is no really definitive way to test everything, even with the power, you can spend half an hour, check the spindle bearings for play, but that doesn't mean they aren't noisy, best you can do is grab the ckuck with the chuck key in its slot and try turning it in evry gear, you want be able to turn it in lower gears but you can check all the shift forks are ok and it dosent have streeped gears, at the end everything is a gamble, i've taken lots of gambel's like this not the worst way to lose couple hundred bucks.

As well say in the quality watch market - " Buy the seller before the watch ".

That means be sure you can trust the guy before you even look at the machine.

Regards Tyrone.

Doesn't seem that anyone really answered your question to any extent, other than you can't fully evaluate a lathe that isn't under power.

I will toss out a couple things for you to check as sometimes there just isn't a way to get power, even if you take a VFD or RPC with you.

I have bought machines that didn't have power to them in the past, and in fact I have a toolroom lathe that I bought which didn't have power and it took me and a friend about 6 months (really about 4 or 5 separate weekend days in my garage) to figure out the electrical to get everything operating properly. Was wired for wrong voltage, was missing the transformer for the control circuit as the original buyer had taken it out and ran a separate power for the control circuit, leaving just a snipped off line. You need to understand that often a machine is taken out of service as it is not working correctly, that's a crap shoot to figure out if you buy one.

My suggestion if you really want the lathe, open the headstock and look at the gears and belts. See what type of condition it's in. Make sure the previous owner had oil in it, and I would try to see the gears in the apron if possible, but that might not be. Short of seeing them, make sure everything operates smoothly. You should be able to engage feeds and/or backgear and move the lathe manually (from the chuck if you need to).

I would take an oil can with you, because if it's not under power there will not be any oil pumped on the ways when you move the carriage. I would oil the ways if I was doing that to make sure I didn't do any damage that hasn't been done.

With it all oiled up on the ways, I would measure the runout with a DTI and a mount attached to the compound. Check any surfaces you can on the ways, front and back and even the flats to give you an idea of how tight everything is on the machine.

You can also test the TIR on the spindle and should get a good idea of that. You can see how the tailstock aligns with the spindle and/or if it's close or not, a live/dead center will help assist you with that. If you can put a center in the headstock end and a center in the tailstock, you can use a dti to see how close they are. Check the operation of not only the tailstock, but any other movable tooling (lever tailstocks, turrets, etc...).

You have to evaluate it for yourself and try to understand if you think the lathe is worth it or not.

In some cases if the asking price is low enough it might warrant just buying it if it seems in good shape. However, you need to understand how much it is worth for you, and it's up to you to negotiate with the seller.

From the pics the machine has been used. Some people ask to evaluate a lathe or ask how much it's worth from a picture, at least you didn't do that...

Although the machine has been used, that is not a bad thing in itself. You really need to know if it's been taken care of properly. If it has, the ways and spindle could be just fine. If not they could be your worst nightmare if you want to fix it properly. As they say in the used machinery market, caveat emptor!

Lastly, if you do buy it, make sure you get all the tooling that goes with it, and ask more than once if there is anything more that went with the lathe.

You know what they say...

Mikel Levy said:

Not sure if this should be posted in one of the lathe-specific forums, and didn't find sufficient information with a cursory search, but here goes. I have a line on a 50-year old Weiler Matador VS toolroom lathe, but it's not under power. This would just be for my home shop, and I don't anticipate wanting to make things to a few tenths tolerance over long lengths, but I would like to be assured that the machine is in good working order other than any issues the current owner has mentioned. Advice on how to evaluate the machine under the present circumstances would be much appreciated. A similar machine to the one in question is shown in the photo.

Mike
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It is extremely easy to temporarily hook up a lathe to test it out.

Unless there are some sort of whacky OSHA rules at play and they need 3 levels of sign-off in order to have it powered up, then it's trivial to power up the lathe to let you see it running. If they are asking more than scrap price for it, then anyone is going to want to see it under power. If they are balking at the request to see it under power, then I would be extremely suspicious. Based on the cost of moving heavy machinery, I wouldn't buy a machine I can't see running and test out myself, and if I did it would be for a price such that if I got it home and ran power to it and it did nothing, I would be OK with that given the price I got it for.

Basically, what you have to keep in mind is this.... there ARE people out there whose intention is to screw you or whose definition of "honest" is radically different than yours. You don't know whether the seller is one of those people or not. So you have to assume the worst, unless you have a lot of money and the thrill of gambling on junk machinery is excitement enough for you to make it worth losing the $$$ if it turns out to be junk.

GoceKu said:

Mike, there is no really definitive way to test everything, even with the power, you can spend half an hour, check the spindle bearings for play, but that doesn't mean they aren't noisy, best you can do is grab the ckuck with the chuck key in its slot and try turning it in evry gear, you want be able to turn it in lower gears but you can check all the shift forks are ok and it dosent have streeped gears, at the end everything is a gamble, i've taken lots of gambel's like this not the worst way to lose couple hundred bucks.

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Unfortunately in this case we're talking about a couple thousand bucks.

SRT Mike said:

It is extremely easy to temporarily hook up a lathe to test it out.

Unless there are some sort of whacky OSHA rules at play and they need 3 levels of sign-off in order to have it powered up, then it's trivial to power up the lathe to let you see it running. If they are asking more than scrap price for it, then anyone is going to want to see it under power. If they are balking at the request to see it under power, then I would be extremely suspicious. Based on the cost of moving heavy machinery, I wouldn't buy a machine I can't see running and test out myself, and if I did it would be for a price such that if I got it home and ran power to it and it did nothing, I would be OK with that given the price I got it for.

Basically, what you have to keep in mind is this.... there ARE people out there whose intention is to screw you or whose definition of "honest" is radically different than yours. You don't know whether the seller is one of those people or not. So you have to assume the worst, unless you have a lot of money and the thrill of gambling on junk machinery is excitement enough for you to make it worth losing the $$$ if it turns out to be junk.

Click to expand...

Apparently this machine (I haven't seen it yet) is in a storage unit without suitable power availability. But yeah, there are better ways to find thrills.

traditional-tools said:

Doesn't seem that anyone really answered your question to any extent, other than you can't fully evaluate a lathe that isn't under power.

I will toss out a couple things for you to check as sometimes there just isn't a way to get power, even if you take a VFD or RPC with you.

I have bought machines that didn't have power to them in the past, and in fact I have a toolroom lathe that I bought which didn't have power and it took me and a friend about 6 months (really about 4 or 5 separate weekend days in my garage) to figure out the electrical to get everything operating properly. Was wired for wrong voltage, was missing the transformer for the control circuit as the original buyer had taken it out and ran a separate power for the control circuit, leaving just a snipped off line. You need to understand that often a machine is taken out of service as it is not working correctly, that's a crap shoot to figure out if you buy one.

My suggestion if you really want the lathe, open the headstock and look at the gears and belts. See what type of condition it's in. Make sure the previous owner had oil in it, and I would try to see the gears in the apron if possible, but that might not be. Short of seeing them, make sure everything operates smoothly. You should be able to engage feeds and/or backgear and move the lathe manually (from the chuck if you need to).

I would take an oil can with you, because if it's not under power there will not be any oil pumped on the ways when you move the carriage. I would oil the ways if I was doing that to make sure I didn't do any damage that hasn't been done.

With it all oiled up on the ways, I would measure the runout with a DTI and a mount attached to the compound. Check any surfaces you can on the ways, front and back and even the flats to give you an idea of how tight everything is on the machine.

You can also test the TIR on the spindle and should get a good idea of that. You can see how the tailstock aligns with the spindle and/or if it's close or not, a live/dead center will help assist you with that. If you can put a center in the headstock end and a center in the tailstock, you can use a dti to see how close they are. Check the operation of not only the tailstock, but any other movable tooling (lever tailstocks, turrets, etc...).

You have to evaluate it for yourself and try to understand if you think the lathe is worth it or not.

In some cases if the asking price is low enough it might warrant just buying it if it seems in good shape. However, you need to understand how much it is worth for you, and it's up to you to negotiate with the seller.

From the pics the machine has been used. Some people ask to evaluate a lathe or ask how much it's worth from a picture, at least you didn't do that...

Although the machine has been used, that is not a bad thing in itself. You really need to know if it's been taken care of properly. If it has, the ways and spindle could be just fine. If not they could be your worst nightmare if you want to fix it properly. As they say in the used machinery market, caveat emptor!

Lastly, if you do buy it, make sure you get all the tooling that goes with it, and ask more than once if there is anything more that went with the lathe.

Click to expand...

Thanks, you make some good suggestions. Regarding the tailstock: if it's off-center, that would, I think, be something I could address without too much trouble.

Do you first assessment of owner and machine. If in doubt go for a second time and bring your own power. 3phase gen. And run the machine through its paces. Or write down his license plate and tell him you'll show up at his house and throw the chuck through his front window if it doesn't work as stated

Cadillac said:

Do you first assessment of owner and machine. If in doubt go for a second time and bring your own power. 3phase gen. And run the machine through its paces. Or write down his license plate and tell him you'll show up at his house and throw the chuck through his front window if it doesn't work as stated

Click to expand...

Well I'm sure if he lives out in the country or is a gun owner in general he'll be sure to give you a present or 2 on your way out (from throwing the chuck through his window), you'd have to be pretty close to throw it through his window since most chucks aren't light.

Cadillac said:

...Or write down his license plate and tell him you'll show up at his house and throw the chuck through his front window if it doesn't work as stated

Click to expand...

Good idea, only the darn thing doesn't come with a chuck.

From here it looks like between 2 to $4,000 and perhaps six hundred...

Did you use this machine? is anything wrong with it?

Yes I said...You can run down bed and try the lock at points..look at the gears and such.. but a clutch and the like hard to tell if not running..

One crude way to do a quick check is to crank the carriage to the far right end, see how much backlash you have( bump the handwheel back and forth), then check it under the chuck. That will show if there is a lot of wear in the gear and rack.

Ed.

Ok some serious advice. I learnt the hard way not to buy machines that you can't see running on more than one occasion. Having said that I've never been desperate to buy a used centre lathe. Before you set out see what support you can get from the maker regarding spares, service, technical advice etc.

I accept that you want a lathe so here's one or two tips that I don't think have been mentioned earlier.

Take a medium sized crow bar and a DTI. Bar from the headstock front face to the rear of the spindle flange. Mount your DTI on the ways with the spindle of the DTI touching the face of the spindle flange at 90 degrees. I used a 3' bar. With " medium " pressure on the bar check for movement of the DTI. I would expect between 0.0005" and 0.0015" movement. No more than that. You must see movement though, no movement at all is not good in my book. Repeat the test barring up from the bed to the edge of the spindle flange, you can use a block of metal to get your bar near to the flange. Mount the DTI on top of the headstock not on the bed and have the spindle at 90 degrees on top of the flange. Again I would want to see movement but not more than 0.0005".
That should tell you the spindle bearings are correctly adjusted. It won't tell what condition the bearing rollers or race faces are in. With experience you can tell if the bearings are " lumpy " or " pitted " but unfortunately the best test is to turn a piece of bar and examine the surface finish.

Wind the chuck around in all the gears that you possibly can. The low gears will be hard to pull around so use the chuck key. In the higher speeds check that the feed shaft revolves. When it does engage the long feed, wind again and see that the saddle moves. Do this with the feed selection in reverse. Repeat this test with the cross slide, again both ways.
Engage the screw cutting and wind the chuck again, see that the saddle moves. With the half nuts fully engaged wind the long travel hand wheel back and forth, again see what play there is.

Check for backlash with all three hand wheels, long travel, cross travel, top slide. With the saddle up by the headstock take your feelers and see what feelers you can get in between the ways and the keeper strips, do this on all four corners. On a lathe as small as that one you could mount a DTI on the bed ways with the spindle on the saddle corner and lift upwards with the long travel hand wheel, see what movement you get.
If the guy will let you remove the headstock cover and examine the gearing, take care you don't wreck the gasket. Same with the cover over the change gears on the back end of the machine.

Again if the guy will let you remove the drain plug on the apron. See what comes out ? If it's mostly coolant expect coolant rot in the apron gearing.

Seeing as how he won't let you run the machine that's the least he can do. If oil comes out you can replace it and if it's coolant you've done him a favour.

After that check the general condition of the machine. Do the sight glasses contain clean oil ? Does the coolant pump work ? Does the work light work ? Are all the original ball handles still in place ? Are all the levers still straight or are they bent ? Look at the top of the saddle, is it clean or is it full of file rash where guys have tapped a file to clear the teeth. Same with the guys who bang taper sleeves onto drills, reamers etc using the saddle top or ends of the ways as an anvil.

These small details will tell you wether the lathe has been looked after or it's been thrashed.

Regards Tyrone.