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Recomendations on "small" oil country lathes ?

Milacron

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Staff member
Joined
Dec 15, 2000
Location
SC, USA
What's the smallest (used...1950 or newer) engine lathe that has a 3 inch or larger spindle bore ?
 
Good guess, Davis. Actually, the older (1970s) 19" swing Summits also had the 4.125 spindle bore.

I see the current 16" models have a 3" spindle bore.
 
The 21" Colchesters had a 3-1/8" bore.

I think the good (Taiwanese) Jet like Ries has may also have a bore that will clear 3". Seems like they're about a 17" swing.
 
Well shoot, now that I know a Summit could be had as small as 19 inch swing and have over 4 inch bore, I'm salivating over the Summit. I was originally thinking 3 inch...but 4 inch, wow...that would be much better still. But in doing a search can't find any that aren't either too decrepit or too expensive (or both...Mohawk never ceases to amaze...who buys from those guys ?? )

Any idea how much a brand new Summit 20 inch would cost ?
 
20 grand says this buyer for a 19inch swing late model summit that he bought 6 years ago.
http://www.ytmag.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=toolt&th=180097

Chap says Summit calls it a 16 inch swing (he says 19inch)which means 3 icnh spindle thru hole as per the Summit website.

Sent you a PM to auction with Summit lathe that fits your bill.
Hum Scratch the PM, says something about flood protection then says box is full.So want me to just post link here?
Not Ebay wouldn't waste your time with obvious ofcourse :D
 
LeBlond sold a 5" bore spindle version of their 21 inch Regal lathe in the early 1970's. I know; the local college bought one brand new for their machine shop. I ran it for an acceptance run-off. Pretty fair machine and the spindle was stiff as a redwood stump but it was not a heavy duty production lathe. Just a Regal with a big spindle bore.
 
Both Butler and Elliott 460 and 550 models have 3.5" up the spindle.Can swing about 32" in the gap and have 48" centres models in their range.
Mark.
 
The topic is oil country lathes. I know at least part of the definition is a spindle bore that is larger than normal for the swing, since they were meant for working on the ends of tubing/pipe.

But does an oil country lathe also have to have a chuck on both ends of the spindle, to support the long workpieces? I know some of them do, but I am asking if they must have the two chucks in order to be called oil country lathes.

Larry
 
The 19" Summit requires a 12 inch chuck if you want to make full use of the large bore and you might even have to bore any chuck you buy out to get a 4.125" hole through the chuck. We use the 12" three jaw and 12" 4 jaw Rohm combination chucks, and these chucks come with a good sized bore and can be bored out.

But, a 12" chuck is heavy and is not something you want to change often. The Summits only came equipped with a 10hp motor, and are a bit gutless on acceleration with a 12" chuck. In our case, we added regular 12" 3 jaw scroll chucks on the outboard projection of the spindle nose, so we've got lots of additional mass. We run at 970 rpm rarely as the accel/decel rate is quite long.

The spindle brake is internal, and comes on when you clutch to neutral. It is a multidisk clutch identical to the forward/reverse clutches, and does not have a lot of stopping power.

They may have improved the design in the current models.

We are happy enough with our 30 year old Summits, as we use them mostly for repair type work. The 4.125" bore is great for that.

We use smaller lathes to do the high speed stuff.

Kingston lathes might be another brand to look at. I believe they had a good sized spindle bore and came with a foot brake. I think guys liked that :D but I never ran one, or even saw one
 
Spud, my email link is in every one of my posts at the email icon...you got something against email ? :confused:
 
I'm changing my original wish list to 4 inch and larger, now that I know 4 inch is possible in a medium size lathe !
 








 
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