Lodge & Shipley 18" project

bsharp · Aug 7, 2011

Hello,
I recently bought an 18" L&S to expand my home based shop. Going by the serial "28937" and the list I found on this forum it looks to be a 1928 machine. Could someone tell me what model this year is? I have attached some pictures of when I brought it home. Currently I have most of it torn down and I am stripping the four or five layers of paint of it. I pulled the top cover and everything looks really good in the transmission and the spindle bearings are nice and tight. The sliding change gear with the handle under the head is pretty worn though and would like to replace it. Any advise about these old lathes as to what I should watch out for while I am giving it an overhaul would be greatly appreciated.

Forrest Addy · Aug 7, 2011

Now THAY's a LATHE. Only hairy chested, snoose chewin", iggerant, huntin' fishin' lathe hands allowed.

I've seen lathes like this teach apprentices their trade and watch them retire 35 years later. Got the taper! Wow, that's rare on a production machine. No steady? No follow?

johnoder · Aug 7, 2011

They were Selective Heads. Twelve speeds, plain bearings, QC gear box stuffed up under headstock. Exceptionally capable, but not speedy. A heavy duty unit built exclusively for the use of HSS cutting tools. A slightly improved version of the 1916 unit shown here in Mike C's scan.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v337/johnoder/L%20and%20S%201916%20Catalog/LSpg32.jpg

The company's "mission statement" in those long gone days was expressed in a simple phrase Good Lathes Only

Your machine will have the smaller version of the double nose spindle they had in production until the mid thirties. Sort of a precursor to the L1 nose.

Here is a pre 1930 manual scan compliments of member me (Jeff):

http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd55/reelhooker1414/LS Manual pre1930/

J.O.

bsharp · Aug 8, 2011

Forrest,
I agree it is a pretty beastly lathe. I didn't get a steady or follow with it. The guy I bought it from was a really great guy and gave me a bunch of tools with it though.

bsharp · Aug 8, 2011

Thanks John. My thoughts where that for the price that I bought this for and a little "ok a lot of" hard-work cleaning it up it would be way more versatile for a small job shop than a little import not even a quarter it size. What I was looking for was capacity and precision over speed. Plus I have sort of a thing for old American machine tools :O.

Any way I now have the carriage and QC gears out and have all the parts stripped down with purple power but the carriage and the main frame as they wont fit in the parts cleaner

. I am going to get some of the brush on stripper to do those. I hope to have at least some of the painting on the smaller parts done by this week end and all of it repainted by the end of the week end "well that's the plan anyway". I did brake the cross feed lever hinge trying to get the handle off because I didn't notice the set screw under all the layers of paint. I think I am going to mill one out of 1018 to replace it.

Mike C. · Aug 8, 2011

I have one a decade or two older (1918). Although slow, you'll find it is pretty quick when it comes to reducing something 4" in diam down to 2" or so. 1/4-3/8" deep bites are not an issue, if you have the tool sharpened properly. You'll want to find a scrap bin to deal with shavings, lol. My old girl is plenty accurate, as well. Get the micrometer ball stop operational on the cross slide. It's mighty handy for fine work and threading.

bsharp · Aug 16, 2011

Some pictures of a little progress on the lathe.

Few parts out of the parts cleaner ready for paint.

Transmission looks amazing for 83 years old.

Apron parts just out of the parts washer

Few Apron parts after paint

Tailstock after paint

Lathe after more stripping and first coat of paint

How does the spindle nose go together? it looks like someone haphazardly drilled and made an attempt to tap half way through the threads and then jammed a set screw in there and then tack welded it in place. I ground out the weld with a dremel tool and got the setscrew out. but I am thinking there had to be a reason why they did this?

Ohio Mike · Aug 16, 2011

That is going to be so cool when its done. Most L&S machine are mosters and way to big for a home shop. I'd live to have a machine like this. Looked at a Reed-Prentice the other day

Mike C. · Aug 16, 2011

Man, somebody has BUTCHERED the spindle nose. They have converted the L&S cup spindle to a typical threaded spindle by turning off the cup and threading the pilot nose.

It should have looked like this....

L and S 1916 Catalog :: LSpg9.jpg picture by johnoder - Photobucket

bsharp · Aug 16, 2011

Well that would explain the set screw holes. It looks like they fitted the outer nose with an adapter and to keep it from turning they decided to put set screws in it. I think I will try and see if I can get the adapter off and go from there as the setscrews just scare me. Any one have the dimensions of an original double nose?

Mike C. · Aug 16, 2011

Thread is something in the area of 5"x6tpi, internal in the cup. OD would be at least 6" and the cup is a couple of inches deep, with an 1-1 1/4 deep thread. Details may be in the brochure scan I posted that page from. Go to the Antiques and History section and look under "Misc Scans" sticky near the top.

johnoder · Aug 16, 2011

Any one have the dimensions of an original double nose?

Small one was 6 3/4" on OD of "cup" (spindle flange) and from past Ebay ads that Mike took advantage of, 5 1/2-6 on the internal thread. The spigot or central straight round part was 3.000" O.D.

Grady (locoguy?) scrapped out a 20" that likely had the same spindle as the 18 - maybe he kept it.

Whoever did the ruin job on your spindle must of been a champion jerk.

J.O.

bsharp · Aug 17, 2011

Thank's John I sent him a message. Thank you to Mike for the info. From what it looks like the original outer nose is still pretty close to 3" but I wont really know till I get the makeshift adapter off it. The cup side of things looks like they took it down to 6". I was thinking I could thread the OD on the cup side and make a chuck plate to slide on the outer nose and then thread onto the 6" part of the cup side nose "if that makes any sense". Or I could drill a bolt pattern in what is left of the cup and bolt a chuck plate to it. At any rate I am sure I can come up with a solution better than jamming setscrews into it the way someone did. I am going to work on getting the carriage, apron and the rest of the machine back together and then deal with the spindle issue afterward unless I find a good replacement in the meantime.

I know circumstances arise that may warrant unethical solutions but what the person did willingly or directed to the spindle of a machine as the likes of this makes you question the sanity, morality and intelligence of mankind. :dopeslap:

Again gentlemen thank you for the help

locoguy · Aug 17, 2011

Sorry guys, but the spindle is long gone. Cannot trip over such stuff forever!

bsharp · Aug 17, 2011

Thank's anyway Grady!

Cannot trip over such stuff forever!

I know how that is.

Mike C. · Aug 18, 2011

I think your best bet will be to just put the dutch screws back in there and use what you have for now. Seems it is a functional machine, if somewhat aped up. No sense not using the machine as-is, even if it is not the standard setup. If it works, it works. It's a tool first and foremost.

Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for an old selective head being scrapped out. They made a BUNCH of these machines and there are still a lot of them out there. If you could find one with a trashed bed that had a set of chucks with it, you'd be in business. The tooling for this cup spindle is not real easy to find and not common. Good news is that almost nobody bids on it when it does show up.... and I have all I need, so I am out of the bidding, lol.

bsharp · Aug 18, 2011

Got the carriage back on tonight and started working on putting the apron back together. Didn't take any pictures but I will tomorrow before I put the apron back on the carriage. I fixed one bad tooth on the beveled gear pinion that looked like it ate a large chip years ago. The rest of the apron gears and shafts have play and gall from the many years of use but nothing that needed immediate attention other than a good cleaning up. I think the toughest part of cleaning up a machine like this is moving the parts around as pretty much everything is really heavy.

bsharp · Aug 20, 2011

Any one have a picture of the feed levers. I didn't get a shot of them and I cannot remember how to put them back together. :wall:

Or if yea can just tell me in what order they go back on.

bsharp · Aug 20, 2011

Apron reassembled and mounted to carriage.

I also got the gear shift levers back on.

I also put the taper attachment, cross slide lead screw back together.

I straitened out the cross slide handle, cleaned and buffed up all the dial parts.

Next up is the cross slide.

Shawn Ghormley · Aug 20, 2011

Nice work, I hope you find a solution to the spindle nose issue.

Lodge & Shipley 18" project

Plastic

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Titanium

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Hot Rolled

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Stainless

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