Thread: 1980's vintage 14 inch swing lathe with 3" bore FS

Jet 1440-3PGH with 3 1/8" spindle bore....probably the largest bore 14 inch swing lathe ever made. Runs fine, seems in great shape except for one curiosity...the cross slide backlash is nearly 1/2 turn. Backlash in compound and carriage is minimal in contrast. Anyhoo, that, and me not spending any time cleaning it up is why it's cheap.

Jet 14 x 40 inch lathe with 3+ inch spindle hole ! - eBay (item 200469502003 end time May-13-10 09:25:05 PDT)

And FWIW, I've seen inside the head and all the gears look as new in there.

Chinese or Taiwanese build?

With a 13 5/8" wide bed and 4000lbs it would have to be the heaviest 14" manual lathe made in the last 30 years..

Milacron, thank you for posting this, now I don't have to be rude and ask if (some) Jet products are okay to discuss.

I thought you might tolerate this line of Jet, it weighs 4000 pounds.

Some of the Jet lathes weigh only a 1,000 for about the same swing and c2c.

Is this a model that does metric and inch without change gears?

Nice concise listing with excellent pictures as usual . It would appear that a few gear changes are required to cover the range as the extra gears can be seen lying inside the cover in one of the pictures.

A point of interest would be if this is a metric or english leadscrew machine as some commonly used english pitches aren't always available on metric machines.

How did these machines stack up against their Taiwanese contemporaries like Kingston, Victor and several others any opinions?

Originally Posted by usmachine

A point of interest would be if this is a metric or english leadscrew machine as some commonly used english pitches aren't always available on metric machines.

How did these machines stack up against their Taiwanese contemporaries like Kingston, Victor and several others any opinions?

According to the Jet catalog sheet in my ad, it's an inch leadscrew. Re how it "stacked up" to Victor, etc...not sure...have not met anyone that owned one of these before. It seems similar to a Victor in construction but I have no "historical data" to know long term really.

Originally Posted by S_W_Bausch

Milacron, thank you for posting this, now I don't have to be rude and ask if (some) Jet products are okay to discuss.

I thought you might tolerate this line of Jet, it weighs 4000 pounds.

Some of the Jet lathes weigh only a 1,000 for about the same swing and c2c.

Is this a model that does metric and inch without change gears?

The older Jets were made in Taiwan, nice well made sturdy machines well suited for industrial use. I have a 1975 vintage 14 x 30 that I use daily, not one issue in a dozen years. They moved production to China (I don't know what year) and the quality went to crap. The once reliable Jet became a hobby grade Chinese piece of trash and we don't discuss hobby grade machines here. This big bore machine might be had for a nice price. If it was close by and my equipment budget didn't evaporate during the recession, I would definitely bid on it. Taiwanese quality is up their with Japanese machine tool quality, but some people still lump them in with Chinese machine tools.

The high x-slide backlash is possibly because the backlash adjuster wedge fell out of the nut. We have a Taiwan lathe about that capacity at work, and every time some yoyo overtravels the x-slide off the screw, the nut falls apart, and you have to go fish it out of the chip tray.

I was going to bid on it until I priced the cost of a rotary phase convertor for it.

Originally Posted by jerry43

I was going to bid on it until I priced the cost of a rotary phase convertor for it.

Huh?????????

You are going to have to get a phase converter for any machine worth a hoot.

Or are you one of those guys that keeps calling on real industrial machines looking for single phase?

Originally Posted by Mebfab

Or are you one of those guys that keeps calling on real industrial machines looking for single phase?

Some of you never miss the chance to jump on someone that you think may be hobby guy trying to play with the big boys in this forum.

I've got a 5hp converter in my shop. If I was to going to upgrade with a new converter to handle that 7.5 motor, it looks it would be around $1,600. Depending on what the lathe's winning bid is, my total cost may exceed what I expect to get out of it work wise.

If I was to going to upgrade with a new converter to handle that 7.5 motor, it looks it would be around $1,600

not really
you could use the 5 horse to start up a 10 or 15 horse motor vuwalla!! big rpc
there are several guys over in the VFD section that would help you through it.

Some of you never miss the chance to jump on someone that you think may be hobby guy trying to play with the big boys in this forum.

screw them
just jump back

I started & ran 7.5 sawmotors for years off a 5HP idler, probably getting more load than a typical cut on a 7.5 lathe (how often you gonna max that out?). Besides the sawmotor, the 2HP blower was running at the same time, which does pretty much draw full load all the time; as well as the 1HP carriage motor.

Now start and run 15HP widebelt sander off a 7.5 idler, with the blower going, feed conveyor, and sometimes another machine in the shop running.

If you intend to load an 8" bar in the machine and take a 3/4" DOC with .030 feed at max sfm, maybe you could consider a bigger convertor. But if yours is a true 5HP idler motor, it should start the machine & run fine at any load up to 5HP or your arbitrary system protection devices if less.

I'd be seriously interested but need more space (shop addition) a lot more than another machine.

smt

I see the latest Jet 1440 with the 3" bore is almost a tonne lighter then this one...

Mebfab spoke the truth. Real industrial machines are 3 phase.

I had a new DMTG 1660 with 105mm spindle bore that I thought would sell like the proverbial hotcake. It sat here for months before I found a buyer for a considerable discount off what I thought it would bring. Too small for the real shop, too much for the "hobby" guy. I probably had 20 calls asking if it was single phase
Bob

$1600 for a 7.5HP RPC, who's smokin' what? I bought a 20HP converter from TEMCO for $1100 and it uses a Baldor motor. Look around a little more and don't be so easy to settle.

I just helped a guy that bought a mill and a 10EE lathe from me set up a 10hp RPC and I think he has about $250 in it. Used motors are cheap and they just take a little elbow grease to build.

The 10 hp RPC I have in my garage cost me about $200.00 including hardware and its been working great for 11 years now.

You can do it for sure.

Check here for phase converters:

CROMAN CONVERTERS - models and pricing

I don't have any experience with them but have seen their ads on Craigslist.

Ralph

I see that Jet recommends their 10HP RPC with Torque kit for this lathe. Currently the biggest thing I'm running is a 3hp mill without any starting torque to worry with. I need to educate myself on converters.