10EE Long Bed

How common or uncommon are the long bed variant of the 10EE?

"How common or uncommon are the long bed variant of the 10EE?"

Very uncommon "in the wild" (that is, outside of U.S. Government labs).

Uncommon within the labs.

There are late model 12.5 x 30 10EEs known to exist ... a few built well into the 1980s.

So, presumably, these would be English/metric machines.

So was Uncle Sam the customer for these unusual 10EEs? Doe anyone know what the motivation behind the special long bed was?

[This message has been edited by BillSct (edited 09-19-2003).]

Long one is pretty rare. Only one I've seen for sale in the past couple of years was at an auction of one of the big aerospace firms on the West coast. I think Brian of Versamil had his eyes afixed on it, ready to raise that bidder card for the sweet taste of victory, but I seem to recall he didn't quite make it all the way to home plate when the bidding got way out in left field. Brian, you out there ??

A friend here in Dallas got one at the Texas
Instruments auction, but it is kinda rough. I
think pretty cheap too. I've heard they are only useful because you can get the tailstock out of your way.

I guess TI had more than one, because the one my friend bought was just a couple of months ago.

[This message has been edited by daryl bane (edited 09-19-2003).]

[This message has been edited by daryl bane (edited 09-20-2003).]

"I've heard they are only useful because you can get the tailstock out of your way."

Best 10EE joke I've heard in a while.

There was one for sale at dealer up here but when I checked his web site yesterday it was no longer listed.

Sometimes getting the tailstock out of the way is important!

As an owner of a couple of standard Monarch 10EE's, I was continously frustrated by the short length of the bed. If you've got to drill into the center of a long piece, and you want to use the tailstock to drill with, there was countless times that I wished I had that extra ten inches. Now I have other lathes, but I LIKE the Monarch. So there started my hunt for the elusive long bed 10EE. Sometimes the hunt, was part of the allure.

The Texas Instruments lathe came up on E-bay about two years ago, and I think it sold for around fifty-five hundred dollars. It looked Okay but who knows. The Boeing Lathe that Don mentioned, was rode hard and put away wet many times. It looked really trashed, and sold for fifty-five hundred dollars at the Boeing auction.

I finally got mine, when Oak Ridge National Labs put four lathes up on E-bay last December. They showed just the right side of the lathe in the picture on E-bay. The ad said it was missing part of the electronics drive. It was really kind of a gamble, but I did call up and talked to someone there before I bid on it. Turns out they had sixteen 10EE's, they didn't do production work, and none of them got beat up too bad. So I was high bidder on it at $4500.00. Turns out I was bidding against Harry at Monarch Lathes for it.

The lathe when I received it, was pretty ugly paint wise, but what a CHERRY physically. It's like brand new in the ways and crosslide. Hardly any backlash in the screws. It needed two of the thyratrons, to make it run. So now I have one. The gamble paid off. I'd like to say what a joy it is to use- but frankly, I still haven't used it. I got my CNC lathe powered up about a month after receiving the 10EE, and have been happily making parts on it ever since. I use my other Monarch 10EE's for my production parts, saving the thirty inch for whatever reason. Sometimes it's more fun to search for the elusive, that it is to actually have it. But it was nice to be able to drill the drawbar hole through some of my Master Machine tool spindles on it. They were too long to do in my 22 inch CNC lathe, but were a perfect match for the 30 inch 10EE. Kind of a mundane task for such a nice lathe.

"... Oak Ridge National Labs ... Turns out they had sixteen 10EE's ..."

Sounds about right for a National Lab.

Lawrence Livermore has a 10EE in a clean room (operated by hand from outside said room) which they use to turn samples of plutonium.

There is a guy out here in Silver Spring that had 2 of them. I went to his home to look at some items he had for sale. One of them, his primary machine, was gorgeous. Painted red in a beautiful automotive quality paint job. The other was in standard greasy livery.

[This message has been edited by morsetaper2 (edited 09-21-2003).]

Morsetaper2, you mean this guy? I met him on ebay he sent me this pic out of the blue. - pete

Thats it! Eye candy isn't it! His name was harvey. His last name escapes me at this time.

mark

Nice color! Is he a basketball player?

Hey I've got that same photo with some junk I bought on Ebay! That photo actually inspired me to buy my 10EE (20" bed) machine.
It's red 10 x30 is an incredible machine and that paint job must have cost a fortune! It's almost too good to use.
Steve

Brian,

Yup, I definitely remember that ORNL haul to hit eBay. I had a lot of that stuff bookmarked. Most of the 10EE's sat at about $650 right up until the last morning, which is a little unusual for 10EE's. I was lickin' my chops at snagging one around $1400, which was all I had to spare at the time. ORNL had about a 7 rating, which helped keep some of the bids down. Also, their listings were a foot long with disclaimers, etc. A bidder's dream!

I made one of my few eBay screwups during that auction. I dropped my bid on a pretty nice Nikon optical comparator 30 freakin' minutes before the end of the listing. I had gone to a public library for the thing, which is rare. Better connection, fewer hangups on their systems. I'd shrunk all my li'l bid windows down to fit the desktop, and was trying to move one over when I accidentally hit the 'Place Bid Now' button instead of the title bar. I almost cried. That touched off a bidding war that sent the comparator about $300 over what I could afford. Nice floor standing model w/five lenses and assisted stage travels. Thing was likely $20K new.

Also, those guys had a HUGE lapping plate. About 3x6 feet, on its own stand. I probably should have gotten that and placed a hinged cover on it. Coulda used it as a tabletop except when necessary. I haven't seen a comparable lap come up on eBay since.

I thought I'd heard one guy say his 10EE from that day was a POS. Nice to know someone got a good 'un.

[This message has been edited by J. Elliott (edited 09-23-2003).]

Uncommon or not, Machinery Values has one listed right now on Ebay for the surprisingly reasonable $5995.00. No taper attachment but has some tooling. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2560273731&category=1272

I'm not much into pushing ebay auctions, but it's certainly worth a look, as these don't come up very often.

Don't look now, there one on Ebay right now.
Seems we hit the same thing about a minute
apart.

[This message has been edited by daryl bane (edited 09-23-2003).]

I see it has the obligatory "broken and brazed" aluminum handwheel. Paint looks suspect, MV having it reasonably priced is worrisome...must be a reason...could be fine though...maybe their "pricing guy" didn't put any extra value on the bed length.

"I see it has the obligatory "broken and brazed" aluminum handwheel."

So does mine, except it is a single crack, going right through the knob area.

What is the recommended repair path for this failure?

Someone suggested drilling and reaming a hole in another arm.

Someone else suggested JB-welding in the new knob.

The new knob fits the cracked hole fine, but just with not enough tension to hold it in.

I'm leaning towards a careful brazing job (my '45 hand wheel is, I believe, cast iron) or a careful welding job, followed by reaming to original fit, and then pressing in the new knob.

Recommendations?


[This message has been edited by peterh5322 (edited 09-24-2003).]

Hi Peter:
If it's cast iron and a tight crack, grind a "V" into it on both sides - front and back, thoroughly degrease it and sand clean the metal and then you can braze it with an oxy-acetylene torch or weld it with NiRod and a stick welder. then grind or machine it to a nice flat finish and drill/ream the hole for fit. It won't look like new but should work fine. The Ni rod is very strong but you will need to preheat the cast iron with a torch prior to welding with the NiRod to get a strong weld.
Steve