New to me 16" Monarch Model A

Saw an add for an old lathe that said "got it in the garage and its too big for me"
I called up the seller and asked if he wanted to trade for a smaller lathe, and the deal was on.
I traded a 12" Sidney of similar vintage, sans tail stock, but otherwise in good running condition for this old Monarch Model A.
It's a 16" with an 8 foot bed. It even came with the a steady rest, and taper attachment.
It is stamped LOT 808 Machine no. 1. There are a couple of broken handles, but nothing that seems to be fatal.
The old GE motor is missing the tag, but it currently has 6 wires coming out of it twisted into 3 pairs. I assume its 3 phase 220 hooked this way, but have not tried it yet, or looked up anything on it.
I read that it might have a jarno taper in the spindle and a Morse #3 in the tail stock, but I have not verified either. It does have a standard threaded spindle, but I have not measured it either.
From some reading here I'm guessing its from 1922-1928.
Any confirmation on my above guesses is appreciated. So far I'm just in the discovering-what-I-got mode with a big grin on.




Here is the Sidney that was traded. I liked the stout build of the Sidney, and it's gear head was a bit nicer than the cone head with belt drive and 4 speed external gear box, but those gears did make noise...

Thanks to John Legge for scanning and Greg Menke for hosting

http://pounceatron.dreamhosters.com/docs/monarch/monarch-lathe-brochure.pdf

I don't normally comment on this type of thing, but to me, that Monarch looks to be from the pics (although dirty) very original and non abused. When I see nice data plates, and unsullied bolt heads , it gets my attention. A great subject for a proper restoration.

More pictures of the Monarch A

I had a request for pictures of the Feed-Thread box on the lathe, and the 4 speed transmission unit as well, so here they are:

My original assessment still holds, but looks like it might have taken a face plant?, as the the 2 selector levers seem to have been broken off. I would hope that originals could be studied, and replacements fabricated without much ado.

Yup - a face plant

The face plant seems likely as I get into the machine more. The shaft for the carriage is missing the handle, and is bent. The compound feed shaft is bent slightly as well. However, nothing too bad has been discovered. I did find that the tail stock ram screw has been replaced with some all-thread, and a big nut welded into the aft end of the ram. The acme screw was just removed, and the all-thread welded onto the stub left. Not really the fix I would have done, but it's functional, so I'll let it be.
The motor tag appears to have gone missing, recently by the looks of it, so I had to guess as to what was going on. The starter has N29 heaters, and the leads (6) were wired in parallel, so I hooked up 220V 3 phase to it, and it started! The gearbox seems to work as well.
The motor drew ~9.7 amps on one leg, 9.8 on the other, and only 3.75 on the manufactured leg of my 3 hp rotary phase converter. That leads me to guess that the motor is a 5hp or larger.

Well crap, looks like you have a nice project. I guess the most important thing is (I hope) it doesn't seem to have damage to the castings. Shafts and handles can be fixed. You have to wonder if that damage happened early in its life, and it sat waiting to be fixed and not used, thus saving it's originality.

I think you are in luck Brad, I have pretty well decided to part out my lathe, so go through the whole thing and figure out what you need. Considering the cost of shipping and the fact that I have relatively no other interest in parts I will be giving you a good deal on the lot, so hit me up on what all you would want and I will get you a quote shipped.

Let's get this thing perfect!

Great! - (I guess - shedding a tear for the passing of another old relic) I'll take another look at your thread and pictures and see what we can work out.
I'll email you. It might be a bit of a job to tear into that lathe to get some of the parts out..
I was working on getting the electric motor aligned with the gearbox last night.

So it begins - slowly

A few heavy and slightly worse for the trip boxes showed up recently.

Inside were over a hundred pounds of old Monarch Model A parts coming back closer to home, and certainly meeting a better destiny than those that did not make the trip.
I had an early disappointment when I discovered that the tailstocks from 14" and 16" lathes are substantially different in size!

In fact, the carriage handwheel off of the 14" seems to fit nicely on the tailstock of my lathe. I just need to make a custom key as the keyways are different widths and a spacer.

On the gear front things were looking better. The reverse gear lever had a really worn gear on my lathe, and the shaft is about 10 thousandths smaller than it started life at, with the corresponding wear to the gear bore. The smaller lathe's gears are identical, and in much better shape.

The shafts that they ride on are NOT the same however. It seems that Monarch changed the diameter of these shafts to get some more iron into the castings in the handful of years between these two. The older ones are larger in diameter than mine, and while they can be made to fit, the half thread that holds them in place would be difficult to get made correctly. The newer ones are more nicely made as well, with larger rounded flanges with "OIL" stamped on them, while the older ones are just roughly chamfered.

I first thought that I could just swap the whole reverse gear lever assy out, but even that will require some machine work. The old assy is not machined to clear the headstock, and needs about 1/8 inch taken off under the plunger. It also does not sit flush with the machined pad on the headstock. These must have been changes Monarch added to keep people from over tightening the bolt that locks the lever in position and breaking the unsupported casting on the older design.
Brad

Here are the two reverse gear castings. Blue is the older donor part, while the black one is my original. The extra cast ring that rides on the headstock was added along with some machining to the plunger bore length. Both of these changes make keeping the original preferable, although an added washer and some work on the mill should be able to rectify the situation if I decide to do the swap for the sake of an improved axle shaft.

The lube scheme was also changed. The blue one has a hole drilled through the casting near the plunger that feeds the idler shaft. The black one has the hole in the barrel of the body. This hole intersects with a groove in the OD that in turn mates with a capped oil port on the headstock. That allows the parts to be lubed when the gear shroud is in place. This hole can just barely be seen by the "A" in the casting. The oil cup itself is seen just above the original plunger. The need for additional clearance between the plunger and the headstock is also what is stopping the blue part from installing fully. The oil hole for the idler is seen in the blue assy. in the valley of the part to the right of the spindle.

The idler shaft on my machine is long enough for 1 idler gear, while the shaft on the 14" is long enough for 3 gears. What would the use be for having the extra length? The assy came with a spacer, and another gear of a finer pitch (seems to match the quick change box) on it as a spacer. Were there attachments that used this longer shaft, or elaborate gear meshes? The shaft seems to be original at that length.

Brad

I found the bed clamp in the scan,it's part of the taper attachment...

k3vyl said:

I found the bed clamp in the scan,it's part of the taper attachment...

Click to expand...

That is what I thought at first, and there may be a clue there, but the taper clamp attaches to the flat ways on the back of the bed. This one has the V way in it, so it has to attach to the front way, or the inside of the rear. I have never seen any attachment for the inside of the rear ways.

Maybe a leftover from an earlier machine that had a four vee bed. I did not see a micrometer carriage feed in those scans. That's what I was looking for when I spotted the thing on the back.

Bradbrews4U said:

That is what I thought at first, and there may be a clue there, but the taper clamp attaches to the flat ways on the back of the bed. This one has the V way in it, so it has to attach to the front way, or the inside of the rear. I have never seen any attachment for the inside of the rear ways.

Click to expand...

Monarch redesigned the bed around 1919-20 or so going to their now standard large Vee and Flat way combination. This could explain why there is so much difference between the two lathes. From what I understand, a Model A used the same bed pattern and the head and tail were raised in the sand to get the additional swing. Everything else between the to sizes should have been the same. But if the two lathes come from different generations with different bed patterns then these might as well be different model lathes when it comes to anything that attach to the bed. Very interesting. Would love to see pictures of the two beds to see what else is different about them.

The beds

jlegge said:

Would love to see pictures of the two beds to see what else is different about them.

Click to expand...

The beds DO NOT have the same way configuration.
I actually typed that sentence without the caps in it the first time, and not until the 'preview' stage did I actually see that the rear of the donor machine does in fact have a dual rear V!! I guess I was just seeing what I wanted to see. Funny how that works with old iron.


The blue one is the donor, and from what I can tell is older. The main giveaway is (was until I got that bed way thing behind me) that mine has the cam actuated feeds, and not the star type hand wheels. (At least that is what I recall learning here by reading the archives on Model A's)
I did also find that possibly the lead screw is lower on my machine vs the donor. The thread dial is significantly shorter from the donor than mine is, although it is possible that just the mounting location of the thread dial to the carriage changed. I hope just the carriage changed and that won't affect the change gear box parts, as the main thing I hope to accomplish is to replace my broken feed levers with these two.

The form of the handle is different on mine, but I can always make some matching replacements if I want to. The originals would have matched the reverse gear levers handle.

So the two Model A's look similar in style, but there was a significant switch in construction and physical part sizes between these two. The tail stock, entire carriage, and parts of the gear train on the head stock I've been able to directly compare so far, and all seem to have been upgraded.

Brad

This link might be helpful.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...aring-identifying-my-two-old-monarchs-204093/
Have fun with it, Mike

Do you have a photo of the older gearbox? Does the change gear handle go high on the LH and downward to the RH. The very first quick change gearbox, the change handle was low on the LH end and went up towards the RH. Monarch made this they was for only a year or two.

If your newer lathe has the modern level cams on the carriage then it was made after 1924, but before 1927 when Monarch start using serial numbers. Have you checked the tail end of the bed on the flat to see what number was stamped on it?

You could very well have two lathes about 10 years apart in age, and can show the changes in lathe design Monarch made. You should document both lathes well with photos so the group can see the difference. This would be very helpful to others having these old cone head lathes.

John

jlegge said:

Do you have a photo of the older gearbox?

Have you checked the tail end of the bed on the flat to see what number was stamped on it?

You could very well have two lathes about 10 years apart in age, and can show the changes in lathe design Monarch made. You should document both lathes well with photos so the group can see the difference. This would be very helpful to others having these old cone head lathes.

John

Click to expand...

John,
I'll do my best to continue to document my findings here.
The donor lathe is the one etard wrote about in his "bellyflop" posts. http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/monarch-lathes/model-monarch-parts-290305/
Maybe he can let us know the lot number stamped on his bed. The only pictures of it I have are ones from earlier posts, or ones we exchanged before I decided to buy the parts.

My lathe is stamped LOT 808 Machine no. 1
Here is a picture of the change gear box on the donor, and the intact levers that caught my attention.
The old one does not have the copper hole identification tag that mine does.

It's quite similar to mine, but not exactly the same...
I only got a handful of parts off of the donor Model A, but they appear to be enough to show quite a bit of the change that took place in this time frame.
The aprons are the one thing that I knew was really different when I first looked at the donor as a candidate. I didn't expect much to be the same between them, and just have some misc. parts from the old apron. Then again, I have not opened up mine, and may not need anything. (rose colored glasses ON).

My apron is the one with the lever actuated clutches - shown in 'as-found' condition.
Curiously, it's the only one I've seen online that does not have T-slots machined into the top.
Brad

Spindle threads

The spindle of this Model A is a 2 1/4" x 8 tpi.

I spun a spare thread protector from my Sheldon lathe on it and the protector was about 1/4" too short to cover all the threads. That leads me to believe that the Monarch has more threads than the Sheldon. I have not measured the diameter of the register area behind the threads yet to compare the two, but my hope is that I can share some tooling between them.
In the picture, the larger diameter shoulder is part of the spindle, right up against, but not touching the two piece journal bearing of the head stock.
I have not tired to identify the taper in the spindle yet.

Brad