Just a few pics of my 13"

Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary, just a few random photos of my South Bend 13" CL145B.

Thanks

And a few more.

Very nice John ! Now, go make some chips !!!

When I was purchasing machines for a Vocational Machine Tool program in 1968, I ordered 3 South Bend 13" lathes, very similar to yours. Except they had a L00 spindle nose instead of a threaded spindle nose like yours. Also I specified taper attachments on each lathe. Ours also had a brake switch like yours, and a forward and reverse push button motor switch, rather than a rotary switch like yours. When I retired after 30 years, they are still going strong

Bruce,

Purchasing for an educational institution seems interesting. Is the choice of brand, model and features decided by committee, or on the recommendation of instructors, or both?

It’s heartening to hear the machines were still going strong, and I’m not surprised.

I had to wait on delivery for a few days until my machine’s brand new smaller (import) replacement was un-crated and installed in the manufacturing plant where it came from, as mine was a daily driver for them to turn brass horn parts.

When I showed up to pay off the balance on the machine (until then being held on deposit), the former owner was less than pleased with the newly acquired import replacement machine which was there on it’s pallet in plastic. He said he’ll be lucky to get two years out of it, and urged me to grab the chip pan and feel how much flex and give it had. He suggested that the South Bend’s tail stock likely weighed as much as the import’s head stock. “Chintzy!’ he called it a number of times… and he was right.

At one time mine might have had a three button switch bank mounted on the left side of the head stock, as there are two holes and a rectangular section of slightly better paint.

Thanks for taking a look.

Joseph Durnya said:

Very nice John ! Now, go make some chips !!!

Click to expand...

Joe, I'm working on it, but it's slow going at the moment.

Thanks for checking it out.