Looking at a 10'' South Bend - Advice?

There are two for sale in my local area. I have gone to look at one, and have some questions.

The asking price is $1200, and it comes with a chuck for the tailstock and a steady rest, in addition to all the little wrenches ans an old-school toolpost. The price is negotiable. Overall it seems mostly solid. It has been repainted.

There is some play in the crossfeed, but it looked like the nut on the opposite side of the threaded rod that drives the cross feed is loose. Power feed works in both directions. The quick change gearbox works, but the gears are noisy. On inspection, they were completely dry of oil. a piece for the taper attachment is missing (a brace towards the tailstock)

I have a photo of the lathe, and a photo of the serial number, and I'm looking for advice and info. What's something like this worth? Will a bit of oil/grease quiet down the gears, or should I run?

Build date is early 1944, may have been used shipboard, during the war. I wouldn't be concerned about the crossfeed, those problems are usually easily solved. The gears will quiet down when oiled, and even with oil, will be a bit noisy at high speeds. The only thing that can't be easily dealt with is bed wear. You'll have to gage it by looking for ridges and dips near the chuck. And even so, it takes quite a bit of bed wear to destroy the accuracy of a lathe. $1200 is not out of line for a machine with no major problems.

Paul

You're not going to run the lathe with the gear train cranked up to that speed!

For even roughing cuts, you will be in a lower gear ratio (lead screw turning slowly compared to relatively fast spindle speed)
For finishing, even slower LS compared to spindle

What you probably have it running in is threading ratio. For threading you probably will start out with a much slower spindle speed and hence the gears will be turning more slowly, too; even though fast in comparison with the spindle.

When you can thread at that speed manually toward a shoulder, put up the video, please.

But yeah, SB gears are small and generally "somewhat" noisy when you run them at higher speeds.

smt

You better jump on that. That's a Heavy 10 going at a 9A price.

One thing, it is easy to open the end cover and look at the gears on the end train and banjo.
There is a cylclic click in that video which is not an issue and which is not at all uncommon on non-precision straight cut gears. IOW, does not at all sound out of line for a SB.

Having (hopefully) clarified that, they do get that cylclic click thing going when a gear has been repaired. So open the end and verify whether any of the gears have teeth that were repaired, It will most likely be obvious if a section was. SB gears in the end train tend to shed some teeth in the event of a jam or "wreck" and usually prevent any further damage anywhere else in the lathe, such as the lead screw, gearbox, or parts in the apron. Kind of a "safety fuse" situation.

Back to clarification: this would not be a deal breaker, the lathe still sounds pretty good, so *if* there is even a repair, it should be fine. Might be a point of bargain if obvious. But as others have mentioned, if that lathe suits you, it is already priced competitively. Assuming everything else in good shape.

smt

that is a nice looking "Heavy 10", and the price seems reasonable. The backlash in the crossfeed screw could be as simple as a shim in the crossfeed screw under the handle. There are several guys on E-pay advertising new replacement crossfeed nuts. So the play there is no real problem. The noisy gears are most likely a simple case of adjusting their running clearance with the banjo adjuster and adding a few drops of oil to them. I use a mixture of 2 parts 90wt gear oil to 1 part STP on anything I have with open gears and my "heavy 10" is quiet as the proverbial mouse when I'm running it. A few drops stays there for a long time.

Frank

I just called the guy back to make the deal, and he sold it. Bummer.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I need to jump on these deals more quickly.