South bend 9 1930s

Hello all, I'm new to the forum and was brought here since I inherited a south bend lathe from a friends father that passed. A small backstory , when I first had met his father , Logan Gill out of friendswood Texas , I had found out he was a machinist for a nasa company that made parts for the space station. Which I thought was just awesome!!! He (Logan), was kind enough to stop over and help me when I first started machining, and for this I built him Elmer verbugs fancy wobbler. He was just all smiles and was amazed that I had no formal education and was able to build these tiny motors. A video I had of a vacuum engine was the last he watched so I hope to carry on in his legacy with the lathe.

So on to the lathe , I know squat about it except what I've read in research so far. The bed is cast in 1929 with a serial number of 42232, so I'm guessing around 1931 somewhere.

Not sure of model type, looks like an "0" to me but not sure. If anyone can help Identify this, or point me in the right direction. If the story holds true it was owned by (first to last) Harry j Craig Jr. , L.J. Gill, L.M. Gill and now me. I was told the machinery handbook as been with the lathe thru all owners. It's a 13th edition with a date of 1946 so??

Are the casting dates on all the different parts the years they were produced? Had read about matching numbers for these machines which mine are not. The saddle is 1950 something, the tail stock is early 40s. So I would like as much info as possible if anyone can help Thanx in advance

Looking at Steve Wells' serial number listings, your serial no. 42232 puts it in the 1929 time frame. (http://www.wswells.com/serial_number.html) The model ID plate appears to be missing from the end cover but the photos look like it's a 9 Jr and it's good looking. I'm not sure what significance you should attached to numbers stamped on individual components on the lathe. I'd go look at my 9 Jr. to see what's stamped on some of the pieces but it's at my son's house, 3 hrs away.

I called South Bend (the real South Bend) in 1974 shortly after I got mine to see if they still offered rebuilding for my lathe. They told me it was a 1936 9 Jr but they no longer had the tooling required for a complete rebuild of my machine. At that time, they did offer rebuilding of the 9" Workshop lathes.....at least that's what the guy on the phone told me. But yours probably doesn't require any rebuilding.

I have a similar era 9" Jr, and the numbers stamped on the parts are not date codes, they are often the last 3 or 4 digits of the serial number. Yours is not a Jr, cause it has the power feed Series O apron. I'd say it was a catalog number 30. Here's a picture from a 1930 brochure, but note that yours has the prior generation headstock, with the long bull gear cover. scan7

allan

Kitno455 is correct! I failed to notice the power feed on the apron. Sorry about that! However, it's still a '30's vintage 9" lathe---a good find because they are really nice lathes. They are much heavier in construction than the 9" workshop which came out in the '30's.

Very cool and nice looking lathe there. Congrats!