New purchase Warner Swasey # 2

[jpointer311]

Good morning everyone. I have been in the market for a southbend tool room lathe but ended up picking up this old warner swasey #2.

I thought I was going to be able to find a compound cross slide but that doesn't appear to its going to happen.

Now comes the struggle... Do I get a VFD since I don't have 3ph and keep this around, do I sell it, or do I send it off to the scrap yard ??

It came with a bunch off tooling, some I believe is hardinge, which i have no use for and a big set of collets.

Not pictured is roughly 70+ 9/16d thread Chasers for the geometric die head.


What's the consensus, keep it, sell it, scrap it, trade it?

 

[jpointer311]

Pictures

 

[jpointer311]

Some more

 

[john.k]

You got a lot of nice stuff there if you use the lathe.......shame to split it up,as then the lathe is essentially scrap.

 

[jpointer311]

I know what some of the tooling is, Some I have no idea. I do know some is hardinge specific and probably would be better suited on that machine.

I may price out vfds and get it up and running, but have zero experience on a lathe and this may not be the machine to get my feet wet. Thoughts? This was an impulse buy that i just had to buy. Haha.

 

[FJsapper]

Nice haul of tooling there!

 

[sfriedberg]

Where are you geographically?
That's the biggest circular form tool I've ever seen. :-)
Do not separate the tooling from the lathe, please. The value as a package is immensely greater than value separately.

 

[john.k]

Yes ,a lot of hard to find stuff there ......not rare,but time consuming to buy if you want to put a machine to work............the morse to straight adaptors are of no value to anyone without a capstan,pretty much the same deal with the threading heads ...........a good range of chasers is valuable,the heads themselves ,not...........Id also check that lot for a chaser grinding gauge.

 

[sfriedberg]

I may price out vfds and get it up and running, but have zero experience on a lathe and this may not be the machine to get my feet wet. Thoughts?

This is not the first lathe you should run. It's a fine manual lathe for some things, and a frustrating manual lathe for other things. It is not a generic, general purpose lathe, and you will have to learn how to set it up without the benefit of knowing how to run a lathe in the first place.
Where are you geographically?

 

[jstolaruk]

I used one of these back in the 80s paired with a NC tape lathe to drill/rough out IDs and to square up stock off the saw; worked well for getting some more profit out of the job.

 

[john.k]

Dunno about first lathe...they used to drag people in off the street and put them onto a capstan lathe,most never seen any kind of lathe before ......the foreman used to rap them on the head with his knuckles if they slowed down........theyd say but my shoulders and hands are hurting....and hed say just another four hours and you can have a five minute rest.

 

[sfriedberg]

john.k you can grab people off the street to operate a manual turret lathe. It's the 1940's equivalent of today's CNC button pushers. Just keep slamming levers and cranking wheels in the right repetitive order, all shift long.
Setting one up for a job is another matter entirely. Unless this lathe comes with a free machinist (/sarcasm), that's not going to do somebody without lathe experience any good at all.

 

[FJsapper]

john.k you can grab people off the street to operate a manual turret lathe. It's the 1940's equivalent of today's CNC button pushers. Just keep slamming levers and cranking wheels in the right repetitive order, all shift long.
Setting one up for a job is another matter entirely. Unless this lathe comes with a free machinist (/sarcasm), that's not going to do somebody without lathe experience any good at all.

I know it’s not my thread but you’ve piqued my curiosity as a turret lathe novice…

Aside from the book learning that is available for those who are willing to find the old references, what kinds of nuggets of wisdom would you offer? I’m assuming the OP is in a similar situation to me, I.e. no “old salts” hanging around to share the tricks of the trade… It’s tough just to find someone with manual machine time and proper knowledge let alone the specialized experience of turret lathe job planning…

 

[sfriedberg]

I am no expert. I have a small (9x20) manual turret lathe, a Hardinge DSM-59. When I have an appropriate repetitive job, I will crank it out on the DSM. I also have a 16x40 engine lathe that does most of my work.
It probably doesn't count as a nugget of wisdom, but plan to partially make and scrap at least one part per turret and cross-slide position you need to set up. So, if you need all six turret positions, plan on scrapping at least six parts before you make the first good one. If that's too much scrap, do it on a conventional manual lathe or program a CNC. Now, there will be exceptions to that rule of thumb. For example, if your drill chuck is already well centered, it's hard to mess up a simple drilling operation, although you can go too deep if you don't pay attention. And if you are careful setting up an outside turn-to-shoulder operation, you can probably avoid scrapping your setup test part for that, too.
Use dial or dial test indicators to know how much you are actually adjusting things. For example, if you are using the cross-slide to cut a smaller diameter between the headstock and a larger part OD, and find your setup test cut makes the larger OD segment too long/short, put a dial indicator on the toolblock before you shift it over on the cross-slide, so you can move it right/left the proper amount the first time instead of eye-balling it.

 

[jstolaruk]

Very simple machine, its all we had before we could afford NC/CNC.

 

[jpointer311]

Where are you geographically?
That's the biggest circular form tool I've ever seen. :-)
Do not separate the tooling from the lathe, please. The value as a package is immensely greater than value separately.

Florida

 

[jpointer311]

I am no expert. I have a small (9x20) manual turret lathe, a Hardinge DSM-59. When I have an appropriate repetitive job, I will crank it out on the DSM. I also have a 16x40 engine lathe that does most of my work.
It probably doesn't count as a nugget of wisdom, but plan to partially make and scrap at least one part per turret and cross-slide position you need to set up. So, if you need all six turret positions, plan on scrapping at least six parts before you make the first good one. If that's too much scrap, do it on a conventional manual lathe or program a CNC. Now, there will be exceptions to that rule of thumb. For example, if your drill chuck is already well centered, it's hard to mess up a simple drilling operation, although you can go too deep if you don't pay attention. And if you are careful setting up an outside turn-to-shoulder operation, you can probably avoid scrapping your setup test part for that, too.
Use dial or dial test indicators to know how much you are actually adjusting things. For example, if you are using the cross-slide to cut a smaller diameter between the headstock and a larger part OD, and find your setup test cut makes the larger OD segment too long/short, put a dial indicator on the toolblock before you shift it over on the cross-slide, so you can move it right/left the proper amount the first time instead of eye-balling it.

Thanks for the insight!! In the hunt for the right sized vfd to power it up

 

[jpointer311]

After some other comments in reference to the machine not being the best machine to learn on, I may sell it as a package. Which may be challenging without a way to power it up.

 

[Greg Menke]

I am no expert. I have a small (9x20) manual turret lathe, a Hardinge DSM-59. When I have an appropriate repetitive job, I will crank it out on the DSM. I also have a 16x40 engine lathe that does most of my work.
It probably doesn't count as a nugget of wisdom, but plan to partially make and scrap at least one part per turret and cross-slide position you need to set up. So, if you need all six turret positions, plan on scrapping at least six parts before you make the first good one. If that's too much scrap, do it on a conventional manual lathe or program a CNC. Now, there will be exceptions to that rule of thumb. For example, if your drill chuck is already well centered, it's hard to mess up a simple drilling operation, although you can go too deep if you don't pay attention. And if you are careful setting up an outside turn-to-shoulder operation, you can probably avoid scrapping your setup test part for that, too.
Use dial or dial test indicators to know how much you are actually adjusting things. For example, if you are using the cross-slide to cut a smaller diameter between the headstock and a larger part OD, and find your setup test cut makes the larger OD segment too long/short, put a dial indicator on the toolblock before you shift it over on the cross-slide, so you can move it right/left the proper amount the first time instead of eye-balling it.

lol youre better at it than I, my setup scrap rate was sometimes about double yours- getting the box tools right was a challenge.