Is This A 17" LeBlonde Regal Lathe?

I was out to look at a 17" LeBlonde Regal lathe.



I took a bit of time looking at it. It's got the usual wear on the ways; the leadscrew was surprisingly good; but the tailstock's in poor shape. I couldn't get the chuck off to look at the spindle nose, but appears to be threaded, rather than tapered (there was no lock-ring).

However, I'm a bit unsure about it's age. 17" series supposedly came out after WWII, but base appears only in the pre-war literature. I'm skeptical it's a 17" head on older ways. I did find a comparable lathe that claimed to be from 1955, but both seem inconsistent with all the other lathes I've seen.

I didn't take the serial number down because it's filthy as hell. I couldn't read anything on the lathe.

He's asking $1000CDN delivered, and I'm unsure it's worth that. He won't move on his price, which is his right...

Looks like a standard post-war 17" regal to me. I'd buy it at that price.

allan

You have found a Roundhead Regal lathe. If the swing of the lathe is cast into the headstock on the "operator's side" of it, the lathe is a "trainer model". A "trainer model" was built by LeBlond for use in schools and other vocational training programs. During WWII, the trainer lathes went into all sorts of defense and defense related industries with no distinction between them and the "standard" models. The "standard" round head Regal lathes had a bit heavier bed casting, but that was the only real difference.

1000 bucks for a complete Roundhead Regal with some tooling and delivery included is not a bad price. LeBlond used the threaded spindle nose as standard until some time after WWII when the long taper spindle nose became standard. During WWII, the long taper spindle nose was an option.

The LeBlond spindle nose thread is an oddball, LeBlond going with 5 threads/inch on the spindle nose threads. If you do not have enough chucks and faceplate and dog (catch) plate, you will be making your own backing plates bored and threaded to fit that spindle nose. I have found the LeBlond spindle nose thread is coarse enough that chucks seem to break loose and unscrew fairly easily. LeBlond (I believe, but could be wrong on this) appeared to have put a slight taper on the thread to make starting a chuck or faceplate on the spindle threads a bit easier. As coarse as the thread is, it seems to make up easily and break loose easily when I remove chucks or faceplate or the dog/catch plate. When I found my own 13" Roundhead Regal, it was sitting in a shop that was chuck full of machine tools and old car parts and assorted junk. It was literally packed in and buried, and the guy who owned it and put it there was dead for about 10 years at the time. I was concerned that the chuck might be frozen on the spindle. After we dug a path to the lathe, we found all the tooling hanging on the wall above it, or under the bed- along with a Model A engine block and all sorts of car parts and tons of nuts, bolts, old sparkplugs and similar. I did find the chuck key for the three jaw chuck that was on the spindle. I put the lathe into its lowest speed, and stuck a short bar across the face of the chuck. With a little "oomph" and no serious force on that bar, the chuck broke loose on the spindle threads. I was surprised at how easily it happened. The three jaw chuck is about 10" diameter, and the bar I used was probably 18=20" long.

When I make up chucks or similar on the spindle nose threads, I make sure they are clean and well lubed, including the register (unthreaded portion of the spindle nose which enters a chuck backplate or faceplate to establish concentricity with the spindle).

The tailstock on my own 13" Regal has been hard used to the point that the tailstock spindle clamp will hardly lock the spindle. There is some slop in the bore of the tailstock body and some perceptible "drop" in the tailstock quill vs headstock spindle centerline. However, when I start a center drill, I can see the center drill "pull in to center". Putting in a center with a combination center drill, even with the "drop" of the tailstock spindle, I have done some very fine work. Recently, I made two bearing quills out of 3" aluminum round stock, boring them for light drive fits with ball bearings. Initially, I supported the pieces on the tailstock center, and turned a "spot" to support the work on the steady rest for the drilling and boring operations. I was able to hold within a few tenths of a thousandth for the counterbored diameters to hold the outer races of the bearings, and I turned each piece end-for-end in the lathe to bore each end. Assembled into what I was building, the shafts ran dead true in those bearings and a set of spur gears put on the shafts runs smoothly. I would not be too put out by what appears to be a sloppy tailstock. I bucked the tailstock in for each longer between-centers turning job and the lathe holds good accuracy. The bedways are worn up close to the chuck such that the frosted scraping is long gone. If I lightly clamp the carriage locking screw so a very slight drag is felt up by the headstock, in about 16-18", I cannot move the carriage. Despite this, the lathe has not failed to turn out fine work.

100 bucks for the 17" Roundhead Regal, with what is shown in the photo and delivered is a pretty good deal whether in the USA or Canada. No more Roundhead Regals are being made, and they are a nice size/design of geared head lathe for a home shop. Easy enough to move, and a pleasure to use. Respect the Roundhead Regal's limitations as to light gearing in the headstock, and you are home free.

Before buying the lathe, ask the seller if you can open the top cover of the headstock. It is just (4) socket head capscrews, and the gasket- if it is factory original- will be compressed cork doped with gasket shellac. You may have to tap on the headstock cover with a dead blow hammer or similar to get it to break loose. Once you open the headstock, roll the handwheel (on the drive pulley shaft) by hand and inspect ALL the gearing with a good light (like a small "Mag" type light) for broken/damaged teeth. Go fishing with a mechanic's magnet (on a telescoping wand, sold in auto parts stores) in the headstock oil and see if you pull up any shard of busted gear teeth. Some steel filings on the magnet are expectable, but any shard of steel mean a further inspection is required. As long as ALL the teeth are on ALL the gears, you are likely OK. Some chipped teeth or partially busted off teeth are something to be aware of. These can be dressed off with a die grinder to eliminate sharp edges, but there is no putting back missing steel.

If the seller will not allow you to open the headstock, either run the lathe under power in ALL speed settings and listen for sounds of damaged gearing. Clicks or uneven sound is a sign of damaged gear teeth. If you cannot run the lathe under power or open the headstock, then at least pull the headstock over by hand using the handwheel in ALL speeds. Also engage the power feeds and lead screw (sliding gear down by the RH end of the quick change box, gearing the lead screw to the feed shaft). Make sure all the different feeds and half nuts work as they should. SOme slop and wear in any old lathe is a given, but damage such that power feeds or threading functions do not work or damaged gearing in the headstock are show stoppers.

My 1944 version of LeBlond's "Running a Regal" has info on 17" Regals, so it's at least as old as that. My 13" Regal is serial B9455, and my factory paperwork says it was ordered in Sept. 45 and delivered in early Feb. 1946. Not sure if there are differing serial ranges for the various sizes of Regals.

My round head regal is a 17" as well. When I called LeBlonde they said mine was delivered in 1944.


Hello, my name is Brian and I'm a toolaholic!

On the subject of headstock cover removal. I had a 2" wide steel paint scraper ground to a very sharp edge. If you were careful you could tap this in between the gasket and the cover. I didn't work everytime but I had Lot of success with it.

Regards Tyrone.

My 13" Roundhead Regal, per LeBlond's records, was shipped on 26 July 1943. I am the third owner.

I was fortunate when I opened the headstock on my Roundhead Regal. The cork gasket was well shellacked, and stuck to one surface but broke cleanly from the other. I cleaned off any flakes of gasket shellac from the mating surface and gave it a light coat of RTV gasket eliminator when I put the cover back down.

I remember at the powerplant, we had an area where we stored gasket materials and cut gaskets. There were rolls of gasket material of various types and thicknesses. One of the rolls which was never used was a roll of compressed cork gasket material (sheet packing to our English and Scottish brethren). This cork sheet packing was made in England and was called "Firefly packing". I should have cut off a piece as it had a nice oldtime logo. I think that "Firefly" corks sheet packing was there from the time the plant was built (1970-72), maybe furnished by the turbine/generator builders (Hitachi). I think cork gaskets are a thing of the past, having been replaced by silicon rubber. I can remember replacing rocker cover gaskets on cars in the 60's and 70's with the cork gaskets. I still have a bottle of "Indian Head Gasket Shellac" from those days. I wonder if any of our brethren in England or Scotland recalls "Firefly" compressed cork sheet packing ?

I should do Joe, I served my time at the company that made it. " Firefly " was one of the trademarks of " Turner Brothers Asbestos Co Ltd ". One of, if not the biggest Asbestos company in the World. The made all sorts of products, not all of them contained Asbestos but most of them did. They tried to diversify in the light of evidence how dangerous Asbestos was but it was too little too late.

The enormous factory still stands, all fenced off. It's known as Lancashire's Chernobyl. Nobody knows what to do with the site so there it stands gradually falling apart.

There is film on the Internet of young foolish guys who gave broken in and are wandering about the place filming themselves. Crazy.

Regards Tyrone.

Tyrone:

It is interesting to imagine you coming through your time at Turner Brothers- who knows ? Maybe you were there when that roll of "Firefly" cork packing was made that wound up in our powerplant in the USA.

There is a whole breed of persons who make a habit out of trespassing- whether by breaking in or simply walking into- abandoned or otherwise idle or derelict places. I've watched some youtubes and wondered whether the people taking them knew the risks to their own health and safety. Setting aside asbestos or other toxic materials, a lot of the abandoned places these people get into are often physically unsafe- rotted flooring, corroded/weakened steel stairs and ladders and floor gratings, bad light (or no light) and flooded floor openings, possible bad air in pipe tunnels and similar... This new breed of trespasser calls themselves "Urban Explorers" or "Urban Spelunkers" amongst other things. Aside from the people taking youtubes or posting pictures online, there is an incredible number of people who seem to have all the time to spray paint "tags" with some elaborate lettering in multicolors on the walls and structures, climbing old water towers and out onto roofs or on the steel of bridges to do it. Where they get the funds to buy all the spray cans of paint is a whole other matter. I haven't seen any news items about any of these people getting hurt or killed on their forays into abandoned plants, but with our litigation-happy society, I am sure there would be some hefty lawsuits against whomever was "holding the bag" owning the property.

The old LeBlond Machine Tool plant, from which our Roundhead Regal Lathes came, is long gone. It was, however, photo documented by the Historic American Building Survey (HABS). At the time the HABS photos were taken, the plant had been gutted of machine tools. The powerplant was more or less intact. LeBlond had an Ames vertical Unaflow steam engine driving a generator to produce power for the plant, and an Ingersoll Rand steam driven compressor. Both had already been picked over for copper and brass. The LeBlond plant was piped for acetylene, and they had a separate "generator house" where the acetylene was made from calcium carbide. At the time of the HABS photos, vandals armed with spray cans had not invaded the place. Now, about all this is left of the LeBlond plant is the powerplant building- which was, at last report- a "chain" Mexican restaurant. I think the rest of the property is a shopping mall (what else other than condos or a convention center in today's world ?).

Back when I was an undergraduate in engineering school (late 60's), I had a classmate from Hoboken, NJ. This fellow's father had emigrated to the USA from Sicily and served an apprenticeship as a tool and diemaker. He served his time, and was a go-getter, eventually owning a large factory building which was a big tool and die shop and did some production stamping runs. At the time, Hoboken was a run down place with a rough element for a lot of the population. My buddy told me that his father always carried a 12 gauge pump action shotgun with him in his car, not paying any attention to minor things like criminal laws. One day, my buddy's father drove up to his plant in time to see a couple of hoodlums happily spraying graffiti on the side of the building. He jumped out of his car, yelling murder, and let fly with the shotgun. The hoodlums ran for their lives and nothing ever came of it. I do not know how many more times that sort of thing happened, but there never was a problem with any further vandalism at that plant. My buddy's father had boxed semi professionally as a young man, and had he caught up with any of those vandals, he would have cleaned the sidewalks with them. They probably would have been ahead of the game to take a load of shot in their butts rather than get beaten by my buddy's father. Nowadays, it seems like graffiti is considered an art form, and vandalism like breaking into abandoned or closed buildings is considered a sport to be posted on the internet. It is more likely the property owner who gets sued if the vandals get hurt during their trespassing. I wonder when some of those vandals who are running amuck in old asbestos plants will call one of the shyster law firms that advertise on TV about getting awards to people exposed to asbestos.

Hi Joe, I was there from 1965 until 1972. I was a bit of a rebel then and I crossed swords with the foreman a lot. I left by mutual agreement shall we say.

I worked in their prototype shop for a while and one project I worked on was a machine for counting and rolling up those sheets automatically.
The sheets were brought to our machine on pallets straight from the manufacturing process.

They were positioned under a sort of overhead bed frame arrangement that dropped down and picked up the top sheet with vacuum suckers. Then the sheet was fed through the rollers and rolled up for packaging.

It worked ok for thick sheets but on the thin ones it was fallible. Sometimes it'd pick two sheets up and they'd count as one sheet, sometimes it wouldn't pick a sheet up at all because the sheets were stuck together but it would still count as a sheet.

So if we sent your order of ten sheets to New York and you got eleven you'd think it was your birthday but that'd be the TBA profit margin gone.
If we sent you nine sheets instead of the ten you'd be on the phone right away for the missing sheet. We'd send you the missing sheet but that would be the TBA profit margin gone again.

They tried all sorts of remedies, putting talcum powder on the sheets etc, but at the end of the day it ended up outside the building under a tarpaulin sheet. £80,000 blown in 1968 when that was a lot of money.

Regards Tyrone.