Antique Metal Lathe 1910's ?

Hi everyone. Does anyone have or know where I can find, any information on this? I've had no luck so far.

Antique Metal Lathe 1910's

Interesting piece if nothing else.

Yes interesting. Bertram & Co. Providence, RI. Probably dates from the late 1860s through the 1880s. I'm thinking early in this range. Made in the "worcester pattern" and typical of most lathes of that timeframe. I don't have Cope's Lathe book but he may mention the maker there.

I would pay up to $300 since except for immediate functionality it appears "plug & play." Nice he has gears for this, but this not a show-stopper in any case. Should have perhaps 13 gears.

But still an old lathe with all the developed foibles that a machine over a hundred years old is liable to have.

Joe in NH

Joe in NH said:

Yes interesting. Bertram & Co. Providence, RI. Probably dates from the late 1860s through the 1880s. I'm thinking early in this range.

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Sherman & Co.
Looks to be early 1860's.

Rob

That is a nice lathe. I have never heard of the maker. Rob it is in your neck of the woods . Take care, Jake

Robert Lang said:

??????????????????

Sherman & Co.
Looks to be early 1860's.

Rob

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Read that plate wrong.



Joe

Maltesehunter said:

That is a nice lathe. I have never heard of the maker. Rob it is in your neck of the woods . Take care, Jake

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Yes it is.
I am tempted but money is tight.

Rob

Robert Lang said:

Yes it is.
I am tempted but money is tight.
Rob

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He says willing to dicker. Low-ball him.

This should be saved. Probably the only one like it. Google Sherman & Co. on the 'net. Even books.google shows NOTHING on this maker.

Joe in NH

I think it is cheap for a complete 1865 - 1875 lathe. You should buy it.

enginebill said:

I think it is cheap for a complete 1865 - 1875 lathe. You should buy it.

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I agree Bill. That is not even factoring in how rare it is to find a machine by this maker. Jake

enginebill said:

You should buy it.

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I would like to but as I said money is tight.
There are two problems.
Some of the members here know that I worked for BAE Systems in Minneapolis(a defense contractor here of large naval guns and submarines). The defense industry is down right now because of goverment cuts. There is no political support for us here in Minnesota. BAE has a facility in Kentucky with large buildings. Kentucky has political support. Kentucky gave BAE a large sum of money to bring work to that state. BAE decided to close the manufacturing operations in Minneapolis and move them to Kentucky. BAE took the large machine tools(one as large as a three story house) and equipment down to Kentucky and laid the workers off here in Minneapolis. So I am unemployed right now. It is hard to find a good job at 61 years of age.

The other problem is that a number of my machines are stored in a riggers warehouse. I just found out that the owner is selling out. I may have to move the machines. I have no money for a move and no place to move them to and winter is not a good time to be moving machines.

Rob

Robert Lang said:

I would like to but as I said money is tight.
So I am unemployed right now. It is hard to find a good job at 61 years of age.

The other problem is that a number of my machines are stored in a riggers warehouse. I just found out that the owner is selling out. I may have to move the machines. I have no money for a move and no place to move them to and winter is not a good time to be moving machines.

Rob

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Ouch! A double whammy. Save your money and buy a Shelter Logic auto storage shelter? Seen at Shelter Logic 10 ft. x 20 ft. Auto Storage Shelter - Tan - Automotive - Outdoor Shelter - Storage & Shelters but you can find better prices elsewhere.

We use one of these and two sides for camping. Paid about $150 for the setup.

Feel for you man. Why do lay-offs always occur JUST before Christmas?

Joe in NH

Hey guys, I brought this thread back to life because I have Googled & Binged & Yahood and can find no information on this lathe. I also checked lathes.co.uk--nothing. There was some good speculative discussion on this to start out and I'm wondering if anyone has more info or suggestions of where I might check.
The reason is that I bought it and picked it up on Dec. 4th and I would really like to know what I have. It's in pretty fair shape & had the driver cone pulley (but no clutches) and countershaft & 2 hangers. Also had a steady rest and 18 or 19 change gears for threading. All gears on and off the machine are in nice shape. For now it's in cold storage in the garage.
One question I do have--if this lathe is exceptionally old or rare, should I do the whole blast & repaint in addition to mechanical restoration or should it be just cleaned & preserved? I would guess there will be different opinions on this but would like to hear them all--and any source of information you might know. Thanks, John

p.s.-Rob Lang-sorry to hear about your bad news x2. I got cut to a little less than 1/2 time about 2 years ago at age 58 and you are so right-that 60 mark is a real negative in the job market. I've always thought of you as a Minnesota tie among all the easterners on this site (I once asked you if you were the Robert Lang I knew about at the threshing/steam show at Rollag,Mn--you weren't). Concerning your possible loss of storage-I would like to offer my help to move things if you need to and if it works out and if I don't have to drive in Minneapolis very much (I hate driving there). I hope you have found a decent job by now & your machines are safe & secure. Whatever--have a good 2013.

The reason is that I bought it and picked it up on Dec. 4th and I would really like to know what I have.

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Oh goody! Glad for the lathe AND for you.

The lathe is a bit old and rare. More on this later.

Alas, I really can't tell you much about your lathe, or more particularly the maker. I suspect Sherman was one of the MANY who set themselves up in business during that halcyon period of American free enterprise - and didn't survive. But maybe not for reason of ability. What I've seen of the lathe in pix it looks like a typical lathe of the Civil War period. This was about the end of the age of craftsmanship. After the Civil War the Industrial Era began for the United States and along with this came parts interchangability and design tolerence. Despite being a "one off" and a transition machine, your lathe is probably pretty well made and quite functional - considering it's natural developmental shortcomings. Machinery HAS improved in 150 years.

One of these shortcomings typically is change gears. Most lathes of this period are frequently found today with 13 change gears to make the typical UNC threads we now use. My circa 1860 lathe actually has about 25 gears, and of these perhaps 4 are repeats (same number of teeth on the gear this for reason to set up a compound train in various permutations) But a lathe of the 1860s was required to make almost ANY thread per inch the machine designer required, this because threads were not so much standardized. You can play around with your 18 gears after reading about change gear calculations and see what you have available. Or there may be a plate on the lathe indicating all this - no calculation required.

Another is the act of using the lathe for threading. In the 1860s threading was done by connecting the carriage to the lead screw and LEAVING IT CONNECTED. No thread dials. The entire lathe countershaft and everything would be run to cut the thread, and then EVERYTHING would be run backwards using the reverse lever on the countershaft to "unwind" the tool position to the start for another cut. This threading action takes more time - but in the 1860s, time-motion studies hadn't even been thought of yet. You probably see a swing-away "stop" that can be set to allow reset of the tool at each pass of the thread. This the precursor to a compound rest - which had been developed but not generally applied to general purpose lathes.

Another is that this lathe will cut slower than a more modern machine. In 1860 most tool steel came to the US from overseas, mostly from the glass making regions of England. English tool steel was expensive, and only slightly harder than the steel or cast iron that one might be cutting on the lathe. A lathe operator might also be hand forging the tool to his purpose and drawing the temper afterwards. I have a set of 11 hand forged tools that came with my lathe each amounting to a piece of tool steel up to 10 inches long and of section 5/8 x 1-1/2". Those 11 tools probably cost the original owner nearly the price of the lathe itself.

Sandpaper and abrasives were not in plentiful supply either. So machined surface finish was of BIG interest. This lathe likely somewhat "adjustable" on the fly both on carriage feed rate (by hopping the belt on the drive feed shaft) and on tool height/position relative to the cut. A cut would be started, and if found to be "snaggy" or otherwise unacceptable on surface finish, the lathe would be "tweaked" while in motion to improve the action. (This was the BIG improvement that Thayer & Houghton brought to the lathe world in 1853 at the Worcester Mechanics Association Annual Show - and what impressed everyone beyond the styling of their lathes.)

Thus a lathe of this ilk tends to depend a lot on the skill of the operator. Modern high speed tooling and toolholders tend to remove SOME of this skill and certainly the cost, but not all.

As to a restoration, I guess I would advocate the middle road. Do what you need to clean up this lathe and make it presentable: make this lathe work, but no more.

NOT a big fan of sandblasting. Use electrolytic methods if those methods are required.

The museum quality restorations are nice - and show us exactly what we today think the machinery looked like at the time it was made - but a lot of this is conjecture and transferrence of our ideas of what is "right." We are the products of our age and not the products of 150 years ago. What we think of as a presentable painted surface might then have been considered superfluous. And visa-versa. Also paint today is a LOT more uniform and glossy than in those days. The premium glossy paint of the 1860s was Japan Black and Chinese Red. Both were imported on clipper ships and VERY expensive and not generally used for common machinery. Today's Rustoleum black from a can is about on par gloss wise with 1860 Japan black. The most commonly used machine paint of the 1860s in any color (and colors varied) was a lot more dull, but not "flat." Somewhere in-between. So what you see in most museums like the Smithsonian is what some museum researcher THINKS is correct. And more than likely he will err on the side of "box-office." Attendance at the museum is augmented when you give the people what they want. But what they want is not necessarily historically accurate. And in the process of "restoration" one loses what was - or is.

You can't go wrong by a middle course. You add yourself to the long line of "users" of this lathe by a middle course. And this lathe was made to be used - IMHO. And you do it no disservice by doing this - or not doing that.

When you get a chance can you put up some more pix of this lathe? We've lost the original Craigslist posting - except for the nameplate I pulled out and attached separately.

This IS quite a find. Probably among the 500 oldest lathes extant in this country. And yours more notable because its NOT of the usual Worcester makers. But probably the maker was trained and worked in the Worcester tradition, but moved to Providence to take advantage of cheaper materials including tool steel?

Good luck. Below my Shepard, Lathe & Co. lathe from 1860.



Joe in NH

Personally, I would just clean it up a bit and use it. It really is a matter of opinion. If it looks almost ready to run such as this piece, and can be used with just a little cleanup, I would take that route. However if it is a rust bucket which this is not, I would tear into it and repaint. Jake

Any photos ?– the CL add is erased. It is my opinion that unless a machine is a heavily rusted/pitted mess it should not be overly cleaned or repainted. Fine steel wool and paint thinner will cut through oily grime (and even nice time worn hardened oily grime can be nice to leave in place) and I’ve found that wiped on thinned shellac brings back the color of old paint and protects and gives a uniform tone to the areas which have lost paint (a benefit of the thinned shellac is that it can easily be reversed/removed with alcohol). Thinned (wiped on rather than brushed on) boiled linseed oil and or clear wax can also bring dull paint back to life and darken light surface rust protecting a machine’s frame and giving it a uniform appearance. Others may disagree about this approach.

HUMPHREY MACHINE said:

Any photos ?– the CL add is erased. It is my opinion that unless a machine is a heavily rusted/pitted mess it should not be overly cleaned or repainted. Fine steel wool and paint thinner will cut through oily grime (and even nice time worn hardened oily grime can be nice to leave in place) and I’ve found that wiped on thinned shellac brings back the color of old paint and protects and gives a uniform tone to the areas which have lost paint (a benefit of the thinned shellac is that it can easily be reversed/removed with alcohol). Thinned (wiped on rather than brushed on) boiled linseed oil and or clear wax can also bring dull paint back to life and darken light surface rust protecting a machine’s frame and giving it a uniform appearance. Others may disagree about this approach.

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Here you go Ben. Take care, Jake

You can still buy "Japan Black"

Joe in NH wrote:

"The premium glossy paint of the 1860s was Japan Black and Chinese Red. Both were imported on clipper ships and VERY expensive and not generally used for common machinery. "

If one wants to obsess over authenticity, one can still buy Japan Black from the Liberty Paint Co. in Liberty. NY.
I see that they now have a red color also.

Note that its still sort of pricey - does that add to the authenticity?

I haven't tried Liberty's jappanning myself, but I hear good reports from people who refinish old hand tools.

I would say "+1 on Rustoleum". I can hardly tell the difference between black japanning (as on an early Stanley "Bailey" wood plane, and oil-based Rustoleum, although there is a difference in hardness.

JRR

And there is a difference in the "rattle can" rustoleum and the quart can brush paint rustoleum with the latter being a bit more glossy.

Ed Battison thought the rattle can black was a good match to Pratt & Whitney black of the 1870s. Not flat, not really glossy, but somewhere in between. And I've used rustoleum paint can black on stanley planes and it works/looks fine.

The lack of hardness may be an advantage to repair should the finish get scuffed/chipped up and you want to touch it up.

Joe in NH

If I was going to paint an 1860's lathe I would use linseed oil paint. In the 1860's a painter would have ground his own pigment by hand and then he would mix the pigment with boiled linseed oil. Painting would take two days between coats.
Here is a web site that sells linseed paint. Linseed Paint: Exterior / Interior Linseed Paint Colors
Here is some history. Preservation Brief 28: Painting Historic Interiors

An old thread but I found a little info on Sherman & Co. from an 1869 publication.

"Webb's New England railway and manufacturers' statistical gazetteer;
containing an interesting sketch of every station, village and city on each railroad in New England,
together with a statistical, historical and biographical account of their representative manufacturing establishments"

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t0ns0wh60&view=1up&seq=11

Webb's New England railway and manufacturers' statistical gazetteer; containing an interesting sketch of every station, village and city on each railroad in New England, together with a statistical, historical and biographical account of their representative manufacturing establishments : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Sherman info, first column, bottom of page.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t0ns0wh60&view=1up&seq=483

Sherman ad.

Webb's New England railway and manufacturers' statistical ... - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library

An interesting book.
What makes this publication interesting is the info given on the manufactures.
Not every listing has the same info.
Various info given is;
Start date of the company.
Size and number of the factory buildings.
Motive power.
Number of employees.
Owners names.
Types of machine tools they use in the factory and how many of each.
Yearly sales in dollars.

There are quite a few other machine tool makers in this publication.
Some are known and some are not.

Rob