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Any know about these older Leblond Regal lathes? Photos Included

nc5a

Cast Iron
Joined
Jan 4, 2013
Location
Alaska
I have an opportunity to get this lathe but I'm wondering if it would be worth it. The only Leblond lathe experience I have is with a 15" Dual Drive which is a deluxe machine. I've never really cared for the look and feel of the newer Leblond Regal lathes but the older ones may be better. Anyone out there used one of these lathes. It's a 13 X 36 or maybe 40, D1-4 spindle nose. Not sure of the HP but it is 3 phase.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ron

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A number of us here own and use that series of LeBlond Regal lathe. It is commonly called a "Roundhead" Regal. These are good light-duty geared head engine lathes. The weak link in them is the gearing in the headstock is lightly built. The important thing is to make sure the gearing is intact and in good condition. If the seller will let you open the headstock ( 4 socket head capscrews on the top cover), you can easily inspect the gearing.

LeBlond furnished a handwheel on the driveshaft (input shaft) to the headstock. The purpose is to let lathe operators roll the gearing over manually to get things fully engaged when changing speeds. The LeBlond headstock uses some sliding gears and sliding jaw clutch, so when changing speeds, it is vital to feel things go into full engagement. The selector levers have spring-ball detents with shallow "divots" on the headstock to retain the shifter levers in each position. It is quite easy to think the shifter is fully engaged, and not have the detent ball seated in the divot. The result is under load, the lathe headstock gearing or jaw clutch will force itself out of engagement and start doing damage.

Aside from that, the gearing itself is light and it is not uncommon to find broken or chipped teeth on the narrow spur gearing. This is due to so-called lathe operators trying to shift a headstock's gearing with it still rolling, or due to overloading.

What you have pictured is one of the later post-WWII Roundhead Regals. It has the long taper spindle nose ( a real step up from the threaded spindle nose), and taper attachment. It looks to be a good lathe from the photos, but that leaves a lot to be determined by actual inspection.

Bear in mind that these lathes were designed during the end of the era of high-carbon steel cutting tools and the use of high speed steel cutting tools was taking over. The result is spindle speeds are on the low side for the use of carbide cutting tools on smaller diameter work. I "came up" during the era of high speed steel tools, and use mostly high speed steel tool bits (HSS) in my Roundhead Regal lathe. HSS tool bit blanks are cheap, and you can grind both ends of them, so get "two for the price of one". With a properly ground HSS tool bit, my Regal lathe can hog off as much as 0.175" at a rip from 2" diameter A-36 steel bar stock. With a properly ground and stoned HSS toolbit, my Regal will produce a surface finish that looks like it was precision ground.

These are good basic lathes, and are about as "user friendly" as it gets. 1 1/2 HP motor is plenty for a 13" Roundhead Regal, speaking from experience. I use my Roundhead Regal pretty often, and have no complaints. It is a 1943 machine with the threaded spindle nose, and some wear on the bedways. Despite this, it turns out accurate work for what I need. I can dial in a cut to pare off a thousandth or two to finish size a journal or similar, and the lathe will give me that fine cut.
On the other hand, I was running a job the other day where I had to bore some 1 1/2" diameter holes (1.500" + 002/-000) in A-36 flat stock, 4 parts to be made. I held the job in the 4 jaw chuck and pushed a 1/2" drill thru as a pilot, then a 3/4" taper shank drill, followed by a 1 1/4" taper shank drill (lathe dog on the drill bucked against the toolpost to avoid the drill spinning in the tailstock quill). After that, opened the holes to final size with a boring bar having a HSS tool bit. It was quick work, and finished up with the bores right where they needed to be. I use my Roundhead Regal quite a bit and, as I said, have no complaints. Coming into the industry in the 60's, a Roundhead Regal is in line with the lathes I learned on and used on jobs. I was lucky in that my Roundhead Regal came with a good bit of tooling, including metric transposing gears for cutting metric screw threads (have not had reason to cut any metric threads yet). I do not know what your intended use for this lathe is, but it is an ideal size of geared head engine lathe for a home shop with limited space. I have my Southbend Heavy 10" lathe with 5 C collets, so am covered for doing small work requiring the use of collets. If you respect the design parameters of the Roundhead Regal and use HSS tooling for the most part, you will be surprised at the work that lathe will do for you. I only run carbide tooling when I have some very hard metal (such as machining thru a weld, or getting under the scale harder metal on the surface of iron castings, or dealing with rough forgings). I oil the headstock bearings before starting the lathe as well as the quick change gearbox, lead screw and feed shaft tail bearings, and give the apron pump a couple of shots, then oil the compound. Once the lathe is running, oil will circulate by splash into the headstock spindle and driveshaft bearings and return via drilled passages. LeBlond did not use oil seals on the spindle and driveshaft, only a series of "labyrinth grooves". The result is if the lathe is cold and the spindle is running up around 300 rpm, oil will be slung out the front headstock bearing- fine droplets. I run ISO 46 oil in the headstock, which is actually "Tractor Hydraulic Oil". Tractor Hydraulic Oil is also designated as a "DTE Light" oil. DTE is an ancient designation predating automobiles and means: "Dynamo, Turbine, Engine". It is still used as an oil classification around powerplants. Tractor Hydraulic Oil is a DTE mineral based oil, straight weight, with corrosion inhibitors and antifoaming additives, but no antiwear additives and is a non detergent oil. LeBlond spec'd "a good grade of auto engine oil" and initially called for a 30 weight oil. This was found to be too thick and did get slung out the headstock bearing end shields, so LeBlond lowered the viscosity to a 20 weight oil. ISO 46 is about an SAE 20 weight oil, and is in line with the properties of auto engine oil from the 40's- a non detergent, straight weight oil. If your lathe is going to be in an unheated building, in colder weather, even the thinner ISO 46 oil will sling out until the headstock warms up. You get a "racing stripe" of oil on your left shoulder/shirt front, and on the wall behind the lathe. The return drilling in the end shield on the headstock bearing is quite small, and I verified it was clear on my lathe when I got this slinging happening.

"Running a Regal", as John Oder has noted, is THE manual for these roundhead lathes. I got a reprint on Ebay for about 20-25 bucks and found it to be a complete manual, including parts diagrams. Worth the money. These are good little lathes, and I am quite happy with mine.
 
All of the above.....and it seems to have the very hard to find taper turning attachment...........long bed is a big plus,most seen are student lathes with 24"......so check the gears ,pull out your wad,and try the old trick of comin up 100 short.
 
Joe,

I tried to send you a PM but your box is full so I'll give you the message in front of God and and everyone.

Joe,

I just wanted to reach out and thank you in a more personal way for giving me such a wealth of information on the Leblond Regal I had questions about. You went above and beyond anything I expected. Thanks again and hope I am able to help you some day.

Ron
 








 
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