Boye & Emmes Lathe - What Do I Have?

I just picked up a Boye & Emmes lathe from a local shop that was closing. It's a "vintage" unit, but I only paid $200, so I figured there wasn't much risk. Good news is everything seems to be tight and smooth. However, I really don't know anything about it, and I can't find a model or serial tag.

I attached a couple pictures, and I'm hoping that someone has some information on what I have. It didn't come with any tooling, and the motor coupling is missing, so I'm looking for information on where to get parts, if they're even available. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Rich

I thought you bought a lathe as big as a building

I don't think you are going to find a lot of parts for sale...get out those dial calipers and micrometers and make them from solid.

Looks like a nice, heavy, solid machine, 70 years old at a wild guess. I'd make a new coupling out of layers of old tire sidewall

AFAIK Dodge is still in businesses making couplings, pulleys etc. Because the rubber is not black I would guess the coupling was made in the 1960's or newer. it may be older with a newer replacement rubber part.
Bil lD.

On Edit: Baldor bought out Dodge. ABB bought out baldoor.

Elastomeric Couplings - Baldor.com

motor coupling is an easy part to make
QT: [I don't think you are going to find a lot of parts for sale.]

So hand roll the spindle to be sure to not break anything /and all the oil places are full and oiled.
looks like a nice heavy duty machine from here.

One of the guys here can fudge up a motor flange and you can spot the holes.

I can read dodge 5+1/4" flex coupling. 1902 I bet it was a line shaft drive with a motor added much later.
Bill D.

Seems to be a dodge poly disc coupling, size 5+1/4 inch.

Dodge POLY-DISC Couplings

https://www.ebay.com/p/1924581469?i...MIjfOayqHK6AIVgp6zCh1hDAd0EAQYAyABEgKeTvD_BwE

Dodge - 008033 - Motion Industries

Older that 70 years, close to 100. My first lathe was a b&e gearhead 1922...Phil

1902 makes it close to 118 years old. Almost a dinosaur! B & E made a heavy duty rugged lathe for its time.

When one looks at a 1902 lathe or an old steam engine or an 03 Springfield or Mauser 98 it is a wonder that they were so good.
That lathe might last another 50 years.

As Austin Powers would say, "That's a lotta swing for $200!"

Swing?

Boye & Emmes - Schumacher & Boye Lathes

Boye and Emmes Lathes

so I'm looking for information on where to get parts

Click to expand...

You make them - like 99% of 100 (and more) year old machines. Or you get fantastically lucky and acquire a exact duplicate donor machine.

Scans from back in the day - though who knows if yours is (was) a 24"



Here is a line drawing of the cone style head stock in the Repair Parts

According to Tony's information it was made after 1912 since it does not include Schumacher on the nameplate.
Bil lD

There is some discussion about rubber couplings in Joe Michaels’ thread here
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...-couplings-343214/?highlight=Conveyor+Belting that may give you some alternatives.
Maybe he will drop by and offer some comments later.
Jim

Jim:

Thanks for the "plug". I did check the ABB-Dodge website. The coupling on the OP's lathe drive is still in production as the "polyflex" or something like it. By going to a shop specializing in power transmission, they should be able to match up the correct coupling element.

What I did do for replacing some ancient Thermoid dampener (or flex) type couplings was to "reverse engineer" the coupling elements which were no longer available. These were a rubber/canvas "sandwich" material. I obtained some heavy rock-quarry conveyor belt material to make the new discs from. I made an "as built" drawing of the coupling bolt circle and overall dimensions. I then had new discs cut from the conveyor belting material by a shop using CNC Waterjet cutting. Since the original discs were a good bit thicker, we assembled two discs with the coupling bushings installed in them, and then glued the two together using Devcon urethane.

The result is good coupling discs which are in service for a few seasons now.

Rather than "reinvent the wheel" if it is not necessary, I'd suggest the OP find a Dodge distributor and ask about ordering new coupling elements. The elements are made of a variety of elastomers for different service applications. Why the one on the drive of the OP's lathe failed is a good question. Most likely, it got brittle with age and locked itself onto the coupling hub drive pins. When the motor was dismounted, the coupling element could not make up its mind whether to stick with the motor or the input shaft of the gear reducer, so parted company.

From the looks of things, the drive on the OP's lathe is built around a single-speed gear reducer. With a single pulley on the gear reducer output shaft, the lathe only has two operating speeds: direct and back geared. It is a heavy duty lathe of fairly large capacity, so living with these low spindle speeds for large diameter work was likely not an issue for the previous owner. With 200 bucks invested in this lathe, the cost of a replacement coupling element might well be nearly 50% of the purchase price. Investing in a VFD drive to give variable spindle speeds would likely run into more money than the purchase price of this old workhorse. Interesting to contemplate, though.

Thanks everyone for all of the comments. I lost track of the thread because it got moved into antiques and I guess I don't have e-mail notification turned on.

Yes, the motor is much newer than the machine, so I'm sure it was converted. The motor side coupler is missing. I think they pulled it for another machine. I did order a polyflex/taperlock coupling for it. I will have another $130 (90 of which is for the stupid plastic disc) into it for those parts, which doesn't seem like much until you compare it against the purchase price! Still, for $330, it seems like it's not a bad deal.

Bill D - thanks for the link. That sure looks like the machine. Pretty cool to see that old literature.

Thanks again everyone.

Rich

Looks pretty much the same as my 1924 18” B&E that I sold a few years ago. I was a good machine. It was the machine I learned on. Dad bought it in 1968 and gave it to me in 1985. Sold it in 2010 after I inherited dad's 20" Flather.

That's the first time I've seen a lathe with double risers installed. I wonder if they were added at different times, as in the first time got it high enough for one job, but not hight enough for the next.

While having a lathe with such a large swing would be handy, I wouldn't keep it that way unless it was really well done. If they took the time to fit the pieces together and make sure the entire casting was supported. Even then, I'd only keep the risers if I really needed them, as the rest of the machine is still only designed for the original size of work.

M.B. Naegle said:

While having a lathe with such a large swing would be handy, I wouldn't keep it that way unless it was really well done. If they took the time to fit the pieces together and make sure the entire casting was supported. Even then, I'd only keep the risers if I really needed them, as the rest of the machine is still only designed for the original size of work.

Click to expand...

Removing the risers under the headstock and the compound would probably be easy but the original base under the tailstock is missing. There would also have been some modifications to the gearing on the back of the lathe. Then you would need a smaller chuck. Might be more aggravation than it is worth.

Billygoat said:

Removing the risers under the headstock and the compound would probably be easy but the original base under the tailstock is missing. There would also have been some modifications to the gearing on the back of the lathe. Then you would need a smaller chuck. Might be more aggravation than it is worth.

Click to expand...

Agree'd, but I think it would still be worth investigating if only due to the number of poorly executed risers out there. It looks like you could at least remove one set of risers. The gear banjo is often just rotated up to meet the higher headstock, or extra gears are added to the train. Depending how they did it it could throw off the gearing for any threading you do.