What's new
What's new

Bradford Metalmaster

FJsapper

Cast Iron
Joined
Nov 18, 2020
Location
Sterling Heights, MI
I have been looking to get a lathe for a while and recently found a Bradford Metalmaster listed near to me. I have not owned a lathe before but am reasonably intelligent and like to restore old stuff to working condition. I would ultimately like to do some gunsmith work and maybe get in to making some stuff for my land cruiser.

The back story is it came from a furniture shop that was going out of business. The items pictured are what come along with it. The seller said he had never had the machine hooked up so he couldnt confirm that it worked but everything "looked fine."

I plan to go take a look at it and see what kind of condition things are in. I plan to open up the top cover and inspect the gears as well as the bed and screw. I have read the lathe inspection tips on here and plan to run down that list.

One of my concerns was the absence of a taper attachment. Im also not sure what other standard parts may be missing and havent been able to find much on the Bradfords in general.

Can anyone share any insight on this machine?

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
 
If you need a taper atch. buy a lathe with one. I would say probably no more that 5% of lathes were sold with TAs. They seem to be more common on certain sizes/ brands of lathes. South Bends seem to have them more often than say Logan's -Clausing's etc. Be aware anything parts wise for that lathe you most likely will have to make. As someone new to lathes try to find someone that knows a bit about them to check it out for you,even if you need to pay them.
 
I've been watching this one, just out of curiosity. Looks to be a pretty stout and good sized machine. Only gotcha is the 500rpm top speed. Won't be ideal for small parts and pretty much no need buying carbide cutters unless you are working hard parts or stainless/titanium. Taper attachment is one of those things you'll rarely need, but when you need it, nothing else will do.
 
i would love to hear the approx price tag on this-have something similar (with t/a,but not really used)-and tried to sell the lathe right here about a yr ago!!-still have it,but stored at a friends place-will try to figure how to find the old pics!
 
john,how in the heck do you do this!!--fix pics,know where ALL the knowledge is--no matter what the machine or age--and this fast too! bravo..
 
john,how in the heck do you do this!!--fix pics,know where ALL the knowledge is--no matter what the machine or age--and this fast too! bravo..


You can do the same - from main page of forum open the search (up near top) - put in your user name and Bradford as a key word - and hit search.

You only get one return - you trying to sell the Hardinge and Bradford
 
Gentlemen,

Thank you all for the feedback. Most forums are not so forgiving to new members. I will plan on getting out to see this thing in person soon and will be taking lots of pictures.

For those of you with working knowledge of the Bradfords...will I be able to inspect the gears just by pulling the top cover off the head? Or will I need to drain the oil to get visibility on them?

From my limited understanding component wear from normal use can be corrected with varying effort. But something like broken gears or missing major components would be an order of magnitude more difficult to remedy. Basically requiring fabrication from square one. Right?
 
Gears are not likely to be covered by oil. Probably have to rotate same to inspect fully

Here is a page scan (with too much light) which gives an idea of what to expect

20201118_210900.jpg
 
As mentioned above, consider first what your needs are. You mentioned gunsmithing: Are you planning to work on rifle barrel blanks? If so, the center-to-center distance (i.e. from the chuck to the center installed in the tailstock) must be at least as long as the longest barrel you plan to contour. And, yes, a taper attachment could be very useful on contouring jobs, but you could get away with other techniques, like offsetting the tailstock (in any case, most of the TA are shorter than the taper you'd machine on the barrel).
Also very handy, especially for skinny barrels is a follow rest (=traveling rest).

What about workshop space: do you have room for a second lathe? If so, this one could make sense: one massive lathe with slow spindle for large/heavy duty jobs, and a smaller, lighter, faster one for small parts, etc. Plus, when you need to fix one, you have the other available to machine the repairs.

Paolo
 
What catalog and/or manual are these from?


Bradford catalog - undated of course, but saying they had been in business for over a hundred years after starting in 1840

Front cover simply says A New Lathe By Bradford

While you are looking at machine, maybe you can confirm what spindle nose style simply by looking. I'd say from your photo it has a threaded spindle nose as described in the specs of the 12" early in this thread.

Note the IMAGE at the top of those specs shows the Long Taper nose - which uses a huge notched draw back nut just behind the chuck


The issue is this - Long Taper spindle tooling will be much easier to come by than some never heard of before threaded spindle nose - like when down the road you want a different chuck or collet chuck

On Edit..... old thread with useful info

Bradford Metalmaster info

have fun
 
well,now we just have to wait for a response on the price range of said bradford...i'm curious!!(vested interest)!--pat
 
Was able to visit the machine today. The gentleman selling it is an honest and forthright fellow. My wife/kiddos accompanied me so i was a bit pressed for time and forgot to take a few key photos/measurements. But overall got some good info.

I laid a 36" machinist rule across the horizontal portions of the bed at the spindle. I couldnt get the carriage pushed far enough back to get a perpendicular read unfortunately. But because the edge of the rule extended to the portion of the bedway under the spindle i think i was able to get a clear indication of bed wear. I was able to insert a minimum tolerance .002" feeler under the rule at the center of the rule and a fail to insert of a .005" feeler. I will say that i did not spend a great amount of time cleaning up the bedway so its possible tolerances are better than that. Does my description make sense? Is this a logical way to assess bed wear? I did not have enough time to figure out how to get the carriage in neutral and slide it around.

I was able to pop off the head cover and assess the gears. I rotated the spindle around and found no signs of damage on the main gear. Bearings look healthy from my cursory examination. Spindle appears to be the threaded variety. I did as good a job as I could examining the rest of the gears with nothing of note found. I did get a picture of the gears. Thoughts?

I also took a shot of the motor data plate. It was tough to read with lighting but no big surprise there. 3 phase. So Ill need to figure out a phase change setup of some sort.

Is swapping in a new motor of single phase any more or less effective? Is there a possibility of putting a variable speed motor in place? Or does the gear drive nature of this machine preclude that possibility? If that is the case would a pulley change be feasible to alter the stock RPM limits within reason?

Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
Imgur: The magic of the Internet
 
A rough check on bed and saddle wear can be as simple as taking note of relative carriage hand wheel slop near chuck and away from chuck. The saddle wears more than the bed - dropping the related apron pinion gear out of the rack gear bolted to the bed

Three phase can be taken care of in a number of ways. I started way back when with a idler motor that I rope started. Or simply spend money on such things as the big enough variable frequency drive or rotary phase converter or digital phase converter such as Phase Perfect. A whole section of the forum is devoted in general to this broad subject. (My Phase Perfect starts its 16th year shortly - never any issues)

The head stock gears look very nice.

Here is my ancient 500 buck Hendey making over $2000 on this first job - three phase compliments of rope started idler motor in my garage in 1975

18 X 6 Hendey.jpg
 
Last edited:








 
Back
Top