Gisholt lathe

Hello from Finland.

My father in law had this Gisholt lathe and I´m thinking about bringing this old thing back to life. I've never even seen or heard about Gisholt before now, so I'm asking some specs for that. My father in law has passed away before I got a chance to meet him. So no help from him. There are few parts they have chanced and he's done some machining with it about 10 years ago.

Are those tough workers or am I getting more problems to my garage?
How much does that thing weight?
All the specs are helpfull. I don't even know the exact type.

Few photos I have, are taken in dark, dusty, little garage and it's 150 miles away. So more or better pics I can't get now. Maybe later.

And sorry for my english. I don't know the vocabulary in this matter.

-Tomi

You do way better with your English than I would with Finnish

Its a turret or production lathe - for many of the same part. Sometimes referred to as a "capstan" lathe

They came in many sizes and ages. Yours is an early saddle type - meaning the turret is not on a ram, but its own carriage

I'll have some old sales info, and will see if anything matches

On edit:

After taking a look, I'd guess its a version of the thirties 2L. My info on the 2L is dated 1930, and I expect yours is a few years more modern - with its plastic balls on the control levers.

I'll scan some of these pages and either edit them in here or make a new reply. Its important to understand the usefulness of these machiens is directly proportional to the amount of tooling that it has.

The whole rear of this 48 page catalog is nothing but the large amount of tooling built for it by Gisholt

The most amazing thing I see is its weight - 7400 lbs or 3364 Kg

On Edit:

Thumbnails are scans from 1930. Note the Standard Tools scan is page 27. The rest of the catalog - to page 48 - is the "non standard" tools for it you could acquire

When you are there again you could compare obvious things on your lathe to the scanned spec sheet - like is your turret 14" (35.56 Cm) across the flats as on the spec sheet for 2L

Thank you for the information.

I couldn't even imagine how heavy that thing is! It's gonna be a hard day to get it home.

Finally we got it home. After one hour treatment with hot water pressure washer, it started to look like you could touch it without gettin yourself all messed up.

Now that all the plates are clean, it turned out to be model 1L. Today we tested it out a bit and only thing that didn't work, was longtitudial feed. There is something wrong with the lever wich changes the direction of feed.

Well that's the mechanical problem. Other problem is the oil change. The tag says cargoyle vacuoline heavy medium. What would be the best oil to use in that. The temperature changes from 0 celsius to 20 celcius.

Pressure washing is a no no - its a precision assembly, not a wheel barrow. There is now no doubt water where there should not be

Exxon Modil DTE Heavy Medium is a DIRECT replacement

dartsan said:

Finally we got it home. After one hour treatment with hot water pressure washer, it started to look like you could touch it without gettin yourself all messed up.

Now that all the plates are clean, it turned out to be model 1L. Today we tested it out a bit and only thing that didn't work, was longtitudial feed. There is something wrong with the lever wich changes the direction of feed.

Well that's the mechanical problem. Other problem is the oil change. The tag says cargoyle vacuoline heavy medium. What would be the best oil to use in that. The temperature changes from 0 celsius to 20 celcius.

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dartsan:

Welcome to our group from the USA. I do not know any Finnish, but I did work in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a place where a lot of Finnish people came to work in the Iron Mines. One word describes your taking on the project of moving and restoring the Gisholt turret lathe: SISU !!! (one of the very few Finnish words I do know, and part of the everyday language in the Upper Peninsula).

Gisholt built a large number of turret lathes, though not so many as Warner & Swasey. I only saw a Gisholt turret lathe once in my life and that is over 40 years ago. A man I knew had gotten it into his shop for some job, and we adjusted the clutches in the headstock.

A turret lathe is strictly a production machine, meant to do repeat operations. It is not really meant for workshop type jobs, as it differs greatly from what we call an "engine" lathe in the USA, and the British call a "Centre" lathe. It cannot cut threads in the manner of a screw cutting lathe, and relies on threading die heads. Hopefully, your late father in law had the tooling that went with this Gisholt turret lathe and you were able to get it. Without tooling, a turret lathe is not going to do much work.

As for the oil: "Heavy Medium" is an old designation, referring to what is known as a "DTE" oil, DTE = Dynamo, Turbine, Engine. These are straight-weight mineral based oils with almost no additives. A Heavy Medium would be about an ISO 68 oil. If you can find tractor hydraulic oil, this is usually a DTE oil having only anti-foaming and anti-corrosion additives. It is what I run in my old machine tools as well as my tractor's hydraulics and transaxle. I'd suggest you drain the old oil from the headstock, then fill with something like kerosene ("paraffin") or diesel fuel and run the lathe under power for 1-2 minutes. Drain the kerosene or diesel fuel and it will likely bring along a mess of dissolved sludge. Then you can fill with new oil and use the lathe.

If your shop is unheated as you note 0 degrees Celcius, either stay indoors where it is warm, or use an ISO 46 oil (about a 20 weight).
Cold iron is not fun to use, and lubricants like way lube (for the bedways of the lathe) and greases get "stiff" and make things a lot harder to move and work. Of course, a person with enough SISU to move a Gisholt turret lathe and restore it likely has more than enough SISU to work the lathe in 0 degree C weather.

Thanks again for quick answers.

We had to wash it because it had been on a shed where they stored fire wood. Shed was non insulated and non heated. And with some lubricants and saw dust it was really a MESS.

And i think there's water condensed in every possible place due to radical temperature changes we have here. That's why we are going to change the oils in every place. Maybe twice or maybe we try that diesel treatment.

Tooling is another issue. We don't have much tools for the hexagonal turret, but enough for the square turret. But this is going to be just one more weird hobby for me and my neighbor.

Tools for that might be hard to find from finland. Maybe from US. We have to make some adapters to get tools fit for this oldie. If we can make it drill a hole and make a thread into it, that would be a victory.

Here's few photos from the project.

If that lot number on the serial tag is around 630, its early forties vintage - and we know what was going on then

Have an undated 10 page 1L brochure stating "new style" that can be scanned and emailed if suited to what you have.

A way to do that is for you to private message me your email address

I'd say its a bit earlier as it has curvy legs instead of those boxy ones

Caution: a wartime Gisholt probably had cast iron gears instead of steel gears so you have to be careful changing speeds and feeds. I saw a running 3L sold for $300 back in '72 because of that.

Oldwrench said:

Caution: a wartime Gisholt probably had cast iron gears instead of steel gears so you have to be careful changing speeds and feeds. I saw a running 3L sold for $300 back in '72 because of that.

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How odd. The 1L brochure states "All gears are made of hardened chrome nickel steel"

The bolt tapping in the hexagon is standard ,US,English ,and Euro machines used a couple of standard sizes,as well as the bore in each face .I find it strange that US machines never seem to use an overhead guide bar,hence the tool holders have no bushing for the bar.....As mentioned ,pressure cleaning is fatal to any ball or roller bearings penetrated with water and detergent.If the head is plain bearing,it may be OK,if turned over regularly.

Serial number is 635-25.

Unfortunately almosta every old machine we have in finland, are made soviet union or chechoslovakia. They may have had their own stantards for tools and equipment.

johnoder said:

How odd. The 1L brochure states "All gears are made of hardened chrome nickel steel"

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Only ever ran one Gisholt, (and one W&S) but still.

They pretty well HAD to be!

Given the HP, torque, now and then shock loads involved - and that they went-on hour after-hour for decades on-end?

I have a seriously hard time envisioning CI gears anywhere in a Gisholt, W&S, or any of that turret/capstan "tribe".

They'd have had top-priority at best-available gears, wartime especially, they were that critical.

Serial number is 635-25

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Serial book says 1942

I wonder how it ended up in finland. Finland refused to take Marshall aid after WWII and was only land who paid their war reparations to Soviets without Marshall aid. Altough some studies say that finland sold things to USA and got overpaid. And some equipment was also donated to finland.

Two posts with photo versions of the 1L Brochure pages. I'll assume this is later thirties for dating. It comes fairly close to Tomi's for such as spindle speeds, though I do notice Tomi's has rectangular windows in back of bed casting, while the brochure shows oval windows

And the other photo versions

Note the brochure refers to both "fixed center" and cross sliding turret

Well. It wasn't as good as it first seemed to be. Turret feeds work properly, rapid traverse works fine, but leaks from the power axel. And there's a harse noise when engacin rapid traverse to side carriage.

The gears for crossfeed are gone. There are tooth missing from several gears. And then the direction changing lever for longtidutial feed didn't have that little square block that is supposed to be between the input shaft and axle. It wasn't in the gearbox at all and all the bolts were opened earlier. So the my father in law must have opened it. Or someone before him.

But I think we are just going trying to fix the longtidutial feed and the feeding speed selectors. And maybe get rid of the gears using crossfeed. And that rapid traverse is so fast it is dangerous, if you don't know what you're doing. Maybe we get rid of that too. I think it is unneccessary in hobby/garage use.

Now we only have to hope that there are healthy gears deeper in gearbox. Or otherwise it might be scrap iron.

dartsan said:

.. that rapid traverse is so fast it is dangerous, if you don't know what you're doing. Maybe we get rid of that too. I think it is unneccessary in hobby/garage use.

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You MUST "know what you are doing" with these half-tame T.Rex.

Anyone who earned their crust on a turret/capstan shock-and-awe heavy-hitter CAN make one work for hobby/fewsie/R&D use.

Few would bother, though.

Expensive to power-up. Costly to tool-up - even just on the spindle's nose-art. Clumsy at non-repetitive tasking. Time-consuming to switch from one tasking to the next.

Sorta like shooting horseflies, single-round-fire, Breda "Fast Forty" instead of a proper .22 "gallery short".

Flies are dead either way, but the "infrastructure" costs and baggage are daunting, and the risk of collateral damage rather high...