Martin Lathe

Hi all,
I have an opportunity to purchase an old Martin lathe. Made in Germany. It's about 10' long with a 12" chuck. I'm guessing maybe 1950's. She's a beauty. A bit rusty though.
What would this weigh? 6000lbs?
Has a 10 hp motor.
Seller is asking $2000.00.
Anyone run one of these before?
Thanks
Martin

Check out Tony's site he has some information on these lathes.

Harold

If it looks at all like the lathes in Tony's site it might be very good. It appears to be a modern lathe built to use carbides at high SFPM's. If it had an inch leadscrew I'd think it is worth much more than that $2K in the USA, but of course you guys are in Eastern Canada.

Someone else's crisis may or may not be your opportunity.
If it doesn't work it's worth less than scrap !
If it's all rusty someone thought it wasn't worth fixing.
Watts the voltage? Chuck may be worth some . ---Trevor

The lathe on Tony's site looks pretty good. It says that it has ' gamer' bearings in the headstock. I don't have firsthand knowledge about them but I've read here in the forum about those bearings. They were very pricey

Thanks for the input guys.
From what I understand this place shut down about 20 years ago. Everything is still the way it was when they closed. It's like a museum. The owner is very old and sounds like he finally is ready to part with stuff.
$2000 is pretty steep in my opinion. But the lathe looks in really good shape. I was going to offer less and see what happens.
The voltage is 575 volts. I have a phase converter with a 600 volt transformer.
Martin

Weight ?

From Tony's site ''The lightest short-bed standard D/DS model weighed approximately 4000 lbs (1820 Kg) and the heaviest long-bed high-speed version around 7820 lbs (3310 Kg.)''

Martin,
Over the years I've come to the conclusion that a used machine tool's real value is defined by three aspects;

1. Intrinsic value (Scrap, the value of the metal)

2. Active value, based on the work it is capable of relative to another lathe of similar type and features.

3. Other factors such as brand recognition.

Resell value is the amalgam of all of the above, a nice looking machine will sell for much more than a bad looking one with the same capabilities.

For me the only thing that really matters is whether and how much the lathe will earn. This is the money you can make with it if you use it to it's fullest capabilities, and is also related to when in design history it was made. A modern well engineered gear head lathe made today is essentially the same as any good brand of the last 50 years or even farther back, the last major change was the DRO and that's a common retrofit.

The cream of the crop in manual lathe design I think was the inserted way lathes like the one shown in Tony's site under Martin! The gearhead looks well designed, the ways 58-60 Rc and the only other considerations are the voltage which you have licked, and the leadscrew, if it's an inch leadscrew it will be much more valuable than if it is a metric leadscrew (On this side of the Atlantic).
If the feed box allows metric threading with lever shifting that's huge for lazy people like me, one doesn't have to change pick off gears which is often a tedious dirty job.

What I cannot understand is the value of old flat belt drive lathes. Are people starting museums? Do people so admire the old ways that they are willing to put up with the irritating or even dangerous aspects of them? Leaving planers and shapers out (Because hardly anyone makes them anymore), belt driven machines were built for much less FPM so production should be prorated lower if in a commercial setting. I'm talking about myself too, I have 5 old belt drive lathes(Not being used commercially).

I think people are just afraid they will be scrapped. For the effort of truly restoring an old belt drive lathe most people would be way ahead to buy a new Chinese gearhead lathe, and no, they are not all crap, the commercial quality Chinese lathes are very good quality if you can buy one with a good reputation. (I'm not talking about hobby class lathes as sold by HF etc.)

I'd like to read comments about what I just said about antique machines. Recently an old wood bed lathe from pre 1850 was being discussed here, the OP said he wasn't starting a museum. So, what really is the point? And I'm not suggesting that I'm the arbitrator of who does what, I'm saying this for curiosity's sake. If people are going to use antique machines why are they doing it? Justification is in the eye of the restorer.

But as to the Martin lathe, if it's as in the website, it's as capable as the best lathes made today once you clean it up and put a DRO on it, so, assuming you are going to use it commercially how much practical time does it have left in it? Divide the cost of a new European built (German to be precise) lathe of that size by the percentage of useful life left in it and I really think $2000 is a drop in the bucket.

Good post Parts production!
. Most machines from the late forties and fifties era were overbuilt with large heavy castings and gearboxes. Tapered roller bearings and such. They were built to last a lifetime or the very least run all day every day for years and years. Some of these imported machines will do the same job maybe more accurately, but I can't imagine 50 years from now there will be many survivors.
I will need to investigate wether it has a metric or imperial leadscrew.
We won't be using this commercially as I have a millwork company. This is for me in my metal fabricating shop at home. In the millwork shop I have all German machines. Altendorf , Burkle, Brandt., Martin ect.
I'm not sure but I believe Martin machinery today is a subsidiary of this lathe. Martin makes super high end woodworking machinery of the highest quality. Sliding panel saws, shapers, jointers ect. It caught my eye when I saw it for sale and if it has the same quality that they make today, it should have tons of life left in it.
I also need another project. Lol
Regards
Martin

Hello
I talked with one of the guys that ran the lathe. He says it's a great lathe. He says he's turned inch threads and metric threads with it. He couldn't remember but says you have to change one of the gears. He was going to refresh his memory by looking at it and let me know.
Martin

In my experience he'd know already because the number of lathes that will thread both inch and metric with the throw of levers alone is very small, and therefor he would likely remember not having the kind of black grease that even soap has trouble washing off all over his hands.

Having said that I wouldn't think of that as a very big deal, since most home shop machinists, and even commercial machinists, don't thread enough metric threads in a year to make that a major deal. Have you determined that your lathe is like the one's under Martin shown in lathes.com? If it is the headstock looks very well designed inside.

I went and looked again, it says this, which seems to show that indeed metric threads will be cut with a throw of the lever;

"The screwcutting and feeds' gearbox was an engineering tour-de-force with even its drive gears (contained within their own compartment) including a specially-marked "indexing wheel" to assist with the production of multi-start threads. All shafts ran on ball races and 103 metric and 118 English threads (including 11.5 and 27 t.p.i.) were available without any alteration to the changewheel set-up; whilst not quite up to the 262 available from the (rather larger) Meuser S-type Selekta lathe this was still a very considerable achievement. Additional changewheels allowed 72 Module and 118 Diametral pitch threads to be generated or, with the usual 127t gear, for English specification models to cut metric pitches. The box could also be set to give fine threads (or feeds) at one-fifth the normal rate, or coarse pitches stepped up in the ratio of both 4:1 and 16:1."

Reading again I have to wonder what he is talking about higher up, as that seems to imply no need for a 127 tooth pick off gear.
"All shafts ran on ball races and 103 metric and 118 English threads (including 11.5 and 27 t.p.i.) were available without any alteration to the changewheel set-up; "

But near the end;
"with the usual 127t gear, for English specification models to cut metric pitches."

My Sculfort lathe does it all from levers and in addition there is a gear shift for coarse threads or feeds that seems to dump direct motor input to the feed box irrespective of the spindle, in fact, I often set it up at 6.7" per thread and disengage the gearbox (Neutral) so I can shape keys in large hubs. It's really an amazing thing because anyone who has ever set the lathe up for very coarse pitches knows the whole gearbox gets strained by the extra friction accumulation. By bypassing the headstock and feeding power back from the feedbox to the headstock a lot of that goes away. Tony may be alluding to something like that here;

"The box could also be set to give fine threads (or feeds) at one-fifth the normal rate, or coarse pitches stepped up in the ratio of both 4:1 and 16:1."

It looks exactly like the Martin lathes on Tony's site.
Thanks
Martin

Well we came to an agreement on price for the lathe. I have a roll off coming Saturday for the move. Once it's here I need to move it about 50 feet inside where my lift truck won't fit. I've got some heavy duty machinery skates which will help on one end but I'll need to use pipes on the other to roll it with a big bar. Few inches at a time, I guess. Slow and steady wins the race.
I am going to try and get pictures while we are moving it.
He didn't have a steady rest for it. I was a little disappointed.
Martin

Well, we have the lathe at its new home. I didn't get any pictures of the move other than this one. Now the clean up and restoration start.
Martin

The lathe is a Martin DLZ 502 built in 1957. I also found the steady rest, and it has a taper attachment. More pictures to follow soon.
Martin

This is close to where the lathe will sit. I started cleaning it up a bit. It is in remarkably better shape than I could of hoped for.
I am guessing straight 30 weight oil in the gear box and carriage will be okay?
Martin

Martin,
That's a lot of lathe for the asking price, don't know what it actually sold for but think less.
I wouldn't assume a straight #30 weight would be suitable, most of the machines I have ran used an ISO #46 or #68 combination hydraulic and bearing oil such as a Shell TELLUS or a Mobil DTE oil in the head stock with a geared drive. Some would call out for the same thing in the apron even if it lubed the ways although a lot wanted a Vactra type way lube. High speed lathes sometimes called out for a thin spindle oil such as Mobil VELOCITE #10 or even as thin as #6 to lube the spindle bearings. If a manual can't be bought and it were me, I would do some home work and find something that's built about the same way and use that for a guide? If all the gears are straight cut then a similar Monarch would be an example? I hope that helps!
Welcome to the forum, there is a lot of knowledge here if you can sift through the BS.
Dan

Yes, a beast of a workhorse. Did you determine that it has an inch leadscrew?

Looking at it more it really looks like a machine that is capable of paying you back easily. TA to boot! Some guys say they never use taper attachments, I really consider them to be a requirement on at least one lathe. What is the spindle, D1-8?

That is looking good Houston

Be interesting to see how well it just cleans up (I don't mean repainting etc etc)