Start by taking the key out of the chuck ! No one who knows anything about shop safety EVER leaves a key in a lathe chuck for an instant longer than needed for use.
An accidental starting of the lathe with the key left in the chuck will launch the key and can cause plenty of serious personal injury aside from damage to the lathe or other shop equipment and premises.
I use ISO 46 oil in the form of tractor hydraulic oil in the headstock of my own LeBlond 13" Roundhead Regal lathe, as well as in the apron. Before starting the lathe, pump some oil into the oil fillers on the headstock spindle bearings and on the drive/input shaft bearing. There are hinged oil hole covers on these locations.
Do not overfill the headstock. There are no oil seals on these lathe headstocks. Oil is slung up to the bearings when the lathe is running, and finds its way back down via some labyrinth grooves in the end plates on the bearing housings in the headstock. If you use too heavy an oil, or if you fill the headstock too full, the lathe will sling oil out the spindle when run at the higher speeds. Correct level is around the bottom of the "Gits" oil filler cup on the front of the headstock.
There is a plunger oil pump in the apron of these lathes. You pump oil from the reservoir in the apron up to the cross slide and carriage wings by pushing the rod with the "cupped end" (stick up at an angle from the front of the apron) in a few strokes. This rod is the pump plunger. The apron is kept filled with oil via the Gits cup filler on the RH side of it. A light way oil is a good choice to use. I use Husqvarna Bar and Chain oil, which has the look and feel of a light way lube, or I use ISO46 oil mixed about 50-50 with Lucas Oil Extender (to add tackifiers to the ISO 46 oil). You might want to flush the apron with some kerosene or diesel fuel- fill and drain before starting to pump up to the cross slide and carriage wings. The pump plunger on my own Roundhead Regal was stuck when I got it. Some Marvel Mystery Oil and diesel fuel soaking inside the apron freed things up handily.
When changing speeds, use the handwheel on the drive shaft and roll the gearing over by hand and make sure it is fully engaged. Also make sure the detent balls on each shifter lever are seated in the "dimples" on the headstock. The gear selectors on these lathes are kind of sensitive and it does not take much to think you have the lathe gears fully engaged, only to have them hop out of engagement under load. The key is to be careful when you make gear changes and be sure that the gear selector lever detent balls are fully seated in the "dimples". Do not attempt to change gears with the lathe under power, or when it is coasting down. Wait until the lathe is completely stopped and then make sure to use the handwheel. As you roll the input or drive shaft over by hand and you work the gear selector lever with your other hand, you should be able to feel things go into mesh or clutch teeth engage.
These lathes have very light high speed gearing in the headstocks. I can't say what a safe limit on roughing cuts might be. I do take it easier with my own LeBlond 13" Roundhead lathe than if I were running a lathe like a Reed & Prentice, Monarch, or Lodge & Shipley or Hendey. These roundhead Regal lathes are on the lighter end of geared head engine lathes. When taking an interuppted cut, slow the lathe spindle speed and go a bit lighter on depth of cut and feed. On the other hand, I have had no problems in hogging about 0.150" at a rip off 2 1/2" diameter 4140 steel round bar with a high speed steel tool bit.
These lathes were designed in an era when high speed steel tools were pretty much the rule and carbide tools were more the rarity. As a result, spindle speed ranges are a bit low for carbide tools. I use primarily high speed steel tool bits and can get a finish that looks like it were precision ground or polished "as cut" with a HSS tool bit. HSS tool bit blanks are cheap at the price and you get "two for the price of one" as you can grind both ends of a blank to make two separate types of tool bit. HSS tool bits can be ground freehand on a bench grinder, and with some stoning (I use an India Medium Hard pocket sized oil stone), you can get a very fine finish on the work.
If you have not already done so, invest in a copy of "Running the Regal"- the manual for this series lathe, available on EBay for around 20 bucks. Well worth the price as it has parts diagrams aside from instructions on use and maintenance of these lathes.
Your lathe is a "standard" Roundhead Regal lathe. LeBlond offered two versions of these lathes: "Trainer" and "Standard" models. Both were pretty much the same lathe in most aspects. The difference was the "Trainer" had a lighter bed casting, not as deep as the "Standard". The "Trainer" models have the swing of the lathe cast into the headstock rather than "LeBlond" as your lathe has.
These are good little lathes, very user friendly, and with some reasonable care, can turn out fine work. My own Roundhead Regal has some bed wear to the point that if I lightly snug the carriage lock screw with the carriage near the headstock, if I move the carriage maybe 10-12" towards the tailstock, it will bind on the bedways.
Despite this, I turn out some fine work and have no problems working to 0.001" or better.
Another thing to check is the "drop" of the tailstock. As these lathes see use, the tailstock bases seem to wear fairly quickly. The result is people shim the tailstock back to centerline height with the spindle. They do this by placing shims between the tailstock bottom and the top of the base. I've found sheet metal shims, old time cards and thin shim stock used on LeBlond lathes for these purposes. As the saying goes, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". On my own LeBlond lathe, I mounted an indicator in the lathe chuck and rolled it around the tailstock spindle (or "quill"). This showed me the side-to-side misalignment. When I had adjusted this so the indicator had no deviation at 3:00 & 9:00, I then re-checked the readings at 12:00 and 6:00. This gave me the "drop" and amount to shim "up".
An old lathe like our LeBlond Roundhead Regal lathes, having seen umpteen years of use and a few moves, is hardly a toolroom lathe. However, with some tweaking, like checking tailstock centerline in relation to the headstock, these lathes can turn out some fine work.
You should also acquaint yourself with the graduations on the cross slide and compound micrometer collars. On my own Roundhead Regal lathe, these are "direct reading" collars. If I crank in 0.050", the lathe will cut 0.050" TOTAL DEPTH. If I were to put a dial indicator on the cross slide or compound and crank in 0.050" on the micrometer collars, the actual movement would be 0.025". When you get into thread cutting, you will be dealing with "half depth" or depth of the thread as calculated. This is the depth "on one side only". If you crank the "half depth" into the compound or cross slide, you will wind up with twice the required depth of thread and the job winds up in the scrap heap. Some lathes have the direct reading collar on the cross slide and the indirect or "half depth" collar on the compound for this reason. I got into trouble a few weeks back as I had been cutting threads on one job on my Southbend Heavy 10" lathe, which has the compound's micrometer collar reading the "half depth", so cutting to calculated depth of thread works fine. I went to the LeBlond lathe and was cutting a thread on another job, and forgot the differences in the compound rest micrometer collars. Result was a job that wound up in the junk heap. Luckily, it was just a hunk of A-36 hot rolled round bar, so not out any real money, just the time.
I enjoy using my own 13" Roundhead Regal lathe and find it to be just right for a home/semi business type of machine shop. I was lucky in that my Regal lathe came with factory-supplied metric transposing gears for cutting metric threads, as well as the factory supplied steady & follower rests, a "dog plate", face plate, and 3 & 4 jaw chucks. My lathe has the threaded spindle nose. I make sure to clean the threads on the spindle as well as in the chuck or faceplate thoroughly, and dab a little "Never Seez" on the threads before screwing a chuck or faceplate onto the spindle. Never run a chuck or faceplate on under power. Always make sure the chuck or faceplate is fully screwed onto the spindle and make sure the hub of the chuck plate or face plate is seated solidly against the shoulder on the spindle. If a chuck or faceplate seems to be screwing on too hard, stop, back it off and check and clean the threads.
Make yourself some wood cradle blocks that are cut to fit on the bedways. These cradle blocks should be cut to support your chucks at approximately spindle centerline height. In that way, you can land a chuck on the wood cradle block and not damage the bedways, and you do not risk pinched or bruised fingers. A 12" 4 jaw lathe chuck for an old Regal lathe is heavy enough to be a bit of a challenge for many people to get on and off the spindle without banging the bedways or worse. Cradle blocks save your fingers, your back, and your lathe's bedways. The sides of old pallets- usually made of hardwood- can be used to make cradle blocks.
