Nice Little Lathe

Picked up this old-timer coupla' days ago. It attracted me for several reasons, one of which was the manufacturing year corresponded with my birth year. The lathe was ordered/received by the U.S. Army, used and then stashed away in some storage area until the previous owner bought it six years ago.



(Specifications are appended to this post.)

The machine came with steady and follower rests, taper attachment, lantern tool post, dead and live centers, drill chuck, 3-jaw chuck, Armstrong tool holders and so on - all in good condition. The gears, rack and lead screw also appear to be in good condition but the ways show typical signs of abuse. The G.I. "machinists" probably attended a four to six week school to learn how to operate this lathe ... but apparently the course on how to protect sensitive areas of the machine was skipped by a number of the operators.

The previous owner stoned the ways and did a good job in my opinion. The carriage moves easily without excess lateral movement although there is a bit of stickiness at the tailstock end of the ways, as one would expect. Cross-slide and compound-slide were smooth but again with the cross-slide being a bit tacky at the extremes of travel. About thirty seconds were required to adjust the gibs to an acceptable level.

The ancient 3-jaw chuck, the only work holder included with the machine, is almost black with oxidation (and 70 year old mung) but it works fairly well as long as work is held along the entire length of the jaws. No matter since this chuck will probably be removed and maybe used on one of the milling machines for slotting, squaring and so forth. Oh yeah, an evaluation of the spindle run-out yielded .0015 in 16 inches.

The illustration from the Army Maintenance and Parts manual



Bad things:

The tailstock ram was incredibly stiff in certain areas, suggesting something was bent. I suspected the ram (although how that would happen is a mystery). Actually the culprit was the tailstock spindle - the left hand Acme thread was bent out of concentricity to the other diameters that align this part with the ram and the tailstock bore. Now THAT is even a bigger mystery ! The problem was corrected although some time was expended diagnosing the fault.

Carriage lock doesn't function. Some caveman put enough torque on the locking bolt so that it sheared at the locking gib under the ways. I need to remove the broken piece and make another locking bolt, easy fix.

Gear noise in one position of the primary high/low selector prior to the QC gearbox. Not yet diagnosed.

Continuing:

My only other lathe is a small Enco-Maier set up with collets. The little Austrian machine was cool for 90% of my needs but there was occasional need for chucking, 3 or 4 jaw. It's a PITA to make the change-over (on my home-built collet system) so I have wanted a second lathe for a long time equipped with a chuck(s). Additionally, the small Austrian lathe is limited between centers at 18 inches.

I don't have a problem with Armstrong tool holders, especially for a machine set up with chucks and intended for single part production. Nevertheless the Armstrong system is limited for parting and boring, IMO. I had made a set of solid toolholders for the small lathe some years ago but never used them for some reason. Turns out that, with a 5/16 riser plate, they are suited for the Sheldon and considerably more rigid than the old lantern tool post.



I'm content with this machine and, for my purposes, looks like I have good work coverage between the two lathes.



Cheers,
randyc

Description of the lathe from the U.S. Army Maintenance and Parts Manual:

swing over bed and saddle wings: 11-1/4 inches
swing over saddle: 7 inches
bed length: 56 inches
center distance: 34-3/4 inches
spindle hole: 1-3/8 inches
headstock taper: 5 MT
tailstock taper: 2 MT
spindle threads: 2-1/4 - 8
speed range: 50 - 1355 RPM

WOW your Sheldon is sooooooo much nicer than mine.
I like the cabinet base, mine is just the pedestal.

I've torn mine apart to to find out why the gear train sounds so horrible when cutting a course thread, the selector in gear in the quick change gear box was worn out, and the reversing lever is making a weird noise too.

Wonder if it's symptomatic of these old timers

alskdjfhg said:

WOW your Sheldon is sooooooo much nicer than mine.
I like the cabinet base, mine is just the pedestal.

I've torn mine apart to to find out why the gear train sounds so horrible when cutting a course thread, the selector in gear in the quick change gear box was worn out, and the reversing lever is making a weird noise too.

Wonder if it's symptomatic of these old timers

Click to expand...

My Sheldon may not look any better than yours - these photos, taken from a distance, are very flattering. They don't show all of the chipped paint on the apron, cross-slide, compound and taper attachment.

I'm very interested in what you discovered in your gear train. Any information and corrective actions would be welcomed (PM). The "symptomatic" suggestion resonates with me since the coarse threading gear selection creates the maximum noise.

Noise is not a problem, of course, except that it indicates internal problems

Cheers,
randyx

Nice to see it's in good hands now. I worked for Sheldon up until it closed the Knox Ave. plant around 1982. Armstrong was also in town (Elston Ave.) and did supply a few items for some of the lathes, so did Buck. Hope it serves you well.

I also have a noisy Sheldon. Right now I think it is the big gear in the end- at the end of the quick change gearbox. A LOT of play there, sometimes when taking heavy cuts it will really get noisy. My thoughts are that I will probably take the lathe apart, hopefully can cure it with a bronze bushing, maybe have to rebuild/ rework a shaft. I need to get my other lathe going before I can really do that, it will take a lathe to make the bushing. And right now I am too busy to be without this one, gotta baby it for now.

Nice looking lathe you have there, you will find the Sheldon to be a very nice lathe. 70 years old is about where it gets "broke in."

hey toolmaker, I have all the stuff to breathe new life into yours and you`re not to far away.
I gotta get rid of this stuff, and would like to see it end up in the hands of someone who will use it.
PM sent.

Looking good! You will love the Sheldon. I have a UM-56-B 13" that looks just like yours. Mine is WORN!!! Repainted multiple times, worn cross slide ways, worn gibs, WORN lead screw (I ghetto flipped it) and the gears are super noisy if ran at the high spindle speed. And though it is such a clapper, I sure like it! I dream of someday finding a similar Sheldon that isn't worn. Or at least a NOS lead screw, gear box, carriage...

toolmaker76 said:

I also have a noisy Sheldon. Right now I think it is the big gear in the end- at the end of the quick change gearbox. A LOT of play there, sometimes when taking heavy cuts it will really get noisy. My thoughts are that I will probably take the lathe apart, hopefully can cure it with a bronze bushing, maybe have to rebuild/ rework a shaft. I need to get my other lathe going before I can really do that, it will take a lathe to make the bushing. And right now I am too busy to be without this one, gotta baby it for now.

Nice looking lathe you have there, you will find the Sheldon to be a very nice lathe. 70 years old is about where it gets "broke in."

Click to expand...

I had a thought about reducing the noise of the gear train. If, during the lifetime of this lathe, the tumbler gears were set in the "normal" position most of the time (carriage traveling toward the headstock) then the flanks of the gear teeth opposite the driving pressure will be relatively unworn. So I'm thinking about turning all of the gears around Ran the idea past a millwright buddy and he seemed to think that it was well worth a try.

The problem is that the spindle pinion and the tumblers are darned near inaccessible without a major tear down. Since these gears are the ones running at highest RPM, they are likely to be the most worn (unless they were hardened but I don't think so) ! Anyway, I made a little experiment to check the idea about turning the gears around, simply switched the tumbler into "reverse", engaged the carriage feed and things got quieter in that position, maybe half the noise as before. If the tumblers and the spindle pinion were reversed, there could be a major decrease in gear noise. At least that's my current speculation.

I also noticed that the large gear on the up/down selector lever was touchy about how it was adjusted. I have a second lathe that can make parts if a tear down is required for the Sheldon. I also have the capability to make gears if (heaven forbid) it actually came to that. Before I spent that much time, however, I'd probably learn to live with the noise. Another thought I had was to try some motorcycle chain lube ...

This old girl still works fine, though. The first part I made was a new carriage lock bolt to replace the busted one. It was blued on the kitchen stove (heated and dunked in old motor oil). Cutting the threads in back gear was a noisy proposition.



Hey, Ad Design, that must have been a fun job (depending on what you were doing, of course). Somewhere I had heard that Armstrong was right next door to Sheldon !

Cheers,
randyc

I have a 10" sheldon on legs from the same time period. Luckily mine mostly sat for the last 7 decades and is not too worn.

Wish I had the accessories you do - like the steady and follower rests.

That lathe has so much to offer! Definitely a nice solid lathe.

Hey, Ad Design, that must have been a fun job (depending on what you were doing, of course). Somewhere I had heard that Armstrong was right next door to Sheldon !

Cheers,
randyc


-We were part of National Acme (that owned Sheldon at the time) a division of Acme Cleveland that owned Sheldon and many other mfg. companies. We were the remote toolroom for bar feeders and other production machinery that Acme Cleveland sold. That was the satellite shop across from the old Bell & Howell plant off Touhy Ave. I didn't have anything to do with the lathes until they shut us down and moved the operation over to the old Sheldon plant on Knox Ave. in Chicago (behind Houston Foods). We made lots of other tooling, machinery, and oddball pieces. After there were no takers for the slant bed lathe or the NC mills at the MTS show at McCormick Place you just knew that it was just a matter of time. The last few lathes were built and the things started to change. The writing was on the wall and we helped deconstruct the once vibrant company one shelf at a time. A couple of weeks before Christmas they laid us all off. It was the end of the machine tool industry and I should have bailed then and there but I wasn't smart enough to do anything else except manufacturing. Ahhhh enough of that, didn't mean to whine.

It was nice to see some of the lathes have still survived and are still being used. I'm glad it came to you and hope it serves you well. The men that made that lathe were very proud of the work they did and they might even smile (just a little) knowing that it's still running. As Neil Young once penned "Long may you run".

AD Design said:

.... It was nice to see some of the lathes have still survived and are still being used. I'm glad it came to you and hope it serves you well. The men that made that lathe were very proud of the work they did and they might even smile (just a little) knowing that it's still running. As Neil Young once penned "Long may you run".

Click to expand...

Very well said - they SHOULD be proud of their work !

This is an update to an older thread regarding gear noise in a Sheldon EXL-56B.

I had speculated that reversing some of the gears (specifically the tumblers) might reduce the noise but that didn't work. Yesterday, while searching through a storage cabinet, I came across an old aerosol can of motorcycle chain lube. Just for grins and because other lubes hadn't been effective in reducing noise, I wiped off most of the oil in the gear train and gave the gears - including the back gears - a good spray with this stuff.



I'm impressed ! The gear train noise is diminished to about 1/3 of what it was ... which, in my mind, suggests that the wear will also be significantly reduced ! So far I have about three hours on the machine since spraying which speaks well for longevity of the stuff ! The specific brand of the product (and I have no association with the company) is "Motul Chain Lube O-ring Test".

The happiest result is the back gear noise. When engaged at the highest spindle speed, back gear noise was an embarrassment. It's now quite tolerable; I wouldn't be ashamed to run it for machinist friends, LOL.

(Oh yeah, the chip pan has a layer of kitty litter, in case anyone was wondering.)

Cheers -

So randyc: Do the cats appreciate you throwing hot chips in their "litterbox"?

JH

My old shop had a Whitney Jenson punch press that made serious gear noise. My partner at the time came back from with lunch, and began feeding his McDonalds French fries into the open gears. That cured the noise for a month or better.

Better get some fries.

Josh

LOL, no cats in the house, got the kitty litter to put under my old Harley. I wonder if French fries would work better than the peanut butter a friend suggested or bananas

If it's the stringy, webby sort of chain lube it will most likely create substantial gear wear in no time as it will suck chips in like a spiderweb to the face! Now I'm wondering how filter oil would do...

And what is the point of the kitty litter?

etard said:

If it's the stringy, webby sort of chain lube it will most likely create substantial gear wear in no time as it will suck chips in like a spiderweb to the face! Now I'm wondering how filter oil would do...

And what is the point of the kitty litter?

Click to expand...

Missed your post, sorry.

Nah, this stuff is about the consistency of gun oil when sprayed and then "hardens" after a few minutes. Give it a try, it's not costly. I think that I unintentionally exaggerated the length of time that it was effective though. I've been brushing off the gears with mineral spirits after about an hour or so of cumulative operation then giving the train another squirt of the "Motul" stuff.

About sucking chips in, that isn't obvious to me. The intended purpose of this product is to lubricate open motorcycle chains. The guys that I was riding with (all off-road, some with much Enduro experience) recommended the same product for our grungy purposes. Compared to that environment, most lathe work occurs in conditions resembling a hospital operating room ! Not to mention that gear trains are usually covered in operation and located well away from the cutting process.

But I take your point and might not be using this product on a machine that was not seventy years old, LOL.

The Sheldon has about thirty oil points, all of which eventually drain into the chip pan. Kitty litter does the same thing for the chip pan as when spread on your driveway underneath the '53 Pontiac, or the old Harley in my case. It's not a big deal to wipe down the chip pan after raking out the sharp stuff but it's even easier (for me) to just brush out everything - chips and kitty litter - and discard from time to time. (Helpful for collecting the mineral spirits and diluted chain oil when I clean the gear train as mentioned earlier.)

" The intended purpose of this product is to lubricate open motorcycle chains. "

Heck. I always use lathe gear oil to lube up my motorcycle chains!

=)