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Possible Bement & Dougherty lathe

Here are the pictures.
I called on the lathe. There is one person ahead of me.
If that person does not take it, then I will get it.
The owner said he put in the word "Machine" so it says "Industrial Works Philadelphia".
He did not know if there was any other name on it(might be covered up), so it could be Bement & Dougherty or Bement & Son.
He said the bed was 5 foot. He did not know the swing.
I have not seen a Bement with that type of apron and flat way on the back.

Rob
 

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Here's the latest status on the lathe. A guy posted this on OWWM. The seller is to blame. Darn fools! Jake

"Hello
This is my first post on this forum. I hope it the first of many. I recently bought my first two lathe restoration projects.
One of which is kind of a mystery. I've seen some posts else where that speculate this one lathe is a Bement or some variant. There aren't any tags or serial number stamped that I have found yet (I doubt I will). On the front the casting has "Industrial Works Philadelphia". I'm actually the second buyer from the same seller. Somebody was there ahead of me and made off with the legs, most of the gears, half the belt cone, and the chuck. I was interested in the other lathe they had (more in a different post). Anyway the guy was saying about the dude that paid for the lathe and let the bed, head and tail stock, and apron lay. I asked him what he was going to do with it - he said scrap it. I asked what he had to have for it - $50 Me: SOLD. I got it home and made up a cart to sit it on. It does have the main spindle (brass plain bearings), cross slide and compound slide (which the tool post slot is immaculate but rusty).
Now I need to find out about it. If it is truly a Bement or variant here's my problem: The handles on the apron are backwards from everything I've seen pictures of. In fact they are downright just backwards. The feed is on the right and the half-nut is on the left. Every lathe I've ever worked on or seen is the other way around.
I have attached pictures: The first picture is from Craigslist and is definitely a before picture. The next four show the head gears (or lack thereof), the apron, the tail stock, and a detail of the tail end of the bed which shows a particular design (faux base moulding). If people will direct me for more helpful angles please feel free to speak up. If you look close you can tell an electrician did the carpentry work on the cart I made. I can't get a good picture of the words cast in the bed - they are behind the lead screw. I apologize the pictures are upside down - I don't know how to change that.
The whole machine is coated it seems in grease and some surface rust. I believe it was barn-kept except where I bought it from. It spent a little time out in the weather. The plain bearings don't look terrible but were disassembled when I got the machine. I'm not sure if the compound and cross slides are froze up - I don't have any hand wheels to turn them yet. The tail stock and apron slide on the ways pretty good. The Apron looks well greased and I believe the half-nut is intact.
I appeal to the mercy of those more knowledgeable - Please help me found out what this neglected orphan is. I plan on giving it a good home and hope to get it operational in some way."
 
I was afraid this was going to happen.
I see the parts but not the legs in the new Craigslist.

I was actually the second in line for this lathe, but the first buyer bought the lathe.
When I first called the seller, he said someone was coming to look at the lathe and was probably going to buy it.
The seller said if the one coming to look at it did not buy it then it would be mine.
I called the seller after a couple days to see if the first buyer bought the lathe.
He said that he did buy it and picked up the lathe, which turns out was not entirely true. The parts left were there.
I asked what the new buyer was going to do with the lathe. He said he did not know. I said I was worried that the new buyer was going to strip the lathe for the legs, which is what happened.

Link to the OWWM thread.

Lathe Identification - Bement? Niles? - Old Woodworking Machines

Rob
 
Bummer. Akin to my experience with a Lathe & Morse 19 swing of about a year ago.

Its hard when you play the game properly, the seller doesn't, you wait in line, and do the right thing - but lose. But its even harder when others do and you do - but you still lose.

And more importantly here for this seller, playing the game properly came ahead of saving an industrial relic.

It is a seller's market. Most are only custodians once. This seller was a FAIL - IMHO.

Your only consolation is that in a week, or a month, or a year something possibly better will show up.

Or one hopes.

Joe in NH
 
Good to see Rob passed on the new listing for the parts. I had registered on OWWM to pass that on so he may have a chance to retrieve the parts maybe even the legs.
 
Unless he can buy just the lathe parts from the new seller, he will have to pay $220.00.
He can probably buy the legs but will pay thru the nose for them.

The new lathe owner will probably never know about the new Craigslist listing.
My link to the OWWM thread does not work now.
I went to the site and it looks like the thread has been deleted.
I may have violated OWWM's rules.

"Craig’s List & Classified Ads:
Do not post a link to, description of, or allude to any Craig’s List or classified ads. The only exception to this rule is when it is mentioned as the source for a machine you have bought."

Looks like you can't even mention Craigslist.
If that is the case then remove my links but don't delete the whole thread. Rather stupid.

Rob
 
I do think he mentioned he was aware of the conversation about the lathe on another forum. He may have been talking about this thread. So maybe he will become aware. It does say machinery legs in that classified ad so he may be including them but most want at least 300 for a nice pair of legs like that.

I just happened to check and the entire thread is gone. Not sure why.
 
It does say machinery legs in that classified ad so he may be including them but most want at least 300 for a nice pair of legs like that.

I think the legs mentioned in the ad are the green ones next to the column.
Everything mentioned in the ad are shown in the pictures.
It does not make any sense to buy a lathe for $250.00 and then just take a few items and then resell them for $220.00.

Rob
 
Here are some pictures of interest.
The photo is from northernsinger from around 1931. Factory in yellow circle.

Factory from 1867 and 1856. Rather small.
These were large scans but the PM resizes them to postage stamp size. I don't know why.
Lathe from the mid 1860's.

Rob
 

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By the way, the Harrington lathe and hoist factory also shows in that Philadelphia circa 1931 photograph (which is think might be mis-dated and actually about 1928).

The Harrington shop is at the edge of the photograph, a large square five story brick building, 100,000 square feet. One side of the Bement works block is Pennsylvania Avenue, the far side is Callowhill Street, Bement was on the north side of Callowhill. If you follow Callowhill Street diagonally up in this photograph to the edge you see the Harrington building (once partly owned by my family, now high end apartments) on the south side of Callowhill.
 
One other builder in Philadelphia was Cresson & Hubbard who started in 1859. There is a 5 part series of videos on YouTube of a guy rebuilding a Cresson and Hubbard lathe. It has some similarity to Bement's design. This similarity is likey because George Vaux Cresson was an Apprentice of Bement & Dougherty.
 
Fireman, thank you for that. I'm a Philadelphian and interested in these things, and I can see you are, too. Though I'd not yet heard of Cresson & Hubbard as machine builders, I know that Cresson was a well known name in Philadelphia manufacturing and mechanical history, there were a bunch of Cressons and they were very accomplished. I'm pretty sure I have a--later--Cresson-Morris rock crushing machinery catalog, for instance. I've just checked and the Cresson & Hubbard buildings were at 18th & Hamilton Streets and they too would show in this photograph above, though I can't identify their building, if it was still there.
 
northensinger's photo with Harrington's factory highlighted.
It was Cresson & Smith in 1867. George Vaux Cresson and Scott A. Smith, Lathe Builders, southeast corner of Eighteenth & Hamilton Streets.
Lets not forget Hess Machine Works.
It seems too many people are not interested in Philadelphia makers. I am!!!
I have machines by Sellers, Harrington and Bement.

Rob
 

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I dislike seeing the destruction--for a few bucks--of interesting items of our industrial history, and this is an example of that.

And just to make tables.
As I have said before, I wish I had a lot of money.
I would go around and buy up Federal, Chippendale furniture and others and cut the legs off to make work benches for my machines.
What a howl would go up by the antique furniture people. I would just say, well you are destroying my antiques so I will destroy yours.

Rob
 
northensinger's photo with Harrington's factory highlighted.
It was Cresson & Smith in 1867. George Vaux Cresson and Scott A. Smith, Lathe Builders, southeast corner of Eighteenth & Hamilton Streets.
Lets not forget Hess Machine Works.
It seems too many people are not interested in Philadelphia makers. I am!!!
I have machines by Sellers, Harrington and Bement.

Rob

So does anyone have an idea: I get that these guys had apprentices and family and who know what else.
Did they build these machines from the ground up?
Did they employ, contract, and/or share pattern makers?
Some of these lathes I'm seeing in doing my research have identical beds - did they buy the beds from a third party?
Did they make all their own gears or did they source them from a gear maker?
Thanks,
CK
 
There is a copy of this book on lathe bed design on archive.org that I posted a link to in an other thread some time ago but I find it hard to view properly on my computer .
This copy from the Hathi Trust Library seems better but no results for Bement in there according to the search engine .
Machinery's reference series ... v. 111-12. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library | HathiTrust Digital Library
Maybe something will turn up in one of the other books in the search link.
Full-text Search Results | HathiTrust Digital Library
Regards,
Jim
 








 
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