Elam Works
Aluminum
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2007
- Location
- Pennsylvania, USA
Was at a auto swap meet at Cowtown, NJ and came across a leg thief dismembering a small, helpless lathe. He was not interested in the rest of the corpse, so rather than see it scrapped I gave him some money and took it home. The legs are probably destine for some sort of steampunk table. Where it not that I had seen the legs, I would have been hard pressed to figure out the make as the name appears no where else on the machine. Doing a little research, it appears Sebastian & May were operating out of Sidney, Ohio from 1890 to no later than 1898.
As you can see from the pictures the lathe is rather light. It is also well worn, so not a candidate for a hobby lathe but perhaps someone with an identical Sebastian & May might be interested to make one complete or more correct lathe out of two. In my searching the internet, I did find others out there so they are not unknown.
There is a braze repair to the from bearing cap. Note the headstock and tailstock are on interesting cast risers. On the rear is part of an taper attachment. Not sure this is original to the lathe as none of the other examples seen have such. Mounted on cast brackets, so someone may have started to transfer this from another lathe and the project never was finished.
Probably the most curious feature is the partial cross feed dial. This pivots up and out of the way on a screw to the left. Why, I have no idea. The fiducial mark is on a tang that clamps to the cross feed shaft. These parts are brass. The other that I have seen have no dials at all, and this might be a non-standard addition.
$125 OBO. Glen Mills, PA. Loading available (literally, one person can pick it up!) So if you have a like Sebastian & May and it is missing a few pieces, here is your chance to pick up some spares. Or corner the market. It is neat, but I have enough 'museum pieces' already. Like the SPCA says, it needs that Forever Home.
-Doug
As you can see from the pictures the lathe is rather light. It is also well worn, so not a candidate for a hobby lathe but perhaps someone with an identical Sebastian & May might be interested to make one complete or more correct lathe out of two. In my searching the internet, I did find others out there so they are not unknown.
There is a braze repair to the from bearing cap. Note the headstock and tailstock are on interesting cast risers. On the rear is part of an taper attachment. Not sure this is original to the lathe as none of the other examples seen have such. Mounted on cast brackets, so someone may have started to transfer this from another lathe and the project never was finished.
Probably the most curious feature is the partial cross feed dial. This pivots up and out of the way on a screw to the left. Why, I have no idea. The fiducial mark is on a tang that clamps to the cross feed shaft. These parts are brass. The other that I have seen have no dials at all, and this might be a non-standard addition.
$125 OBO. Glen Mills, PA. Loading available (literally, one person can pick it up!) So if you have a like Sebastian & May and it is missing a few pieces, here is your chance to pick up some spares. Or corner the market. It is neat, but I have enough 'museum pieces' already. Like the SPCA says, it needs that Forever Home.
-Doug