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Worcester lathe (was Help identifying this lathe? Help appreciated)

Chiptosser77

Plastic
Joined
May 30, 2020
Just picked up this old lathe. These are the only pictures I have and can't figure out who makes it. The guy I purchased it from has no idea .Any guru's out there that can help? Thanks in advance ��
 

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Thanks cranium. I am working on getting a better picture as we speak. My understanding is Cullman made the conversation kit for the drive. Obrein made the quick change gearbox. From my research they only made boxes for Logan, atlas/craftsman, and one other. Doesn't mean someone couldn't have modified it. I was thinking it was a Logan but not certain.
 
So far we have a teeny photo of lathe and big photos of drive maker and who sold the lathe:D

Seems like an identification photo would be more useful if it had some size to it - like so

ATW Triple BG 1915.jpg
 
Worcester lathe company apparently. Just got the picture. Have never heard a word about this company. I have a Seneca falls star lathe and had a hard time finding parts/tooling due to the strange thread pitch and tapers they use. Hope I didn't buy another odd ball. Any have any good or bad things to say about this company?
 
Worcester Lathe is an off-shoot of the Worcester Boys Trade School - which as of my formative years (1970s) still existed. By the time of my years, the school had not exactly declined but sort of morphed into automobile repair. Well, one goes to serve the local markets.

Boys - apprentices in training - would as a class produce a machine tool, usually a lathe, and then this machine would enter the marketplace and be sold with the profits derived therefrom going to the school to pay for materials.

I've seen a couple of them over the years. The first in a machine tool dealer in Worcester, MA in the 1980s. Another either listed here on this forum or perhaps Craigslist here in New England. What I remember of the dealer lathe I put as a "near copy" of a Flather Lathe, but differing in details. Fairly heavy construction, no fine detailing, but well made overall. And painted black.

Some info at vintage machinery. Worcester Lathe Co. - History | VintageMachinery.org

There is more out there written up on this brand and the means of production. Some period trade articles from perhaps the post WW1 era up until the Great Depression when production according to this format sort of died away. When the "system" was in operation - it was considered an advancement over the apprentice system formerly used by the machine tool producers in Worcester (who by 1920 were a dying breed.) Be sure to search Google Books for "Worcester Boys Trade" or "Worcester Machine Co."

Joe in NH
 
Great information Joe. Thanks for taking time to post all that. I will definitely do some research and see where it leads me. Very interesting
 
I have a Seneca falls star lathe and had a hard time finding parts/tooling due to the strange thread pitch and tapers they use. Hope I didn't buy another odd ball.

Probably very much the same, though maybe Worcester used Morse tapers instead of the Jarno that many Seneca Falls lathes have. Odd spindle threads were the order of the day among lathe manufacturers at that time.

Andy
 
O'Brien Machinery was a dealer, originally in Philadelphia, PA. I worked for O'Brien as an erecting engineer years later, in the late 1970's. O'Brien had moved out of Philly and had shifted their focus from machine tools to generators, turbines, engines, and switchgear. They were still "O'Brien Machinery" with that same type of logo, but I think that even in the late 70's, they had been out of the machine tool business for at least 25-30 years.

Joe in NH relates quite an interesting tale as to the origins of the "Worcester" lathes. Worcester, MA was right in the middle of the first 'seat' of the US Machine Tool Industry. Quite a project for trade-school boys to produce a lathe, let alone with a quick change gearbox. I know that the 'Washburn Shops' of Worcester Polytechnic (an engineering school) used to produce drill presses and grinders which were sold in the marketplace until some grumblings from the local machine tool manufacturers about 'unfair competition' put an end to it.

Chiptosser77: Most of the old lathes had threaded spindle noses. There was no set standard for what thread size/pitch to use for a given size lathe, so the manufacturers did what they thought best. The result is Southbend along with Logan and probably a few others, shared common spindle nose threads. Seneca Falls, as you note, had their own thread, as did LeBlond and quite a few others. As many of us learned a long time ago, if we are going to work with and use old machine tools, we have to be prepared to "reverse engineer" and make parts for them by ourselves. Something like chuck backing plates for threaded spindle noses are a fairly regular sort of thing that owners/users of old lathes often have to make. We've had a number of threads (pardon the pun) on this subject.

As for "buying an oddball", there are no real "oddballs" when it comes to old machine tools, particularly when it comes to spindle nose threads. You want a real headache, take a look at what American Tool Works used on their older lathe spindles in the days before the 'long taper' or 'cam lock' type spindle noses came into common use.

My 'roundhead' LeBlond Regal lathe has a 2 1/8"-5 spindle nose thread. Plenty of these lathes were made with that spindle nose thread, but no modern vendors offer chuck backing plates bored/threaded for that spindle thread. Nothing to do but make up a 'dummy spindle' (turned and threaded a piece of round stock to match the spindle nose) to use as a gauge when cutting the internal threads in my own chuck plates. It has been said that the engine lathe (centre lathe to our UK brethren) is "the mother of all machine tools" because it can make its own parts and then some. So it is with making chuck backing plates. If you have means of holding the chuck backing plate 'blank' in your Worcester lathe, it can make its own chuck backing plates. You even have a lathe with a quick change gearbox, so are ahead of the game and not having to hunt up loose change gears. Measure the spindle thread on your lathe with the '3 wire method', turn a dummy spindle out of anything handy (bar stock, thick walled tube, etc), and make some backing plates using the dummy spindle to check the internal thread as you cut it.

Oldtime machinists routinely made backing plates for their lathe's chucks, or as fixture plates to hold work on the spindles of their lathes. As a HS boy, I can recall going into a machine shop supply store in NYC and seeing a stack of cast iron chuck backing plate 'blanks'. Rough castings, no machining done on them. That is how common this sort of thing was. Once long taper spindle noses and then the camlock spindle noses came into widespread use, the threaded spindle nose lathes faded into the past for the most part. Get a copy (even an older edition) of "Machinery's Handbook" if you do not already own a copy. It will have all sorts of thread data and data on measuring threads with the '3 wire method'. Thread forms and formulas for calculating thread depth as well as widths of flats at the crests and roots are given in the "Machinery's Handbook". A piece of paper at the kitchen table and a pocket calculator, a "thread pitch gauge" and a "center gauge" (called a 'fish' by some machinists) and you will be working towards the design of a backing plate to fit your lathe.
 
Thanks you guys for the information. This site has restored my faith in humanity, knowing there are good people in the world that want to help not hurt one another. So I have been doing my homework using the puzzle pieces you guys have me. I believe it is a Flather Lathe for somewhere in the early 1920's. So I need to move this thing from Staten Island to my house in New Jersey. Have a trailer and the guy I purchased it from has a hoist to lift it onto the trailer to strap it down. Do you guys have any advice on how to unload this thing and still come out with everything in tact? The trailer I am using has a beaver tail and is low to the ground (less than a foot.) It also tilts not sure about that either. Would be happy to listen to a few ideas. Thanks.
 
I never heard of a beavertail that also tilts. Would kinda negate the need for the flip up ramps no? A tractor/loader or forklift would make quick work of getting her down to terra firma no?
 
Chiptosser:

I am glad you are going to be schlepping the lathe home. The name of the game in moving machine tools as in most all else, is safety first. Here are a few things to bear in mind:

1. Keep the center of gravity as low as possible and as close to the centerline of the lathe as possible. To do this, remove/dismount the Cullman Wheel assembly in its entirety. The bracket and motor, and all else set up high, as well as to the rear of the lathe make the lathe top-heavy and prone to tipping when moved.

2. Do not try to be a hero, no matter how often you hit the gym or similar. A comealong or light chain hoist and a hunk of pipe or timber spanning roof trusses in a garage can be a real lifesaver for removing the motor, drive, and bracket from the lathe.

3. My own 'druthers is to put machine tools on skids before moving them. Skids are pieces of 4 x4 or 6 x 6 timber, with the ends cut at about 45 degrees to form what I call 'sled runners'. Skids make moving a machine tool on pipe rollers a real easy exercise. Skids also minimize the danger of breaking a cast iron leg on the machine tool during moving. Cut the skids from 4 x 4's or 6 x 6's and use lag screws to fasten the pads at the base of the legs to the skid timbers. Skids make moving a machine tool a whole lot easier than dealing with four individual feet on the bottoms of cast iron legs. Also makes the machine tool a whole lot more stable during the move.

4. Simple methods will work well for moving your lathe. Pipe rollers are plenty good to move the lathe on level surfaces. If the ground or pavement is uneven a sheet or two of plywood works wonders for moves with rollers, as do a couple of wood planks. The plywood spreads the load and the planks create a 'runway' for the rollers.

5. Do not get the idea of putting the lathe up on dollies or similar or using the rollers to get it up onto the trailer. As I like to say about moving machinery up or down inclined surfaces: "Friction is your friend". It is all too easy to have a load on rollers or on dollies get away on an incline and it can happen in the blink o an eye. To get the lathe up onto the trailer, a comealong to drag the lathe on its skids up a ramp (planks ? tailgate with plywood if a steel mesh tailgate ?) is plenty good enough. Similarly, to let the lathe down off the trailer, use two comealongs: one to hold back, and one to drag it down the ramp.

6. In tight quarters, if you have to turn the lathe to get it into place, some smooth plywood and Ivory soap are an old trick. Put some smooth plywood down on the floor and some pieces of smooth plywood with cleats fasted to them under the skids. The cleats keep the plywood pieces in place relative to the skid timbers. Some Ivory soap is a dandy lubricant and an old time rigger's trick used very often. I've used it a number of times. Another approach is to lay down some pieces of any kind of smooth steel such as square tube, or heavy flat bar, put the Ivory soap to them, and drag the lathe and turn it where it needs to go.

7. In a basement, if you have no place to hang a chainfall or comealong and need to re-install the Cullman Wheel drive:
drill a hole thru two consecutive floor joists in the overhead, the closer to a carrying girder or plate in your house framing, the better. This hole should be large
enough to pass a 3/4" or 1" diameter steel pipe thru, with a little clearance to wiggle the pipe as needed. Drill the holes (or use a hole saw) on the horizontal '
centerline of the joists, known in Engineering as the 'neutral axis'. Slide a pipe thru the holes and hang a chainfall or comealong and you have means to hoist up
the Cullman Wheel drive with its heavy cast iron bracket.

8. When you do go to moving the lathe, make sure to position the carriage about midway on the bed and tailstock towards the further end of the bed. This moves the center of gravity away from the headstock end of the lathe. Also make sure you have clamped the tailstock solidly to the bed and locked the carriage in place with the
binder screw. You do not need either the carriage of the tailstock deciding to slide along the bed while you are moving the lathe.

9. Bring some pieces of soft pine lumber or some pieces of old fire hose to protect the bedways and other machined parts when you bind the lathe onto the trailer. Protect machined surfaces with 'softeners' so slings and chains do not rub or cut into them.

10. I use a few bars of varying lengths to move machinery. A 30" long ironworker's 'sleever' bar, having a pointed drift on one end and a pry on the other is often all I need to move machinery of the size of your lathe. I also bring what are called 'setup' of 'flanging wedges'. These are forged steel heat treated wedges made by Armstrong. I drive them between machinery bases and the floor to get things 'started', when I can't get a pinch bar or jack under a machinery base. I also bring a milk crate filled with shims cut from plywood and steel plate or steel flat bar. As soon as I get a little lift on a machinery base with the wedges, I stick shims under it.

NEVER, EVER stick your fingers or toes or any other body parts under machinery that is up on pinch bars, jacks, or hoisting equipment. Things can come down with a sudden bang and lop off anything like fingers and toes.

11. I do not know what your preference in footwear is. All to often, people seem to show up for work around machinery (or moving it) in Nikes or similar. Wear at least a pair of leather work boots with a good sole, and steel safety toes are preferable.

12. Bring a broom and shovel and some 'speedy dry' or cat litter with you. Sweep the floor along your route that the lathe will be moved out of or into place. Cat litter works wonder for cleaning up spilled oil. Even a bit of gravel or a stray nail or 1/4" nut can chock rollers when moving machinery along and make things got to shit in a hurry. Clean the routes.

13. Never get yourself in a 'pinch point' or tight spot between the load an immovable object like a wall, column, parked vehicle or another hunk of machinery.

14. have another person with you and go over the job so both of you understand what needs to be done and how it is going to happen. Weekend warriors who claim to workout at the gym and are more intent on drinking beer and eating pizza are not whom you need along on the move. Preferably, someone who 'knows how to work' and won't turn the job into a scene from the 'Three Stooges' is whom you need on hand. Sometimes 'no help is better than the help offered' with some people.

15. If the trailer has a tilt bed or beaver tail, for unloading, with the lathe on skids, you may not need a ramp at all. As I wrote, above, friction is your friend. Use two comealongs: one to hold back and control the load as it is slid off the trailer, and one to drag it off. Make sure of where you fix the comealongs (known as 'deadmen'). A comealong to hold back and control the load can be made up off the tongue of the trailer, and if you need something solid to pull the load down and off the trailer, another vehicle's hitch, or a solid part of the building can be used. DO not do anything like putting a sling or chain around a column in a garage or building to pull off of. In the worst case, putting a few wedge-bolt type concrete anchors in a garage floor slab and bolting a piece of angle iron with a hole for a shackle is plenty good for this sort of thing. Afterwards, an angle grinder and cutoff wheel take care of the anchor bolts and a little 'waterplug cement' on top of the bolts in the bolt holes finishes the restoration.

Thing about each move, make sketches, take measurements... if need be, make a scale drawing of the buildings and the route the lathe has to go on to get to its new location. Cut a piece of cardboard or file folder to the scaled size of the lathe in plan view and move it over the route if you have concerns as to tight turns.

I am sure you will be fine with the moving of the lathe, and a bit of 'head work' done up front, and coming to the move with everything you can remotely think of is not a bad idea. Upstate, we get rough sawn timbers from the local sawmill for skidding machinery, and we all own and use chainsaws. I bring an electric impact wrench for driving lag screws as I do not like to spend too much time hunkered down with a ratchet wrench. I bring shackles, chains, slings, comealongs, wedges, sledges, bars, shims, a box of tools, pinch bars, rollers, drill and bits, electric impact gun, lag screws and steel plate washers, and anything else that seems remotely needed to this sort of thing. I learned a long time ago that, no matter how much stuff you think you've brought, even if it looks like you went way overboard, once on the job there will be a good chance something you did not bring will bite you on your ass. Who needs to ditch off a job to run to the local supply stores- assuming they have what you need ? Years ago, some of us were moving some railroad passenger cars near Kingston, NY. We were working with a wildman of a rigger named Andy Burr. Burr was an oldtime rigger, and he had brought as gasoline driven hydraulic pumping unit and some big hydraulic rams to life the railroad cars off their trucks for a move on his 'housemover' type road dollies. We got the railroad cars up on 'cribbing' (timbers stacked log-cabin fashion) to support them, and had to turn each car 90 degrees to the rails and begin sliding them off and onto the road dollies. Burr went to the cab or his ancient Mack truck ( a beavertail with a winch) that he had left parked on site. Next thing I heard was 'RATS !!! F--N RATS !!!!' coming from the Andy Burr. I ran over to see what was up and Burr was cursing a blue streak (his usual manner, only a few times louder). Rats, quite literally, had gotten into the cab of his old Mack and had devoured a number of bars of Ivory soap he had kept there for this move. "Joe... shag your ass to the nearest store and bring back a s--tpot load of Ivory Soap" was what Burr hollered at me. I jumped in my pickup and made for the nearest hamlet where there was a small country store. I cleaned them out (sorry for the pun) of Ivory soap. I came back to find our crew plus Andy Burr all standing around burning daylight for want of that Ivory Soap. We soaped up the slide plates and moved the railroad car quickly enough, turned it 90 degrees and got it on Burr's dollies before darkness shut us down. Next day, Burr began the move of the railroad car up from Kingston to Phoenicia, NY. Burr did not bother with escort vehicles or permits. He was in a stake rack truck with his rigging and the hydraulic power unit, driving up Route 28 straddling the centerline. Behind him came a 10 wheel dump truck with a load of ballast stone (for the offloading pads to rig the railroad car back onto the tracks), dragging the railroad car on its dollies. Behind that trailed our guys in an assortment of pickup trucks loaded with tools, a couple of engine driven welders, cutting outfits and similar. The parade came to a halt when some yuppie in a fancy car refused to get onto the shoulder to let the load pass by. Burr solved it handily. He hopped out of his stake rack truck and went over to the car that would not pull aside. Burr hollered at the driver to get on the shoulder, and threatened to bust the guy's window, drag his skinny ass out and beat the living s--t out of him right then and there. We all had climbed out of our respective pickups and were, of course, hollering encouragement to Andy Burr. The guy in the car suddenly realized his life expectancy might be a matter of seconds if he did not get onto the shoulder. We made it up the road and rigged that railroad car off the dollies and onto its trucks with the rest of the Ivory Soap I'd bought at the start of the move.

In short, don't think you have brought all you need to a rigging or machinery moving job. Stuff that you did not think of may suddenly be needed, or stuff you actually saw in your shop or garage and figured you did not need will be the very thing you should have brought.

Andy Burr rigged and moved a lot of machinery and railroad equipment over the years. He was a real oldtime rigger. Somewhere along the line, he got the idea of "retiring" by opening a roadside zoo and having a narrow gauge German steam tank locomotive running on an oval of track at his place in Honesdale, PA. Burr accumulated a menagerie of animals, notably a number of black bears. Permits and other things needed to open the zoo never happened, and Burr was working to maintain proper habitats for his menagerie, as well as driving a variety of beater trucks to slaughterhouses to get food for his 'big cats' and his other animals. Burr used to call me at about 0430, and he always was shouting and we'd hear various animals and birds raising hell in the background. I always enjoyed working with Andy Burr, and he was one of the oldtime riggers for whom skid-steer loaders, all terrain forklifts and similar were neither known nor needed. It was ropefalls, chainfalls, a capstan type winch on his truck, and plenty of ingenuity and methods not unlike those used to build the Great Pyramids in the days of the Pharoahs. We never had an accident or had a load get away from us working with him, and we moved a number of railroad cars as well as a few heavy 'war production board' machine tools working with him. Take your time, think things through, and do not take shortcuts or chances. You will do fine.
 
Since your lathe is smaller and appears lighter than the one shown in this thread ,
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...ht-home-241651/?highlight=London+Machine+Tool
You might not need as heavy skids as this one that is along the lines of the one so well described by Joe Michaels .
They take some effort to make but well worth the extra stability .
Having a hoist to lift the lathe onto a skid will be very helpful but a bit lower skid say 4”thick should still be strong enough and make it easier to lower the lathe to the floor in its new home afterwards but you have to be careful getting it off the skid.
Regards,
Jim
 
Joe I have paid good money for books with much less useful information than you provided me with. Love the idea of the skids and will definitely be employing that. Soap idea seems so simple but honestly not sure my mind would have gone there. Thanks for taking time to post this. I feel more confident already.
 
Cjiptosser:

I am glad you found what I posted to be of some help. Soap is a lubricant, and with relatively smooth sliding surfaces (such as plywood or steel plate or flatbar), the force needed to move a load drops dramatically. Simple physics.

Another hint: if you are moving a load on sliding plates (or plywood), it does not take much to 'chock' the load. A pebble or piece of gravel, a stray 1/4" nut, nail, or other small bit of junk or debris can lock one of the slide plates and cause a load to turn suddenly when being pulled or pushed along. Keep an eye out for this sort of thing.

Where in New Jersey are you located ? My wife is an Englishtown girl, born and raised in Englishtown until she was 15 years of age. Wife is now going to turn 65, so it's been 50 years since her folks moved from there to Florida. We go back to Englishtown to visit her parents' graves, but the place has changed from small town USA with dairy farms to suburbia.

Staten Island was also an interesting borough of NYC. Before the Verazzano bridge was built, Staten Island was semi-rural. There was and still are working shipyards on Staten Island, as well as the old Staten Island Rapid Transit system (then a branch of the B & O RR) along with chemical plants. There was enough industry right on Staten Island for your lathe to have come from any number of places right there.

When you do get the lathe aboard a trailer, make sure to bind it down securely. I like to place 'dunnage' (timber or wood) between a load on skids and the header of the bed of a truck or trailer. In that way, if there is a sudden hard application of brakes, the load is solidly blocked from sliding forward. You can't put too many strap binders on a load, in my opinion. Take care when binding the lathe to the trailer bed not to pull a binder under strain across the lead screw or other machine parts that might be sprung or bent as a result. Putting binders over the bedways with softeners to protect the ways is OK, and putting binders thru the 'girths' or cross braces cast between the two sides of the bed is also a solid way to lash things down.

Inspect strap binders for damage before use. A slight cut or fraying of a woven strap binder can quickly part company under strain when you are on the road. Binders are cheap compared to the consequences of having a lathe get loose on a trailer out on the road.

Best of luck and please keep us posted as to how your move goes.
 
Great points again Joe. I think I am going to need a small loan and a separate trailer to incorporate all these great ideas into my move. Funny thing is I thought I was prepared with what I was bringing, now I am planning a trip to the store with some plastic money and a list that looks like my wife's bank statement. Oh and I am not that far from Englishtown. It's about an hour south of me. I am planning on making the move Friday or Saturday and will definitely post some pictures here once she is in her final resting place. Really appreciate the help guys! Hope I can return the favor one day.
 
Chiptosser:

Good luck on the move of your lathe, I am sure you will do fine. Given the Covid-19 situation and family member's medical issues ( unrelated to Covid-19, and resolving well, thankfully) last week, I am pretty much sticking close to home. I am often tempted to load up the pickup and go help guys like yourself and get to know the people we carry on this sort of 'correspondence' with when they are in relatively close reach of my own location. But, as my wife has been saying for almost 35 years regarding my taking on other people's projects and similar: "The shoemaker's kids go barefoot around here". So, I've been in a burst of doing work around the house that is as much as 30 years overdue, and my wife is delighted. Of course, if you go to doing work around your house and 'just happen' to make specialized hardware out of steel in your shop using a lathe, mill, and TIG welder, wife may think you are beyond golden and encourage you to keep at it with your shop, adding tools and tooling. I will be moving my forge hearth (with the tractor) to forge some handrails for the entry steps to our house, only 30 years overdue, and the nice part is wife likes to help me at the forge. Shopwork is always therapeutic when issues affecting the health and well being of my family come along.

I am sure you will do fine with the move of the lathe, and know you will find your way into using it to the point you will be wondering how you ever lived without it.
After you add such necessities as a milling machine, maybe an oxyacetylene outfit and perhaps a stick/TIG welder, and a mess of micrometers, dial indicators, end mill cutters, and endless numbers of lathe tool bits ground for special jobs, you will tackle jobs you never envisioned and-in all likelihood- be held in a mixture of awe and suspicions as to your mental state. Neighbors and relatives may stop inviting you to parties and the like, thinking you 'do not fit in', but who needs to listen to their line of BS when you can be working in your shop doing something rewarding, constructive, and useful ? You will find you have a lower threshold for the kind of talk people fill their time with, dealing with the mundane and material world, or speaking of cutting deals or commissions on sales, while usually not producing any useful, let alone real or necessary product. You will walk into the local delicatessen or supermarket deli counter and ask for sliced cold cuts in terms of 32'nds of an inch, and you will interpret the meat scale readings from the decimals of a pound to fractional parts of a pound as machinists tend to do- handling 'shop math' in your head without really thinking about it. People will look at you strangely when you blurt out how much change you are due on a store purchase, or speak in terms of meat sliced 3/32" thick, or when the scale hits 0.44 pounds, you will tell the deli counter guys: "Gimme another 0.06 pounds, willya ? I wanted a half pound..." You are entering a new league, so welcome !
 
Just be aware the zero option for moving a machine like this, is to dismantle it into bite-sized chunks, which can be moved by hand.

Bring strong, young backs. Lots of them!
 








 
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