Yet another old lathe ID, please...

Can anyone tell me what make and model this is?



And any chance anyone has a pic of a complete version? And specs, if possible- swing and centers, spindle bore, number of probable speeds, approximate age/date-of-manufacture, etc.

It's obviously missing the entire cross-slide and compound, the carriage handwheel is broken off entirely, and it's been sitting out in the weather for untold decades. The spindle does not turn, but the leadscrew selector at least moves a bit.

There's a plate, obviously not original, roughly bolted to the top that looks like a later motor-mount conversion. I'm not sure how it's driven, unless that drum on the end is a fancy flat-belt pully/clutch or something.

I might be able to salvage it. The land has been apparently abandoned- there's no structures, just this junk, and evidence it's all been there since a brush fire. The bed the lathe is on (it's the flatbed of a truck) is partially burned through, and some of the other junk and cars also show minor to extensive fire damage.

Supposedly, the last brush fire to run through here was sometime around 1968, so it's not unreasonable to assume it's all been there at least that long. We're hoping to find whoever owns the property, but it may just be owned by a bank or some people that now live out of state or something.

Doc.

Is that a soda can out front? It's hard to tell the scale in the pix you gave us.

Joe

Yes, the yellow thing is a can of "Squirt" soda. You can also see the top of my 35mm Minolta camera at the bottom of the frame. I didn't have a tape with me, but I'm roughly guessing the chuck is at least 12", probably closer to 14", with probably as much as an 18" swing. Rough guess of anywhere from 48" to 56" or so between centers. I'd say the whole thing is at least eight feet long.

The chuck is a 4-jaw with four additional T-slots.

Unfortunately, I didn't look to see how the chuck attached, and I didn't notice the brass plate at the base of the headstock until I was looking at the photos later. I didn't have a whole lot of time to poke around.

Doc.

Lodge and Shipley gets my vote. Range box for the feeds, and the tumbler under the headstock are strong indicators for me. What is left of the carriage also indicates LS: the star knobs, and the oil trough around the front. I think the threading stop mechanism can be seen on the cross feed screw as well. Looks like the half-nut lever is mostly there, but the chasing dial has departed. Tailstock is pure LS.

While all the above characteristics point to LS, the headstock is a type that I have never seen in person, but do remember it from when this posting was new.

What say Mr. Oder?

The left "star" wheel is actually (unless I'm mistaken) the remnants of a handwheel, with the outer ring and spokes broken off.

Doc.

Old 'Arn Disease Strikes Again !

Doc,

Unless the lathe itself is scorched, the existence of scorching on the wooden flatbed is not proof that the lathe was there since before the last brushfire, unless maybe when you moved the lathe, you saw a pattern that showed the lathe had protected part of the wooden deck. The lathe could have been placed on the flatbed AFTER the fire.

That said, this is among the most weathered lathes discussed on AM&H since I joined! About the only ones I can recall worse than this are the Sidney that xTrucker tried to save and the "Southern Belle", although I think the Belle wasn't quite as bad as this.

The busted handwheel probably means it was dropped.

It's had its legs amputated !

You can "fake" a cross slide and a compound. Maybe not a great one, but something that will make chips. Might be able to adapt something from somebody's scrap heap. (And don't forget to bring a metal detector and search the surrounding ground for missing pieces.)

Random Thought: The town or the County has records of who owns every parcel of land.

The whole thing reminds me of a line from a C.W. McCall song, which I will adapt:
"I seen better stuff in a junkyard! Where did you get that lathe!"

Good Luck, because I know you are already hooked and you are at least going to make a stab at it. - John Ruth

The Carriage hand wheel placement is hidden behind the remnants of the cover, or whatever towards the left hand end of the apron. the "broken" star wheel is the control of the longitudinal feed on LS lathes. the right hand star is the control for the cross feed.

Just noticed that the star is five-pointed, whereas LS hand wheels are six-spoke, witness the wheel on the TS.

Okay, for lack of anything better to do (he says with tongue firmly in cheek) I made the trip out to have another look. That first photo above is some five, possibly six years old, taken with my old 1.3mp point-and-shoot digicam.

It has grown up substantially around the lathe since then, and the bed of the truck has collapsed even further. But I was able to shoot some more photos, and can confirm that it is indeed a Lodge & Shipley.



It's kind of hard to read in the reduced pic, but it very definitely says "Lodge & Shipley" in 1-1/2" tall letters cast in to the bed. And here's the aforementioned brass tag:



The threading chart tag is still there, but worn almost smooth, and is basically illegible:



But it does say D 18-E.20 at the bottom, which is stamped in rather than etched. I don't think it's a serial number, but I thought it might be a model number.

And you can see here how much further it's collapsed into the truck bed:



And last, a gratuitous shot of the chuck:



I still couldn't see how it attaches, so I'm assuming it's threaded. There's no obvious locking ring, collar, or (of course) camlok pins.

The top of the headstock has two mounting flanges where something was clearly bolted. There's a rough shop-fabbed motor mounting plate there now, but apparently originally there was something else- a flat belt idler, maybe, or a motor/gearbox/transmission assembly, perhaps one that drove the drum/clutch looking thing via a spur gear...?

So I guess the question is, are any parts available? I've seen more than one L&S parted out on this board, and I know there's a few enthusiasts with good collections... Not too worried about the legs (or columns, or whatever) but the drive parts, the missing compound and cross slide, and damaged apron parts might push the difficulty level past "a challenge" and into the "forget it" range.

Doc.

SouthBendModel34 said:

The lathe could have been placed on the flatbed AFTER the fire.

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-Possible, but unlikely. The fire part is a guess, as is the date. One of the other vehicles has 1985 tags, but there's no reason it couldn't have arrived later (or, for that matter, even earlier.)

Most of the signs of fire have been grown over, been covered up, or rotted away, but there's every indication (blackened dead trees) that most of this junk was basically right where it was when the brushfire came through, though there's also every indication said fire was a lot more recent than '68.

The Carriage hand wheel placement is hidden behind the remnants of the cover, or whatever towards the left hand end of the apron. the "broken" star wheel is the control of the longitudinal feed on LS lathes. the right hand star is the control for the cross feed.

Click to expand...

-We're both right. In the first pic, you can see both "knobs", both of which appear intact. But on the far left of the apron (not shown in any of these pics) is the handwheel, which is- was- indeed six-spoked, and is almost completely missing except for about one inch of one spoke.

Doc.

L&S did that style of gear head for a short time before going to the first (and much more well-known) Selective head.
Doc, I have some 20" L&S cabinet legs that might fit it, if you can figure out a way to get them to Alaska.
Andy

By "cabinet legs" do you mean something like these? I'd definitely be interested- any chance you can get 'em shifted over to Illinois? I have someone in a small truck coming up in September, and leaving from the central Illinois area.

So this unit probably predates the Selective? That'd put it when, about the 19-teens or so?

Doc.

The car guy in me is wondering what that rounded sheetmetal thing is behind the flat bed in your first pic.
Looks like the rear portion of an old bus, or a rounded truck like a Suburban.

Any cool looking cars there with the engines still in 'em? I'll chase down any lead on a 409 or early Chrysler Hemi! (of course, so will most everyone else...)

-Brad

Sorry, the "rounded thing" is the tail end of an aluminum "Airstream" style camper- not an actual Airstream, but sort of the same idea. Complete junk, partially collapsed from snow loads.

No useful vehicles- there's this truck (old cabover of some sort, possibly Chevy) and another large industrial truck. Both are pretty well aged- salvageable, perhaps, by a dedicated sort, but not what you'd call hotrod material.

And if I knew of a 409 or a Hemi, you think I'd tell anyone about them? At least, before I had them firmly and securely ensconced in my own shop?

Doc.

DocsMachine said:

By "cabinet legs" do you mean something like these? I'd definitely be interested- any chance you can get 'em shifted over to Illinois? I have someone in a small truck coming up in September, and leaving from the central Illinois area.

So this unit probably predates the Selective? That'd put it when, about the 19-teens or so?

Doc.

Click to expand...

Doc,
Yes, the same thing, including the center leg. They came off a 1916 20" selective head. I will get you some measurements so you can see if they will actually fit easily or not.
Andy

Doc,

Oh, going back for a second visit is a sign that you "have it baaaaaad! She's calling your name, isn't she ? I can't think of a single machine which I visited more than once that didn't eventually end up at my house.

Next visit, slop some Kroil around so it can start soaking in.

John

John

Thanks Andy. Standing by.

SB- I certainly wouldn't mind having it, and I actually wouldn't mind the challenge of restoring it, but obviously there's issues I need to keep in mind.

I've been looking up old threads on L&S's, and going over a lot of John's scans and whatnot, and I have yet to see another with this same style of headstock. If this one's an oddball one-or-two-year orphan, that makes finding parts just that much more difficult over something that'll already be tricky (and expensive) to fix as it is.

Parts of the apron are broken (handwheel, a lever) the cross slide and compound are missing entirely, I think it needs a left-side gear cover, and probably parts of the geartrain... If it's anything like the other L&S's, it's missing the feed rod and carriers, and obviously missing the feet/legs/columns... and that doesn't even count the stuff that'll need to be replaced due to rust.

I'd certainly like to hear what Mr. Oder thinks, though. If it IS kind of an 'orphan', it might be worth saving just for the rarity/obscurity- but I can't afford the time or shop space for a static display piece. I need to be able to use it.

Doc.

Anyone have an idea what this thing might weigh in this condition? I'm not sure we could even get it down safely without a crane, and there's no road access at the moment.

Doc.

Doc,
Figure out what size/swing is. I have many other parts from the 1916 20", including cross slide (I think) and compound.
Andy

What say Mr. Oder?

Click to expand...

This is the early Selective Head, or "old style" as the factory says in the twenties parts book. It was made (as I think Andy already said) in between the Patent Head and the far more numerous later Selective Head, I.E., briefly in the early mid teens. All gone by the 1916 catalog.

Here is a little one:



None of them had a feed rod, just a clutch actuation rod on the later SH along the bottom front.

The four bolts in the TS say it is at least an 18"

Anyone have an idea what this thing might weigh in this condition?

Click to expand...

An 18" Patent Head (with legs) about 5 ft centers was about 4200 in the 1910 catalog.

It appears to have the small double nose spindle, a precursor of the L1, it appeared first on these machines. This will be a 6 3/4" OD spindle flange with an INTERNAL 5 1/2 - 6 thread and 3.000" straight spigot to set chuck on before you started threading it on. The spindle tooling is unique, with a big male thread sticking out the back. You can see this style spindle nose in the larger size in my Worked Good! thread.

The stamped numbers at the lower edge of the QC tag (actually riveted on range box) say what size lathes you could put it on, I.E., 18 and 20". It will be VERY interesting to know if this is a "raised" L&S. All of them were thus by the 1916 catalog. I.E. if you bought a 1916 18" lathe from L&S, you got 20 1/4" of swing. My 1917 (later SH) 24" swings 27 1/2".

Serial will be right rear, stamped in machined iron between the two REAR vees. It will be a five digit number. Here is the list. http://www.machinetoolclearinghouse.com/lodgelat.htm

John Oder