Ok, but what about lathes ?

Hey you all !

You spend a lot of time talking about DECKEL, ACIERA, SCHAUBLIN or ABENE mills...
One could even wonder if it happens to you to turn something...

That leads us to the magic question : what would be your lathe of choice to mate these marvels ?

I'd like to know more...

Pics welcome !

If you are talking about non-CNC lathes, stop searching and just go and buy a Hardinge lathe and be done with it. They made and continue to make the best manual lathes. Let's see, an HLV-H weighs about 1700lbs. and that's how many ounces? and the price of gold is ? Multiply price of gold per ounce x Hardinge weight in ounces equals price ?

Oh, I forgot to mention a very important item! There's tons of tooling out there new and used for Hardinge lathes and the company is still alive and doing well and can sell you parts unlike a certain milling machine whose name i won't mention.

I tend to agree about the Hardinge HLV-H, but I sure would like to get my hands on a Schaublin 150 to see for myself. The 150 is the most impressive looking lathe I've ever seen, but I've heard the actual operation of one is something you have to get used to. I'm still kicking myself for not buying a Schaublin 135 I ran across in Miami about 2 years ago. It was at a dealer, but he didn't really know what he had...and neither did I at the time. I knew it was very nice and rare, but didn't realize until a year later just how rare.
There was once a Schaublin 150 for sale in the USA on eBay believe it or not, complete with Swiss DRO and tooling. But the reserve turned out to be something like $30,000



This one is for sale in Switzerland, and looks pretty nice except for the antique DRO. I guess the Swiss like to play chess on the floor during breaks, huh ?



[This message has been edited by D. Thomas (edited 09-18-2002).]

Well guys, we might as well add the rivett 1020s and the rivett 1030s to the list of great american lathes also, except parts and accessories can't be found like the Hardinge.If someone has pics of a restored one,they may want to amaze those who have never seen one.

Gotta Say HLV-H here too. I don't have one yet, but eventually I will.
To me, it's the closest to the Deckel, with a fairly large amount of acc's and attachments available (meaning like ebay available).
Monarchs are cool too, but it's the HLV-H for me.
My current lathe is much larger and is made by Bridgeport/Romi in Brazil. A nice lathe which is tooled to the hilt (really), and I will still keep it after I get a Hardinge.


Sean

Okay, you all agree for HARDINGE.

But just tell me what makes theses lathes so special (Never seen one in the real world).

A friend of mine just bought a french CAZENEUVE HBX-360 BC, and I'll tell you more about this marvellous toolroom lathe in the Machinery Photos forum in the next days.

I also would like to know more about the SCHAUBLIN 125-150 line. Theses lathes appear to be very sought-after and expensive. There must be a good reason...

If someone can help, (but may be we should start a new topic for the lathe question)

To end up, I'd like to know what type of tooling you really need with a lathe. You're talking about the HARDINGE stuff availability, but what could you want more, once you've got a good Multifix toolpost, steady & following rests, and a good set o' collets (I assume the 3 jaws chuck comes standard with any serious lathe)?

The German made Weiler is very nice. I've seen some Weiler's for sale in the USA used market, but they were always the older designs, never seen a nice modern one like this for sale used.

As Mr. Thomas and Mr. Binh post more pictures of superb european equipment, I begin to see where the Asians are getting their mould masters from. Most of us "west of the Atlantic" types are used to seeing 40's and 50's American machinery, with very little exposure to modern European equipment.

Now before everyone pounces on me for even mentioning Asian knock-offs in the same sentence with European models, I am only commenting on the family resemblence - not the world's apart difference in quality.

If I squint my eyes just right, I can sort of see what you mean with regards to the Weiler, but I've never ever seen a single Asian machine that even remotely looked like a Schaublin 150.

This is in responce to T. Nguyen Binh's questions about the Hardinge. There is a separate Hardinge forum and this is the Deckel, Aciera etc. site so I don't want to beat this subject to death in this forum.

The best summary of what makes the Hardinge special is Tony's article at WWW.lathes.co.uk. Read this section and you will get a good overvue.

My personal experience stems from the fact that for the last 10 years of visiting machinery repair and rebuilding shops in Oregon and California, everyone of these shops with no exceptions had a Hardinge lathe that was not for sell and was their working lathe used to make parts for the lathes that they were rebuilding. They would not even discuss selling their Hardinge. You have to admit that if machinery rebuild shops revor this lathe there must be some substance to it.

As far as tooling goes, we are talking the basics ie chucks, collets, live centers, follow rests etc. but i don't need to remind you that even the basic tooling is hard to find for the Deckel, Aciera group which means buy the machine and spend a year trying to get up and running.

Now, let me clear the air here by reemphasizing that I will eventually obtain all I need for my FP-1. I am confident of that. The more I work with this machine the more in awe of it I am.

Over the years I have taken a number of courses at our local community college in milling and lathe work where series 1 Bridgeports are the rule. They are great mills but they don't have the universal capacity of the Deckel, are larger and despite what Sean says and my limited experience with the Deckel, the Deckel seems to be able to cut as agressively as the Bridgeport. Yes, there are other milling attachments that you can buy for the Bridgeport but they are work arounds and my teacher at the community college who was a tool and diemaker for twenty years says it is "too much trouble to mount the horizontal arbor, slotting head etc,, on the Bridgeport" not so with the Deckel.

I have to admit that I have heard good things about the Schaublin but have no experience with it. The American made Rivett is new to me but it is listed in lathe archive and my interest has been piqued so I'll read about it...but i don't need and can't afford another lathe (not that I wouldn't like to have one... now if I could just be Bill Gates for a day and have his bank account).
Interesting to read D. Thomas's experience with the missed bargain on the Schaublin. I have had a couple of those type of experiencies and still grieve over them. I remember finding a Southbend 9A that had been mothballed for 20 years and the hand scraping on the ways was pristine and what a bargain ! It took me a couple a months to realize how stupid i was for passing it up.

The only time I can recall really siezing that type of deal was a 0 to 21/2 inch snap gage from starrett with stand that sells for $1250.00. Found it in a local pawn shop, bought it for $68.00 and took it to a local calibration shop that said it was perfect. You should have seen the look on the precision instrument guy's face when I told him what I payed for it. I keep hoping it will happen again.

best regards
noahjlb

I am surprised that no one seems to have heard of Dean Smith & Grace, the "Rolls-Royce" of UK lathes. I guess they aren't common in North America? Admittedly, they are generally larger than the lathes mentioned so far, they are 'real' machines!
My memories of the DS&Gs are the way every lever "falls to hand", ie, is just in the right spot for the operator, and the levers move with the lightest touch, nothing clunky on these lathes. They are made for full time turning, year after year, a pleasure to use and look at.
Having said that, I worked in a toolroom with about 10 lathes, including DS&G, and the "lathe of choice" was usually a Graziano, mainly because they were so fast, ie instant speed change and reversal etc. at the flick of the wrist (electric change). The other lathes seemed tedious after a Sag 12...
Colchester never impressed me, probably solid and reliable, but very clunky to use and average quality, it seemed to me...

I wouldn't assume no one has heard of Dean Smith and Grace just because they aren't mentioned in this thread. Axelson, Lodge and Shipley, LeBlond, Monarch and others made some beautiful machines also, but with exceptions to Monarch and LeBlond, they, like DS&G, tended toward larger machines and I had the impression T wanted to discuss home or model shop size lathes in the ultra precision class.

Mister T

a Schaublin 125 is about the same size as the Hardinge , both have very usefull threading stops.
Of course it`s an all metric machine and kind of a smaller nephew of the 135 and 150.
(not as clumsy and heavy that is and without the rapid traverse saddle)
You can see one at tony`s lathes site.
If anyone wants more info about it just give a call.
(I was lucky enough to work with a 125 , a 150 and a HLV during my training)

Last remark (second time )) : this is the best machining site I`ve ever seen!

Best Regards , Lambert

Lambert, did you know about this dealer in your country- (or was it you that told me about them in the first place ?)
www.keetels.nl/index.htm ? VERY cool equipment. What's a AI draaibank lathe ?

[This message has been edited by D. Thomas (edited 10-11-2002).]

D.Thomas ,

Yep , knew the site already (excellent struff there indeed)
If you like to see some more companies :
www.vaneldik.com (where we bought our Aciera F3)
www.deleeuw-machinehandel.nl
www.fps-service.de

About AI : `draaibank` is dutch for lathe...as you probably had seen on the picture.
For details the easy way : tony`s lathes ; look for `Hembrug AI`.
The AI lathe is a verry massive toolmakers lathe built in The Netherlands.
Excellent to work with , verry accurate , about same size as a Weiler Matador or Colchester Bantam.

Greetings , Lambert

These fine looking machines seem to have been made in Holland. This excerpt is from my Hubners Machine Tool Specs books, which was USA based...any yet I've never seen a single one of these lathes in the USA.



[This message has been edited by D. Thomas (edited 10-11-2002).]

It is made in Holland....untill production stopped about early 1980`s.
The Hembrug model DR 1 as seen at tony`s lathes is a 1950`s predecessor of this ergonomic model.
Hembrug still exists though , nowadays they`re manufacturing all hydrostatic lathes.

And I find it quite amazing that you`ve actually been able to find a picture of one of these things !
They`re not verry well known outside the netherlands.

Regards , Lambert

Besides the interesting angled bed, it appears from small photos that the bed is the opposite of a Hardinge bed, a female dovetail rather than the male dovetail bed of a modern Hardinge. Is this true or an optical illusion ?

In fact the bed has no dovetail at all.....
It are `just` 2 square bedways , I don`t know a proper name for this construction in english.
(I guess the double prism as seen on the older DR 1 model became to expensive to make)

All in all the slantbed configuration takes a bit of getting used to , afterwards it works just fine although sitting whilst maching didn`t work for me .