Hardinge Lathe Dilemma

Hello there,

New to the forum.

Traded TR-59 spit bed lathe from my landlord. He got it at an auction, had it for a number of years, never hooked up. The machine is in a relatively good condition cosmetically, no rust. The spindle moves freely. The bed shows some wear, not unusual for a machine built likely before 1946.

I brought it to my shop, cleaned it with WD-40, hooked it up to three phase, flipped the ON switch... and nothing. The electrical box looks pretty antiquated.

The turret slide, cross slide, and tail stock, all need cleaning and possibly some work - turret slide doesn't index, and tail stock seems to be stuck.

So here is my dilemma - try to repair this lathe or sell it for parts and get one under power, possibly DV59. There is a nice DV59 / DSM59 withing a few miles from me, but I don't have room for two.

I am knife maker, so the lathe will be used occasionally for small projects.

If the consensus is to sell for parts, what can I fetch for it? The asking price for DV59 / DSM59 is $1150. I might be able to get the price down to a $1000. It could be nice if I could fetch a price close to what it would cost me to buy DV-59.

Thank you,

Marko

Well just my opinion, you have a lathe that. Sounds like most parts that have value might need work so no longer have much value. And working lathes of its kind go for relatively cheap, so I don't think the parts are worth much, but maybe several hundred after work, cleaning, selling.
A few hours with a meter and you should know why it's not running. I would figure it out, clean it up a little and re evaluative, you might have a decent lathe and just not know it yet, after going through it you will have an idea of what parts are good enough to sell if not

"...hooked it up to three phase, flipped the ON switch... and nothing..."

There are three switches, plus the reset buttons that need to be thrown to get the motor to start, if it has the normal two-speed motor. More pictures showing the whole lathe and the motor and the motor name plate will help.

That is the most modern electrical box I have seen on a TR or ESM model.

Larry

Thank you all for responding.

I flipped ON shut-off switch outside the lathe, then pushed ON button on the front of the unit, then engaged the Forward gear and Low speed gear. I didn't push the Reset button in electrical box. Will try today and will take additional pictures.


Marko

Some new pictures. There is a shut off switch on the back of the lathe table, and On/Off button on the front. I pressed Reset buttons in the electrical box, tried to start the lathe again, no luck.

Will try to find somebody who is a bit more knowledgeable about wiring to trouble-shoot the problem.

Thanks,

Marko