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1953 American Pacemaker 14 x 30 - New to me

slodat

Aluminum
Joined
Jun 8, 2010
Location
Vancouver, WA
This is my first real lathe. I’ve been looking for a few years and this one worked out.

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1953 American Tool Works Pacemaker 14 x 30. 15HP spindle, taper attachment. I am stoked to say the least!
 
There is a gentleman , forum member named Walter that makes the spanners needed to remove your chuck.Here is a link

FS: "L" Series Spanners

I think Walter is now retired. I believe this is his daughter. I bought an L0 for a LeBlond and an L1 for my Pacemaker. Still make an awesome Spanner!

Barbara Mastej
Parkway Manufacturing Co., Inc.
757-896-9712
[email protected]




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I think Walter is now retired. I believe this is his daughter. I bought an L0 for a LeBlond and an L1 for my Pacemaker. Still make an awesome Spanner!

Barbara Mastej
Parkway Manufacturing Co., Inc.
757-896-9712
[email protected]




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Just saw this post from him a month ago, that he was in the hospital. Anyone know how he's doing ?

FS: "L" Series Spanners

Edit* I emailed Walters daughter, Barbara. Walter did spend a couple months in the hospital for his heart. He's home now, doing therapy.

She'll handle the spanners for now.
 
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Well... I had planned on having a telehandler delivered to get the lathe off the trailer and into the shop. I was watching Pacemaker videos last night and came across a guy unloading a bigger one with his two post lift. My two buddies came over this morning and we went to work. I don’t have pictures because it weighs 5000 pounds and moving it is no joke.

Backed the trailer into the lift bay. It was a close fit, but it fit. Used some large aluminum bar that I had to go under the bed and tie each pair of lift arms together. Used big F clamps to keep all that in place. Test lift went well so we lifted it off the deck a few inches and drove the trailer out. Lowered it onto several chunks of 1/2 pipe. There was no moving it easily. Ended up using an old chain fall to drag it on the pipe with the machinery bar. It had to go about 5’, turn 90 and then over about 16’. All told took 2.5 hours. It’s in its final resting spot, safely on the floor.

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I’m waiting on a breaker to supply the phase converter. Once I have that, I’ll temporarily power it directly from the phase converter and see how it goes. Hopefully that works well. 15HP is a LOT of motor. Many had 7.5hp and I wish this one did. Nonetheless, if the phase converter works I’ll send its output to a 3 phase panel and a feeder from the panel to the lathe. If it doesn’t, I’ll be buying a vfd similar to what powers the my mill and use it as a phase converter only.

Lathe needs some cleaning and a basic going over.

I am spent. Moving this thing was a chore.
 
If I hadn’t just upgraded to a 16” P&W “C” I’d have bought that lathe last month. I was amazed it didn’t sell quicker, looked like a great value and amazing machine! I tried to make my friend buy it for his shop but I think he’s a little too ignorant to regret not having done so, lol. Congrats!
 
If I hadn’t just upgraded to a 16” P&W “C” I’d have bought that lathe last month. I was amazed it didn’t sell quicker, looked like a great value and amazing machine! I tried to make my friend buy it for his shop but I think he’s a little too ignorant to regret not having done so, lol. Congrats!

I had talked with the seller two times prior to last week. As the price came down, I of course became more interested. Then I got my bonus Thursday morning.. picked the machine up Friday. I am beyond excited. I can’t believe it was out there for so long.
 
I had talked with the seller two times prior to last week. As the price came down, I of course became more interested. Then I got my bonus Thursday morning.. picked the machine up Friday. I am beyond excited. I can’t believe it was out there for so long.

Not the sort of machine to have in the bedroom when you can't get to sleep.

Tom
 
I left the lathe powered up from the temporary setup while I wait for supplies to install it all. Enough tooling arrived to take a cut on some 7/8 4140 I had on hand. I also have a 7/8 2J collet. The rigidity and amount of raw power this lathe has can not be understated. This is my first chips on the lathe:

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Went through half a bottle of simple green wiping it down. Still need to do the pedestals below the coolant trays. This is about as good as it’s going to look without a partial tear down and painting. I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze to do that at this point. It’s a working machine. The ways are in amazingly good shape. Especially for having been a shipyard machine it’s whole life. A testament to how we built these Pacemakers are.

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I ordered some shop built machinery skates and a pair of Eastern Rigging Supply nose bars so I can move the lathe a little. It’s not quite in its forever home and I’ve already used the pipe one time more tha I would have liked on this machine. Worked great on the Tree CNC mill. Not so much on the lathe.
 
You have to feel like you won the lottery. Well done. Dave

Dave- absolutely! It's an incredible machine. I'm sure there are plenty of guys that will shun me because it's my first real lathe. About 13 years ago I had a little Logan and it didn't how power cross feed. I sold it and got a SB16. It had issues and I never really got it up and running before having to sell it to move where I live now. I will say, the Pacemaker is quite intimidating. Everything I'm reading says two things: it can kill me and it doesn't stall.. it breaks something. All in all, to my untrained eyes it looks like it's complete for my needs. It looks like there are two covers missing on the far side of the cross slide and the taper attachment is missing the connection to the V way. I'm thinking I could make that piece. I'm not sure I'll use the taper attachment anytime soon. Bottom line is I'm having fun!
 








 
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