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Worlds biggest lathe? Anyone have pictures?

Cuda

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 21, 2005
Location
Alabama
I was wondering just what the largest lathe ever made was? I was looking at pics of the largest diesel engine crankshaft and got to wondering what kind of lathe it would take to rough this thing out? And was it finished with a huge crank grinder? Just how is this HUGE stuff worked with? Anyone have pics of HUGE shipyard machinery? I'm sure most have seen the pics of the engine but here it is again. Engine I tried looking on Google but didn't have much luck finding what I was looking for.
 
This is not what you are looking for. But it might keep you happy until the answer comes along. Some kind soul on this forum posted a link to a website with all kinds of photos, and this was among them. I've spent a long time just looking at this. It just doesn't get old. Does that mean I'm a geek? Oh well. (:
16.jpg
 
I was reading a book called John Goffe's Mill and the author, George Woodbury, said he saw a lathe in an old shop in Manchester, N.H. that had a 23 foot diameter faceplate and filled one end of the shop building. According to the story it had been built in England in 1855 and was used to machine the turret on the Civil War ironclad ship Monitor, being the only lathe in the country large enough at the time. Woodbury's book was published in 1948.

Mike
 
Biggest swing lathe I ever ran was a 10 foot Niles. Big primitive thing made in the late '30's. It was about 24 ft between centers.

Longest lathe I ever ran was a 60" Betts Bridgeford with about 140 feet of bed. It had that much bed because it was a trepanning lathe designed to core out Naval propellor shafting. You needed that much to accommodate the length of the trepaniing tube. It was designed to trepan 60 ft long shafts. When I ran it I used only about 40 ft of its capacity to strip the rubber and inspect shafting that had been in service. Did a lot of those. No trepanning though. The Navy got out of the forging and machining heavy safting business about the time I finished my apprenticeship.
 
I've seen a bigger lathe than either of those, I think it was Niles. But I don't have any pics.

One of the thrid shift operators got fired years ago.....he got bored and decided to have some fun by screwing a setup stud into the faceplate (it was probably 2" diameter) and turning the lathe on. Every time it would come around he would grab on to the stud and ride it around to the other side, then let go. He was doing this to the great amusement of his co-workers, kicking his legs like Ernest T. Bass, when the plant manager just happened to drop in.....
 
no pics but we sold a 98"x 50' betts to a forging company in Pa.The electrition that disconected it went to install it in the plant over there.Saw him latter and he said that was a toy compaired to the lathe that it was set next to.Would have loved to see that.
 
Mesta Machine, in Homestead Pa, used to make steel mills. And to do so, they built their own lathes. They would sell you one, too, if you wanted.
There are a few still around- heres one-Its not REALLY big, only 152" x 60'.
http://www.harrismachinetools.com/images/1004013.jpg

In the Mesta shop, they had some bigger ones. They routinely turned rolls as big as 76" dia x 50 feet, weighing hundreds of tons. They even had 50' long roll grinders.
 
Also the boring of the big diesel's cylinder sleeves would be interesting
 
i remember when mesta closed,a local buisnessman bought the whole place for scrap value. i wonder what happened to the machines.i'm sure there are some around but i cant imagine what would have been available on a smaller scale.
 
Mike, I like 'John Goffe's Mill' also, and I think I may have mentioned it when awhile abck this winter when we were talking about 1), favorite books and 2), favorite books on mills and mechanical subjects.

Northernsinger
 
Somewhere north of downtown is supposedly a shop with a 24' x 50' or more lathe, for what purpose I am not sure. Obviously not close to the largest, but still fairly decent sized. Haven't seen the shop.

Probably since I heard about it, the shop has closed, and the machine has come back to haunt us in the form of chinchinese WalMart gew-gaws.

[ 04-25-2006, 08:13 AM: Message edited by: J Tiers ]
 
That Betts Bridgeford lathe you saw on the History Channel used to reside in Philidelphia NS. A batch of these were bought during the Korean War to outfit the Naval Shipyard system replacing lathes that were 40 years old. Two new shaft lathes were given to each. The one shown in Newport News was the Philly shaft lathe given to them thanks to a SecNav with strong ties to the area.

That lathe at Newport News a long way from the "only" and the "biggest." There were two at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard when I left. At least one was still at Long Beach and a couple still back east including one at Electric Boat. These are a standard lathe with extra bed sections to give it the length needed. They require an enormous reinforced concrete foundation. Betts made a bunch of them for GE Schenectady, many steel mills, and for the paper roller industry.

The only difference between running a big lathe and a small one is the scale and the physical work involved. The principles are the same. The screw-ups are MUCH more expensive. A man will cinch up his belt a notch or two and outgrow his shirts in two months of full time heavy lathe operation.
 
In the Westinghouse East Pittsburgh, PA works, we had a 180 inch by about 20 foot, strictly for DC rotors already assembled on the shaft. Shipped it to Round Rock, Texas, don't think they ever got to use it, before they closed that plant.

We had Betts, Bridgeford, Niles, others, in the 120 inch swing, 100 inch, 72 inch, 60 inch, to about 60 foot between centers.

Cut rotors up to 67 inch diameter, about 60 foot overall length, 200 plus ton forgings.

Also had vertical boring mills up to 40 foot, 30 foot table, but 40 between the columns. That was a Niles, too. Biger than 40 foot bore, set the part, a stator section, on the floor plates, use an outrigger to reach it. Higher part to machine, raise the columns with parrallels. Fantastic machines, never ran them, just fixed them.

Ones I did run, when I was an operator, not a "machinist", 16 foot VBMs, forged tool, speed of 1 RPM or so. Start a cut, sit and read for 8 hours, or follow up the afternoon turn by doing the same, just watch the machine for 8 hours.

Mebbe 1/8 feed, 1/2 inch depth of cut, chips like huge elbow macaroni, my grind, straw colored, my buddy's grind, midnight blue, the piece so hot you had to let it set a shift with air on it to take another cut. All OK forged tool inserts, goosenecks for finish cut.

That was kinda fun. Paid pretty well, too. 'Course the company's gone, 18 years ago. Shoulda retired from there 3 years ago. Now I gotta wait till next week , after a year and a half of disability with a f**ked up back from the shoemaker shop of a steel mill I finished up at.

Fantastic machines we had there. A rotor slotter 120 feet long, took 2 years to install, get running, one of my last jobs was to tear it out to ship to SC, took 2 weeks flat, over Christmas season, laid off Dec 30, plus all the other machinery in the whole mill. 6 months of 12 hour days, I think 2 days off, holidays I refused to work.

Most money I ever made in a year, 2 years after the big Centennial celebration they held in '86. '88 they shut the doors, layoff was 30 Dec, afraid someone would set a fire, if we worked the 31st, and work over till '89, be entitled to another years vacation pay and such.

Rambling, I know, but the Company will always figure to the dime, nay, the penny.

Place I work now, well used to, a steel mill, get it within half an inch, that's good enough. Machine shop buys used machine tools, Millwrights, and that is what I was there, as opposed to Machinery Repairman at the Circle W, are used to setting big assed rolling mill stuff, not precision machine tool setup. Within a couple thou on a turn, they feel it's close enough. And, I guess it is, with all the bridle adjusters they have.

Ah, well,

Enough about this. Started to be about size of lathes. Wound up a rant.

Sorry about that.

Cheers,

George
 
Forest Addy,

As to the new foundation, we had a kinda small "zip-zip", AKA, a rotor slotter. 40 foot or so rotor in the machine, a guy got temporarily fired for f**king it up. 100 ton or so of forging. Investigation found that the overhead crane passing the machine pushed the floor down so much that the machine sagged at one end while the cut was in progress.

Put the new machines in, dug big-a**ed holes, LOTS of # 18 rebar, near 80 foot of 12 inch H-beam, and a LOT of them, driven to bedrock. 1800 cubic yards of concrete in a monolithic block, 4 inch styrofoam lining in the forms, after the concrete cured, dissolve the styro, fill the slot with sand, the mill could be blown away, that machine would be still level. 2 others we put in that way, only one of which ever was finish setup, the 3rd we never did install, just loaded and shipped.

Post mill was about a 30 foot column, mebbe 50 ton. Hydrostatic. Before the ball screw was installed, turn on the way lube, a little guy like me leaned against the column, it would move.

Oh, yes, perfectly ground ways, not scraped. Then, too, 70 foot of ways, levelers can straighten a bedway, which uses most of the length. A 3 foot Sb gets all its wear in the foot or so from the chuck, and they're too rigid to put a jackscrew under the sag to try to take it out. Or are they?
Cast iron will bend. Not much, but it will.

Crosshatching for oil pockets are not all that deep. Bending the bed up a thou or 2 should be possible. Depends on the base plate and how you mount it.

F'rinstance, a shear, no matter the length, at least over 6 foot, has a truss rod to bow or straighten the top blade, the moving knife, and they are also cast iron or steel. And lots of it, for anything like 12 footers.

Cheers,

George
 








 
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