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dceg

Plastic
Joined
Nov 11, 2019
I'm interested in replacing my very old metal lathe. I'm looking for a lathe that will turn a large 8-10" diameter steel piece without chatter. thread cutting is important. I don't need a very long bed but at least 36". Small South Bend lathes are found but usually are the 9 variety. I want something larger. What brand Lathe would be ideal for me or what are some brands to stay away from. I would like to own an old lathe that parts and support are available. I'm interested in only the older style lathes. I like the South Bend. Would there be a similar lathe.
 
I'd vote for Monarch since I have one. Far less likely to "chatter" than any of the "old Style" South Bends

Brochure from eighty years ago, so I guess it is an "old style lathe" :D
 

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I'm interested in replacing my very old metal lathe. I'm looking for a lathe that will turn a large 8-10" diameter steel piece without chatter. thread cutting is important. I don't need a very long bed but at least 36". Small South Bend lathes are found but usually are the 9 variety. I want something larger. What brand Lathe would be ideal for me or what are some brands to stay away from. I would like to own an old lathe that parts and support are available. I'm interested in only the older style lathes. I like the South Bend. Would there be a similar lathe.

"8" to 10" without chatter, yah need skill, patience and/or around a 16" to 24" industrial lathe of about 6,000 lbs avoir.... or twice that.

TANSTAAFL

Be more patient and clever as to tooling-up, a War One era or later Hendey tie-bar don't much NEED "parts". None you cannot make right on it, anyway.

Wide, HEAVY beds, long carriages, no more parts than they need to do the job hanging-on as passengers, they are about as hard to HARM as any lathe ever built, are already perhaps twice or more your age and ain't ready to quit for "a while", yet.

Ya learn nothing more than how to fit simple-dumb bearings about once every decade or five? They just run.

Think of it as what a South Bend might have wanted to grow up to be if there hadn't been folks like Muncie transmission works using up all the good Iron as was smuggled into Indiana. Poor South Bend grew up starved nearly to death for Iron Deficiency enema. Or something of similar persuasion.

Problem with truly industrial geared-head lathes - Monarch, Lodge & Shipley, ATW, and a whole menu of others - is they need commensurate POWER, are harder to MOVE, and want seriously good decks UNDER them. Also do not take prisoners, you screw up, even a little bit.

A tie-bar Hendey can make chip off single-phase farm-duty motoring, be leveled even on an ignorant dirt floor in a barn or shed with a bit of ingenuity.

Iron, they got plenty of at birth.. Mollycoddled with delicate treatment thereafter? Not so much. Tough as cut-nail sandwiches, Hendeys are.

"Braggin' rights?" Seek a Herringbone Sidney or an Axelson Tool & Gage.

Even the search should keep you out of pubs and brothels for many a year.

Longer yet. you actually FIND one, rig it in, then have to find power to run it.
:D
 
Note that most other brands refer to length by distance between centers. This is a much more useful term then SB's bed length. Bed length include the unknown length of the headstock and the tailstock which really only mater if you have a limited length slot to place the lathe. The boroceure will tell you the machine length anyway.
 
turn a 10" steel workpiece on a 13" sheldon or colchester?
now THAT , would be a sight to see .........
*smirk* 11" Rockwell, or the pocket-handkerchief Harrison, even more so?

Mind - "steel"? MIGHT be a stainless steel.... wheel cover?

:)

An R-17 clears 10 3/8" over the cross, but nice as they are for light lathes, it's a neatly-executed "raised in the sand" job, so neatly-executed or not

...."without chatter" ???

How does one administer a Botox injection to Cast Iron, anyway?

:D
 
The OP did not mention new or used. If new, the OP should consider the new Leblond machines. They are very well supported by the factory. If used is the plan, then L&S, Monarch or other famous brands come to mind, the down side is availability and condition, both are scarce and factory support will be either non-existent or very expensive.
 
The OP did not mention new or used. If new, the OP should consider the new Leblond machines. They are very well supported by the factory. If used is the plan, then L&S, Monarch or other famous brands come to mind, the down side is availability and condition, both are scarce and factory support will be either non-existent or very expensive.

Not even clear if this is a "revenue" shop, hobby, or an adjunct in peripheral support of some other line of bizness, such as agricultual machinery repair, where lathe work is only "now and then".

That said, among the commonly available candidates, new or used, the South Korean Mori-Seiki clones made by Huacheon and/or - if not overly intensive - even a "Generic Taiwanese" sold under several names, and/or a former East bloc ToS or the like might be the more economically pragmatic fit.

The "Grand Old" US or top-end European lathes are more a matter of LUCK than plan as to finding examples in ready-to-use condition, or close enough at quantifiable risk.

Or even "at all", depending on rigging and transport challenges as well as base budget.

3 lathes worth. All smaller. He surely doesn't want what I USED TO run.

Neither do I!

Niles-Bement-Pond DID put the food in my belly. But it wudda been less work most days to just go bite-off rare beef..... on-the-hoof.. hide and all.. even risk taking the horns, now and then!

:)
 
*smirk* 11" Rockwell, or the pocket-handkerchief Harrison, even more so?

Mind - "steel"? MIGHT be a stainless steel.... wheel cover?

:)

An R-17 clears 10 3/8" over the cross, but nice as they are for light lathes, it's a neatly-executed "raised in the sand" job, so neatly-executed or not

...."without chatter" ???

How does one administer a Botox injection to Cast Iron, anyway?

:D

I have thousands of hours on both a South Bend and Sheldon. They really should not be spoken in the same sentence. For the same size the Sheldon is twice the weight and far better built. You probably could buy the SB for the cost of the Sheldon gearbox. The Sheldon R series has a swing limitation because the cross slide has a dovetail top so the compound and tool post can be moved. I made a second plate so a tool or grinder can be mounted on it, allowing me to do two operations without changing tools. It definitely is not in the same class regarding heavy cuts as the Monarchs and L&S, etc., but I would put it in the medium class.

Bill
 
I ran quite briefly an SB 16". I'd put it in the hobby class. Another choice for the medium range is an older LeBlond Regal.
You can't go wrong with a Monarch. I ran both a model 60 and model 610 16x30. I own a Monarch model C 16x30. Any one will do what you need, the 610 faster but the C just as capably.
 
I have thousands of hours on both a South Bend and Sheldon. They really should not be spoken in the same sentence. For the same size the Sheldon is twice the weight and far better built. You probably could buy the SB for the cost of the Sheldon gearbox. The Sheldon R series has a swing limitation because the cross slide has a dovetail top so the compound and tool post can be moved. I made a second plate so a tool or grinder can be mounted on it, allowing me to do two operations without changing tools. It definitely is not in the same class regarding heavy cuts as the Monarchs and L&S, etc., but I would put it in the medium class.

Bill

As said, the "R" is a right-decent lathe, but... the makers had other ideas ...

Keep in mind that a L&S "Powerturn" is a medium class. Well.. lightest of three, in the Large & Shapely line, but then again a "light" lathe would have been a fourth slot they did not offer.

See Omniturn and Superturn.

Lodge & Shipley Superturn 3220W 32" x 252"/120" Center Drive Hollow Spindle - Lathes Oil Field & Hollow Spindle Ref# 24050 - (i) - Prestige Equipment

LeBlond's "only a G-damned Regal!" was their lightest line as well. The "meat" was in the "Heavy Duty" line:

https://www.sterlingmachinery.com/media/brochures1/file/leblond-heavy-duty-lathe-brochure.pdf

"Disclosure": Kept getting chased OUT of the machine-halls going balls-to-the walls, 24-by, making tube-artillery, Watertown Arsenal, Korean War.

Whadideyeknow?

Thought the first South Bend I ever saw - close friend's Dad's 13" - was a cute scale model toy...sorta like "N" gauge model train sets compared to "O" gauge?

You'd have to know kids? All ages... and our toys, of course!

:D
 
I guess I don't see a problem turning a 10" round (depending on length) on a Sheldon lathe. I've done a few on my MW-56-P without problems. Recommended speed for 1018 is about 2000 sfm, so the spindle speed should be in the 60 to 65 rpm range. The MW-56-P will go down to 40 rpm. Using a 1/2" or 5/8" tool you should be able to cut up to about .050" per pass. Personally I was chicken in that department and limited my cuts to .030" or less

The reason I say "depending on length" is because a 10" 1018 round weighs 267 lbs. per foot. I wouldn't want to try a 3' length, more because of the difficulty of getting it set up (I don't have a crane) than the ability of the machine to support it or power to cut it.

The pieces I turned were only 1/2" to 2" thick. They were used as covers for port openings on wood chipper/shredders. Over the years I've only done half a dozen or so, and wasn't all that comfortable doing them. It certainly isn't something I would want to do on a regular basis, but it can be done.
 
I guess I don't see a problem turning a 10" round (depending on length) on a Sheldon lathe.

Grab you a scale or tape measure and sort whether you can still see the marking, then.

Sheldon made exactly ONE model of lathe, manual and a plus-plus version, same castings, that could even pass a ten inch diameter over the topslide.

Now try to FIND one?

Whereas.. simple rule of thumb is a ten-inch workpiece goes onto a TWENTY inch lathe.

Clearance, rigidity, horsepower will then generally be commensurate, and automagically.

Be that a late 1800's Niles Tool Works, a mid-nineteen-twenties Hendey, or Monarch, a 1930's through sixties Large & Shapely, or a current-production Cazeneuve Optimax "teach in" manual/CNC hybrid.

Double the diameter capacity tends to bring ALL the needfuls in the door with the package, fast turning or slow, HCS, HSS, Carbides and exotics, either one.

I don't try for that "big enough for anything and everything" range. Part gets too big for my nominal fourteen-incher, tad over seven inches over the cross?

Some other Pilgrim who already has the capacity gets an ORDER.

For a part. Not for a fourth lathe... to sit ugly and give me the finger for lack of honest WORK to do.

Machine tools a 'settin' idle can be easily as annoying-cranky as wimmin left unattended to...

:(
 
I'd vote for Monarch since I have one. Far less likely to "chatter" than any of the "old Style" South Bends

Brochure from eighty years ago, so I guess it is an "old style lathe" :D

I cut my teeth on 2 of those old Monarch lathes. Built in 1941-ish. They were rock solid even in 1989.
 
The largest thing I turned on the 14 1/2" South Bend was an armature for a locomotive braking grid blower motor which was at least 10" dia. I had to remove the cover that extends toward the back from the cross slide to keep chips off the lead screw. I didn't weigh it, but we had to load it with a forklift. I hung the end on a 3 MT Concentric needle bearing live center, not a nice thing to do to it, but it all worked. Afterward, I told the customer that they had established my absolute maximum limit.

We denigrate the South Bend, but the fact is that properly cared for and run, they can do good work. Carefully leveled, mine would hold .0002 taper in a foot. They were built down to a price and will not hold up to heavy use the way some others will.

Bill
 
i agree . i run a modern (1960s) sb-16 . with all the doo-dads in place, it is nothing like the older dinosaurs.
large dials , 5 HP baldor , D1-4, lever clutch , larger drive pulley - ~ 1200 rpm. carbide tooling . turret toolpost...
it won't hog steel , but it is amazingly light and agile, and it can make parts quickly.
it's also about as loud as a drillpress, which makes it extremely pleasant to operate.

the older sheldon/sebastians were NOT R lathes. more SBL or light regals.

the op should check out hendeys ., monarchs , sidneys... they sell for chump change , and will turn 10" steel all day long.
 








 
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