Suitability of Herbert Capstan lathe.

Hi Guys,

I have a fairly old Capstan lathe by Alfred Herbert, No 4 Senior.
This machine is very solid and the ways are all in exceptionally good shape. The machine does not have a normal tailstock, but is fitted with a turret slide.
I want to use the turret lathe mainly for cutting chambers, threading and crowning work.
How would you rate this machine's suitability for these tasks?


I also have a small 10" swing lathe with 25" between centers for making small parts.

Thank you
P

Well, its a turret lathe.
This is a machine designed to do the same operation over and over and over and over.
It will be heavily built and quite powerfull.
They usualy lack thread feeds.

Unless your planning to do the same operation 100 times, its hard to justify setting one up.
They lack the flexability of a conventional engine lathe.

Unless its almost free and you have repetitive work that requires less than 10 tools (six on the turret and four on the cross slide, pass. Its hard to justify the floor space.

As to the condition, it does look to be above average, and has a fresh coat of paint, which could hide a lot of abuse.
The ways should look good, the turret is where the bulk of the motion takes place.
So check the turrets ways and how well it locks up. Also verify that the tooling moves on the same axis as the spindle. A little ware and your cutting cones, not cylinders.

The precision may have evaporated over years of use. Most of the turret lathes I have been around were worn out from half a century or more of production use.

The tool holders for the turret are becoming obsolete. Be sure you can get what you need in that department.


On the upside, it will make a lot of chips fast.
Its very rigid.
It was built in an era when tool steel and brazed carbide was the normal tooling.
It will probably be able to drill with power feeds.

It may have some difficulty with depth control. Many lack micrometer type read outs on the turret and rely on the depth stop screws to stop the travel.
The headsock will be very long- suporting a barrel at both ends while chambering or crowning will be a bit of a trick.
I dont ever recall seeing a steady rest for a turret lathe.
Plan on chambering/ crowing in the headstock with this machine.


I have a hard time seeing this machine as a good use of floor space in a repair/ rework type operation. If your making small production runs, consider entering the modern era with an operator programable CNC lathe.

What Ahall said:

It can be quick for short jobs, if you run it a lot. You are the unknown factor.

Pay for a machine rebuilder to check it out. You find the hidden demons, and it is a factor in arguing price.

Without a tail stock (and maybe insufficient bed length), the question becomes one of the spindle bore size for working with the barrel mounted through the headstock. You'll need about 1.38 inches or just slightly less for most pre-contoured barrels made in the US.

Do searches on "lathe spiders" to find some ideas for mounting barrel blanks. A search on "spider" in the gunsmithing forum at Benchrest Central will yield enough information to keep you busy for a week.

I am sorry I didn't get to you sooner. The Capstan lathe is an awesome turret lathe. Any person who studies the concept behind the machine design and the principals regarding its use would tell you how fast and easy it is to set up and change tooling (these machines existed because a conventional engine lathe couldn't produce at the same rate), in many cases with tolerances less than 5 thousandths of an inch you could set up a one off job faster on a turret lathe than you could on an engine lathe. The problem with most shop lathes is that they take sissy cuts and start to growl when taking a .1 cut. The capstan lathe is capable of hogging several times that amount. I ran a turret lathe for years and once you let the machine teach you of its limits and capabilities you can realize that this is an extremely versatile machine. The turret is specifically designed for all of these tasks. You have Box tooling, boring heads with chamfering cutters, turning heads, and many other "pre-set head configurations. (operations that would take several minutes to set up on an engine lathe). There are threadding attachments you can use (check the gearbox on the turret slide)I dont remember but the W&S turrets had changable leads and matching half-nuts for threading operations. Another thing to mention about the capstan lathes is that they were designed to hold bar stock so their chucks were heavy duty. Learn about the machine and you will realize how right a choice you have made.

I agree as a newmember and just having got mine running apreciate your words

flatbelter said:

I am sorry I didn't get to you sooner. The Capstan lathe is an awesome turret lathe. Any person who studies the concept behind the machine design and the principals regarding its use would tell you how fast and easy it is to set up and change tooling (these machines existed because a conventional engine lathe couldn't produce at the same rate), in many cases with tolerances less than 5 thousandths of an inch you could set up a one off job faster on a turret lathe than you could on an engine lathe. The problem with most shop lathes is that they take sissy cuts and start to growl when taking a .1 cut. The capstan lathe is capable of hogging several times that amount. I ran a turret lathe for years and once you let the machine teach you of its limits and capabilities you can realize that this is an extremely versatile machine. The turret is specifically designed for all of these tasks. You have Box tooling, boring heads with chamfering cutters, turning heads, and many other "pre-set head configurations. (operations that would take several minutes to set up on an engine lathe). There are threadding attachments you can use (check the gearbox on the turret slide)I dont remember but the W&S turrets had changable leads and matching half-nuts for threading operations. Another thing to mention about the capstan lathes is that they were designed to hold bar stock so their chucks were heavy duty. Learn about the machine and you will realize how right a choice you have made.

Click to expand...

I agree as a new member and just having got mine running appreciate your words Leon

That looks like the Herbert turret lathe I had in the shop once, I got it dirt cheap and was told it came from a company here in Oregon that made .22 rifles.
I actually made some money with it, not enough to pay for shipping it in but that wasn't the lathe's fault, it just happened to be too late in the century to be useful competition to CNC lathes which I got shortly after that. But I've been told that for dedicated jobs lasting years day in and day out they are competitive. Hardly worth the floor space value today really.