Moddage
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2021
Last year my father and I acquired what is pretty much considered our "Holy Grail" lathe. As most of you know and love 10EEs, we too have come to love one of our own. I think sometimes I might love it more than he does. I've gone full 10EE Geek thanks to lurking on this forum and reading about the history of these lathes, and Monarch in general. Plus all the time spent familiarizing myself with this one while tinkering with it and slowly working on repairing it. It still needs some love for sure, but this lathe will not be for sale for as long as I'm alive. Considering I'm in my early 30s, that's probably going to be a long time. It lived a life with less than stellar care, some neglect, but thankfully only minimal abuse. Honestly it's really in pretty darn good shape.
This is a 1942 vintage Model EE, Serial number 14888. It was originally sold to General Electric corporation, and as such it appears to have gotten outfitted with a GE Motor-Generator and a GE DC Motor instead of the typical Reliance equipment, which I assume was pretty much because GE could, and they probably wanted it powered by their own parts. Actually my theory there is that they needed it ASAP for reasons related to the war efforts at the time and sent their own MG and DC Motors to Monarch to furnish it with to get production done sooner. I've seen another member on here post a while ago(can't remember the thread or name) and they had a serial number numerically lower than this one, that was delivered much later than this one was.
As far as I can tell, I think all the original accessories, or most of them, are present, but I haven't looked extremely close to determine what's missing yet. I have the matching early-style tool cabinet and collet board as well. This lathe has a taper attachment, which may be missing some pieces, but I have a box of random stuff that looks like it might go to that so hopefully it's all in there.
It has been outfitted with a DRO and a safety guard over the chuck at some point, both of which are mounted in places and manners that are mildly irritating, and I intend to change at some point. The DRO is an older(I assume it wasn't at the time) Acu-Rite unit, and both scales and the head unit itself appear to be in fully working order, but I haven't gone to the extremes of both axes to check yet. I assume the DRO was installed because of the significant backlash present in both axes. Annoyingly it's set up to read radially instead of diametrically like the scale on the cross slide, I haven't looked up how to change that yet, or if it even can be.
The lathe appears it may have been sold to GE through Wigglesworth Machinery Co. who was a dealer for Monarch back in that era(that took a lot of digging to figure out), which explains the tag on the machine. Either that or they put their tag on when they installed the Pioneer MFG coolant pump in 1945. I have a hand written note with the pump information and Wigglesworth's information on it, dated 1945, seemingly a hand written record, sadly part of it is torn off and missing.
Monarch sent me the original order slip, as well as a much better copy of the electrical diagram, I am very grateful that they have these documents still and willingly send them to us enthusiasts.
It would appear the lathe was run hard and heavy and perhaps not well cared for in the early years, there is a record of the spindle bearings having been replaced in 1954, and something about a heavier preload set I think? I have to look at that again. I'm not sure how heavy or how much it's been run since then, but there is no significant noise from the headstock indicating the bearings are damaged, I have not yet checked how much runout/play is present, but from the few times I've gotten it running and turned something for a project it would seem they're in great shape still.
This lathe ended up in a state where it was no longer functional due to electrical problems, and had some mechanical issues with the threading gearbox among other things. It sat dormant for over a year and after new ownership took place, was deemed a financially poor investment to repair, and was destined to be scrapped. A series of events transpired, approval to purchase the machine was granted, and now it's in its "retirement home" where it will live an easy life and be cared for greatly. I still have some sorting out to do with the electrical problems, and I have yet to take the threading gearbox apart to find out what exactly went wrong in there, I'm presently in process of repairing the tailstock, and there are several oil leaks that need addressed as well. It's certainly a work in progress, and I can see why they didn't want to invest the resources to fix it, from a large corporation standpoint, it's financially better to find another lathe that's in good working order to replace it with rather than devote the time and money to fix all the little issues this one now has.
I also have the original owners manual, albeit a bit tattered, aged, seemingly has absorbed some machine oil, and is a bit yellowed... My favorite part of that one is that is has the sweet Monarch logo with the lion on the cover. There is also a much newer replacement copy manual that is still in excellent shape and has a different Monarch logo on the cover.
I wish I could find the history of what this lathe was used to make in its early life, perhaps it was nothing particularly cool or special, but perhaps it was something really cool, top secret even, but I can only speculate as to what it may have been used for. It was purchased an installed around the time GE would have been messing with some high precision aviation equipment, so maybe that's what it was used for? If machines could talk, am I right?
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This is a 1942 vintage Model EE, Serial number 14888. It was originally sold to General Electric corporation, and as such it appears to have gotten outfitted with a GE Motor-Generator and a GE DC Motor instead of the typical Reliance equipment, which I assume was pretty much because GE could, and they probably wanted it powered by their own parts. Actually my theory there is that they needed it ASAP for reasons related to the war efforts at the time and sent their own MG and DC Motors to Monarch to furnish it with to get production done sooner. I've seen another member on here post a while ago(can't remember the thread or name) and they had a serial number numerically lower than this one, that was delivered much later than this one was.
As far as I can tell, I think all the original accessories, or most of them, are present, but I haven't looked extremely close to determine what's missing yet. I have the matching early-style tool cabinet and collet board as well. This lathe has a taper attachment, which may be missing some pieces, but I have a box of random stuff that looks like it might go to that so hopefully it's all in there.
It has been outfitted with a DRO and a safety guard over the chuck at some point, both of which are mounted in places and manners that are mildly irritating, and I intend to change at some point. The DRO is an older(I assume it wasn't at the time) Acu-Rite unit, and both scales and the head unit itself appear to be in fully working order, but I haven't gone to the extremes of both axes to check yet. I assume the DRO was installed because of the significant backlash present in both axes. Annoyingly it's set up to read radially instead of diametrically like the scale on the cross slide, I haven't looked up how to change that yet, or if it even can be.
The lathe appears it may have been sold to GE through Wigglesworth Machinery Co. who was a dealer for Monarch back in that era(that took a lot of digging to figure out), which explains the tag on the machine. Either that or they put their tag on when they installed the Pioneer MFG coolant pump in 1945. I have a hand written note with the pump information and Wigglesworth's information on it, dated 1945, seemingly a hand written record, sadly part of it is torn off and missing.
Monarch sent me the original order slip, as well as a much better copy of the electrical diagram, I am very grateful that they have these documents still and willingly send them to us enthusiasts.
It would appear the lathe was run hard and heavy and perhaps not well cared for in the early years, there is a record of the spindle bearings having been replaced in 1954, and something about a heavier preload set I think? I have to look at that again. I'm not sure how heavy or how much it's been run since then, but there is no significant noise from the headstock indicating the bearings are damaged, I have not yet checked how much runout/play is present, but from the few times I've gotten it running and turned something for a project it would seem they're in great shape still.
This lathe ended up in a state where it was no longer functional due to electrical problems, and had some mechanical issues with the threading gearbox among other things. It sat dormant for over a year and after new ownership took place, was deemed a financially poor investment to repair, and was destined to be scrapped. A series of events transpired, approval to purchase the machine was granted, and now it's in its "retirement home" where it will live an easy life and be cared for greatly. I still have some sorting out to do with the electrical problems, and I have yet to take the threading gearbox apart to find out what exactly went wrong in there, I'm presently in process of repairing the tailstock, and there are several oil leaks that need addressed as well. It's certainly a work in progress, and I can see why they didn't want to invest the resources to fix it, from a large corporation standpoint, it's financially better to find another lathe that's in good working order to replace it with rather than devote the time and money to fix all the little issues this one now has.
I also have the original owners manual, albeit a bit tattered, aged, seemingly has absorbed some machine oil, and is a bit yellowed... My favorite part of that one is that is has the sweet Monarch logo with the lion on the cover. There is also a much newer replacement copy manual that is still in excellent shape and has a different Monarch logo on the cover.
I wish I could find the history of what this lathe was used to make in its early life, perhaps it was nothing particularly cool or special, but perhaps it was something really cool, top secret even, but I can only speculate as to what it may have been used for. It was purchased an installed around the time GE would have been messing with some high precision aviation equipment, so maybe that's what it was used for? If machines could talk, am I right?
View attachment 311930View attachment 311931View attachment 311932View attachment 311933View attachment 311934
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