I recently came to be the caretaker of a 1954 Monarch series 60. I think the story may be interesting to some, so here it is.
My brother called me two weeks ago and asked me if I was interested in another lathe. I had a small 1959 Logan 9B17-41 that I rescued from a barn, and I have always wanted and needed a full size lathe. He showed me some pictures and gave me some basic details. It was a 1940's model CK 12x30 and the guy had told my brother that he was looking for $1,000 for it(he acquired it for free from his employer and didn't really know what it was). I started doing research and got myself all excited to bring it home. Went down there with the trailer and two grand in my pocket just in case he had other cool stuff for sale. I'll skip the part about how I really feel about not getting that particular lathe and the person that was selling it. Needless to say then that I came home with an empty trailer. Even though it was definitely for the best in that situation, I was determined at that point to find a Monarch of similar vintage.
Craigslist, search tempest, and ebay trolling began in earnest at this point. I found several around the country and was prepared to drive out to Ohio to grab one that was on ebay. There were two for sale in my state of Wisconsin, but both were at the top of my budget. I reached out to the fellow in Appleton with the craigslist ad that was the subject of a thread in the classified section of this forum prior to my joining. We went back and forth a little bit. When it became pretty clear that he was willing to make the sort of deal I was comfortable with, I hitched up the trailer and drove the two hours north to take a look. This was last Friday morning. Now I am not a machinist by trade nor am I an expert in machinery. I know enough about lathes to understand that no visual inspection is going to tell the tale of what sort of life the machine has led. Were the dogs on the gears all beat up or busted? Were the ways worn to hell? I realize too that getting a lathe "cheap" doesn't really mean anything. There is no fixing any major issues without spending more than I would have on an entire different lathe that I could have seen under power. All of that being said, I immediately coughed up my maximum offer after a quick walk around. I am definitely and admittedly a strange person when it comes to vintage tools and machinery.
In my mind that lathe was meant to come home with me, and so it did. I was fortunate that the owner had a very nice Lull type Cat to load my new Monarch. Getting it off the trailer would be a whole different story.
I was contemplating several different ways to get the lathe into my shop while driving home. I ended up cutting some 6x6's that I had laying around to make a pair of ski's. My trailer has a 12k harbor freight winch on it that has saved my ass a bunch of times. This time around I ended up boring a hole in the concrete of the shop and running the winch cable and another length of elevator cable around some snatch blocks and back up to the crossmember between the ski's. Pictures tell this story best. I was not at all comfortable getting this done, but it worked out with no drama. It took probably 4 hours to get the lathe up on ski's and down into the shop. Last Saturday I spent half of the day getting it moved up and into the corner of my small shop.
My brother called me two weeks ago and asked me if I was interested in another lathe. I had a small 1959 Logan 9B17-41 that I rescued from a barn, and I have always wanted and needed a full size lathe. He showed me some pictures and gave me some basic details. It was a 1940's model CK 12x30 and the guy had told my brother that he was looking for $1,000 for it(he acquired it for free from his employer and didn't really know what it was). I started doing research and got myself all excited to bring it home. Went down there with the trailer and two grand in my pocket just in case he had other cool stuff for sale. I'll skip the part about how I really feel about not getting that particular lathe and the person that was selling it. Needless to say then that I came home with an empty trailer. Even though it was definitely for the best in that situation, I was determined at that point to find a Monarch of similar vintage.
Craigslist, search tempest, and ebay trolling began in earnest at this point. I found several around the country and was prepared to drive out to Ohio to grab one that was on ebay. There were two for sale in my state of Wisconsin, but both were at the top of my budget. I reached out to the fellow in Appleton with the craigslist ad that was the subject of a thread in the classified section of this forum prior to my joining. We went back and forth a little bit. When it became pretty clear that he was willing to make the sort of deal I was comfortable with, I hitched up the trailer and drove the two hours north to take a look. This was last Friday morning. Now I am not a machinist by trade nor am I an expert in machinery. I know enough about lathes to understand that no visual inspection is going to tell the tale of what sort of life the machine has led. Were the dogs on the gears all beat up or busted? Were the ways worn to hell? I realize too that getting a lathe "cheap" doesn't really mean anything. There is no fixing any major issues without spending more than I would have on an entire different lathe that I could have seen under power. All of that being said, I immediately coughed up my maximum offer after a quick walk around. I am definitely and admittedly a strange person when it comes to vintage tools and machinery.
In my mind that lathe was meant to come home with me, and so it did. I was fortunate that the owner had a very nice Lull type Cat to load my new Monarch. Getting it off the trailer would be a whole different story.
I was contemplating several different ways to get the lathe into my shop while driving home. I ended up cutting some 6x6's that I had laying around to make a pair of ski's. My trailer has a 12k harbor freight winch on it that has saved my ass a bunch of times. This time around I ended up boring a hole in the concrete of the shop and running the winch cable and another length of elevator cable around some snatch blocks and back up to the crossmember between the ski's. Pictures tell this story best. I was not at all comfortable getting this done, but it worked out with no drama. It took probably 4 hours to get the lathe up on ski's and down into the shop. Last Saturday I spent half of the day getting it moved up and into the corner of my small shop.