Larger lathe than my 10EE ?

oliverarn · Jun 7, 2016

I really like my Monarch 10EE but there are times that I need a little more swing and distance between centers.
I know of a LeBlond 14” Tool and Die Makers Lathe.
Never ran one but it looks promising. Seems like it may be a possible candidate. What do you guys think?
Thanks

Monarchist · Jun 7, 2016

oliverarn said:
I really like my Monarch 10EE but there are times that I need a little more swing and distance between centers.
I know of a LeBlond 14” Tool and Die Makers Lathe.
Never ran one but it looks promising. Seems like it may be a possible candidate. What do you guys think?
Thanks

You didn't link it, nor spec age, model, etc. and LeBlond made lathes for a VERY long time..

Meanwhile, also give a thought to a larger Monarch. Less disappointment that way. ELSE a Lodge & Shipley.

oliverarn · Jun 7, 2016

Monarchist said:
You didn't link it, nor spec age, model, etc. and LeBlond made lathes for a VERY long time..

Meanwhile, also give a thought to a larger Monarch. Less disappointment that way. ELSE a Lodge & Shipley.

It's a late 14 x 30 from a tool room. looks in good shape. I have been on the lookout for a Lodge & Shipley 1408AVS but they dont come up very often and when they do they get snatched up.
Ron

Monarchist · Jun 8, 2016

oliverarn said:
It's a late 14 x 30 from a tool room. looks in good shape. I have been on the lookout for a Lodge & Shipley 1408AVS but they dont come up very often and when they do they get snatched up.
Ron

14" X 30" wouldn't be enough gain in work envelope to interest me in making the effort. I'd want a long enough bed to handle 4-foot stock between centres far more than I need greater swing. I don't DO mining and railway any more, nor plan to, ever again.

Seldom as either apply, an old, longer bed cone-head alongside the 10EE could fill that need with lower load on resources. Nowhere near as much to go wrong and need sorted 'in only one way' with most of those. Wouldn't have to be a 'museum grade' restoration. Just functional, even if slow.

Bill

Steve in SoCal · Jun 8, 2016

The thing with BIGGER is many don't have the space. A little bigger is more swing and center distance BUT, generally a much larger footprint. My 13EE with 15.5 swing and 54 centers is more than twice as long and 1.5 times as wide as my 10EE. If physical size is not an issue, there are some great lathes out there for a song.

My Series 62 2013-102 was 5 grand at a dealer in Santa Paula. Not a lot of tooling, a steady and 18" 4 jaw but, again larger tooling IS far less on the used market due to low demand. Many of the high powered machines could also be repowered to suit. My 2013 is a 20HP machine, I have only seen more than 10HP on the load meter a handful of times. The other consideration with bigger machines, at least the really high powered ones is weight. Both the 13EE and Series 62 are over 12k pounds. The newer machines ARE lighter.

I personally would look for Okuma or Mori as well as old American iron.

Steve

Ray Behner · Jun 8, 2016

Here's a Sheldon that's as close to new as it's gets. Too bad it's a million miles from you.
Sheldon 15"x6" Tool Room lathe with taper attachment

oliverarn · Jun 8, 2016

Here is the leblond in question. Seems the tool room is better than the regal line. I never liked regals.
Went and looked at the lathe it it is nice.
I have the room but I just dont know?

Ron

75sv1 · Jun 10, 2016

I can't comment directly on the one pictured. I have run the Servo shift ones. I really like them. Solid machines in my book. I also ran one from the '30s, with the shift levers. It was a beast. I wouldn't shy away from a Leblonde. It looks in VG shape. Also, have to factor in, what tooling comes with it, and what tooling is available.

oliverarn · Jun 10, 2016

oliverarn said:
Here is the leblond in question. Seems the tool room is better than the regal line. I never liked regals.
Went and looked at the lathe it it is nice.
I have the room but I just dont know?
View attachment 173387

Ron

Rigging killed this one for me. The auction house required bidders to use pre approved riggers. Rigger wanted $975.00 to place the lathe on my trailer. Even though they will be on site loading lots of machines. Usually i do my own rigging or hand some of the rigging guys cash on site. But I did not want to chance it and be forced to pay $975.00
The lathe went for $1800.00 plus the bidder premium of 18%.
Not saying the lathe is not worth that but not to me. Besides no telling how high it would have went if i jumped in on the bidding. I hope it went to a good home.

adh2000 · Jun 10, 2016

That seems like a great deal to me. Those LeBlond tool room models don't come around often. Even with the 975 loading screw job it's a good deal. Don't blame you for not wanting to play that game though.

Andy221 · Jun 10, 2016

Monarchist said:
You didn't link it, nor spec age, model, etc. and LeBlond made lathes for a VERY long time..

Meanwhile, also give a thought to a larger Monarch. Less disappointment that way. ELSE a Lodge & Shipley.

Oh how I love my lodge and ship. I'd make sweet love to her if I could. Ok back on track here. My L&S is only 36" between centers and I'm dying for a longer bed. 78" is my minimum and 102 inches is my goal, but a 54" would probably do about anything you wanted.

I know 30 inches is 10 more than what have, but In reality 30" is really short. When I first started looking I thought 36" would be just fine and I was so excited to get a lodge, but now 36" has not been enough to do what I want to do.

oliverarn · Jun 11, 2016

Being a 30" kind of put me on the fence about rather or not the LeBlond was worth the hassle now that my 10EE is all tooled up minus a follow rest. If it was a 36" I would have likely forced my self to play the rigger game. $975.00 what a rip.
A few years ago I had a chance to get a 14 x 54" L&S 1408-AVS still kicking my self about passing it up.

I don't miss Reliable machinery one bit but there riggers were good guys. One time they loaded 4 machines on my truck in exchange for me running down the street and getting them lunch. Usually I would just hand over some cash it was good for them and me. One of the ex Reliable riggers now has his own place buying and selling. Nice guy.

RC99 · Jun 11, 2016

Spindle bore size was always something I looked for. A lot of older US stuff had pitifully small spindle bores for the size of the machine.

Andy221 · Jun 11, 2016

oliverarn said:
Being a 30" kind of put me on the fence about rather or not the LeBlond was worth the hassle now that my 10EE is all tooled up minus a follow rest. If it was a 36" I would have likely forced my self to play the rigger game. $975.00 what a rip.
A few years ago I had a chance to get a 14 x 54" L&S 1408-AVS still kicking my self about passing it up.

I don't miss Reliable machinery one bit but there riggers were good guys. One time they loaded 4 machines on my truck in exchange for me running down the street and getting them lunch. Usually I would just hand over some cash it was good for them and me. One of the ex Reliable riggers now has his own place buying and selling. Nice guy.

Yeah I also had a chance to buy one of those myself for only $2500. I wish I would have! Thanks for bringing it up Haha. To top it off it was owened by a company that rebuilt machinery and was in mint shape. Think about a 1408 with freshly ground ways. As Homer Simpson says, doahh.

ahnywayss don't settle for 30 inches.

steve-l · Jun 11, 2016

I learned a long time ago that one lathe doesn't cut it. I have owned many. It is impossible to know what lathe(s) you should own because you cannot predict easily what you will need in a month. You can however make a WAG. I have a little SB 10K, a 13x40 late model SB and a late model L&S 18x54. All have taper attachments. All are in superb condition. In general use the SBs get most of my use. I love the L&S. It is the Cadillac of lathes. Super powerful and dead accurate, but she's a big girl, so I reserve her for big, heavier jobs and spend more time cleaning and polishing her than actually doing work, but that can change overnight. It just depends. I like the SBs for ease of use. They are easy and fast to set up. I use the 13 for 4 to 6" work, the 10K for smaller and most of my threading. A lot of your choice will be opportunity dependent. As you stated the L&S are really hard to find and get sold quick when they become available. However, there are other very good machines, like LeBlond. You need to jump on them when you find them, good machines don't stay unsold for long! Of course a major consideration is tooling, Tooling for large machines is far more expensive than the machine itself and just opposite for the small machines. Please pay attention to the lathe spindle type, as that has a large impact on both availability and cost of tooling.

Monarchist · Jun 11, 2016

Ray Behner said:
Here's a Sheldon that's as close to new as it's gets. Too bad it's a million miles from you.
Sheldon 15"x6" Tool Room lathe with taper attachment

Condition seems drop-dead as-new awesome!

Sheldon's "R" are reputed to be seriously good light lathes. Better than some of the 'mediums' (Cinncy tray-top, LeBlond's pretentious "Regal").

And it ain't a million miles from ME.

All I can do is hope it is sold before I weaken....

Monarchist · Jun 11, 2016

Andy221 said:
ahnywayss don't settle for 30 inches.

53" is a sweet spot. Figure you can work stock 36" for-sure, 48" probably even with room for chuck, drilling, tapping and their clearances eating into the daylight.

Anything longer that is but once in-a-while? Just contract that item out.

Can't keep a Binns & Berry roll-lathe or no 120-inch-plus Monarch, L&S, or ATW around 'just in case'.

Bill

Glug · Jun 12, 2016

Another perspective is to grab good iron when you get the chance. If your acquisition price is good, you should be able to breakeven when you eventually find your holy grail.

Plus, the sooner you get it, the more years you will get to enjoy it. I had that epiphany when I was getting near 30 - a tool you'll use all your life is a tool to buy sooner rather than later.

I recently lucked out on a really nice 1969 1408 AVS in the 30" size. It's about 7.5' long, so the 54" version wouldn't have made it all that much larger. This happened near the end of a long active search for 10EE, when I was in the inspection and negotiation phase. So the timing was awkward. I arguably didn't need the 10EE after I got the 1408 (especially given how tight it is). But, ya know..

The AVS isn't powered yet. It is in apparently great condition. The story of getting is pretty good, and I need to write it up. I'm still evaluating/cleaning it and the 10EE. I need to decide what to do with the 480V Reliance DC drive (Cardpak). The Reliance nameplate even has some key fields filled with only "Special". The drive is apparently simple in many ways, and yet not - the very large cabinet is jam packed, and I don't have a schematic. Used parts seem pretty cheap, and it is fairly modular. I am fortunate to have EE friends who are into old ham gear and fixing oscilloscopes, so they should be able to help with board level work. Still, there are a great many adjustments in this system and I don't know anything about setting them.

Much like a 10EE, I worry that the easy path to an AC VFD retrofit would result in the loss of original performance. Though that might be something to do on a temporary basis.

oliverarn · Jun 12, 2016

Glug said:
Another perspective is to grab good iron when you get the chance. If your acquisition price is good, you should be able to breakeven when you eventually find your holy grail.

Plus, the sooner you get it, the more years you will get to enjoy it. I had that epiphany when I was getting near 30 - a tool you'll use all your life is a tool to buy sooner rather than later.

I recently lucked out on a really nice 1969 1408 AVS in the 30" size. It's about 7.5' long, so the 54" version wouldn't have made it all that much larger. This happened near the end of a long active search for 10EE, when I was in the inspection and negotiation phase. So the timing was awkward. I arguably didn't need the 10EE after I got the 1408 (especially given how tight it is). But, ya know..

The AVS isn't powered yet. It is in apparently great condition. The story of getting is pretty good, and I need to write it up. I'm still evaluating/cleaning it and the 10EE. I need to decide what to do with the 480V Reliance DC drive (Cardpak). The Reliance nameplate even has some key fields filled with only "Special". The drive is apparently simple in many ways, and yet not - the very large cabinet is jam packed, and I don't have a schematic. Used parts seem pretty cheap, and it is fairly modular. I am fortunate to have EE friends who are into old ham gear and fixing oscilloscopes, so they should be able to help with board level work. Still, there are a great many adjustments in this system and I don't know anything about setting them.

Much like a 10EE, I worry that the easy path to an AC VFD retrofit would result in the loss of original performance. Though that might be something to do on a temporary basis.

The drive on the L&S is easy to work on. At least for me I worked for 30 years in factories full of those drives some up to 1200 HP. Look for bad solder joints on the boards and clean all the card plug in connectors. Also the capacitors are now old and past there life span.
With a scope a multimeter and the manual it can be tuned up and preform very well. If you need a board they can be found on the surplus market.

Ron

Monarchist · Jun 12, 2016

oliverarn said:
The drive on the L&S is easy to work on. At least for me I worked for 30 years in factories full of those drives some up to 1200 HP.

Agree that on the AC / VFD class drives. Also easier today than it once was to fit off-the-shelf new ones at reasonable prices.

ISTR the first-generation AVS were DC motors and 3-P -only DC Drives drives though, were they not?

Bill

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