Fritz Kern KG D18 L Lathe: Looking for any written Information or Manual

Hello to the PM World,
my Name is Wolf and Im from Germany.Im 34 Years old and doing Car Repairs as a Hobby for nearly all my Lifetime;-)

To expand my Possibilities,
I bought a well used Industial Lathe from the Scrapyard last Week.
Its made by "Fritz Kern Kg, Lörrach Germany" in the 60s.
The Type is D 18 L.

As I learnd over the Weekend, there is nearly no Information about this Lathe on the Internet...
Is there anybody out there who can scan a Manual or Brochure of this Lathe?

I had to dismantle the Lathe at the Scrapyard to bring it Home, it is nearly 1200kg.I plan to check all the Parts before I put them together again, so a Manual or a Lubrication Chart would be great...

Sadly,
I do not have a Photo of my Lathe because I forgot about it as I had to rush through the Dismantling to clear the Place at the Scrapyard...
Edit:
I found a Photo my Father took:


Of course, I will pay for the Labour for Scanning and so on...

Best Regards
Wolf

here is a archive of manuals Here Lathes + Machine Tool Archive but i didn't see your one named have a look again yourself just to be sure.

Hello,
thanks for the Link....I did check this and the fench Site allready with no Luck.
I wrote to a Seller who is selling a similar Lathe with Manual on Ebay just 5 Minutes ago, maybe he is willing to scan the Manual.

Regards
Wolf

Hey Wolf,

I have no idea whether the following information may be useful or not, but it is another direction to look into.

There is a Swiss YouTube machinist who has a Kern lathe I believe. He also has a beautiful Schaublin 53 mill. His videos are in French but he probably can get around in English or German. His name is Marco and his YouTube channel is at the following link L'Atelier de Marco

I don't know if it is the same Kern or a similar lathe at all, but in any case, it's an interesting channel to check out for anyone who can understand French a bit.

The best outtake is when he is talking to his daughter on the phone while trying to take the gearbox out of the mill. It suddenly falls out, the oil spills on the floor, and he tells his daughter:

"Je dois te quitter. Je suis dans la merde!"

Click to expand...

Good luck.

Jacques

Hello Jacques!
I had a Look on Marcos Youtube Videos, His Lathe is the same as mine.

I have an Offer from the E**y Seller for a Copy of his Manual.Its for a DS 20.
I will buy this and see how I can get along with it...

Thank you for your Help!

Regards from Germany
Wolf

Great,

I'm glad I could help.

Did you actually try to contact Marco? I think he has the manual. He has a few videos where he shows some images from the manual I think. He had to make a few gears from scratch for the gearbox. He shows how he made those.

Jacques

Hey just to see is anybody alive on this thread. Any luck finding documentation? I have the same lathe, made in 1956, Fritz Kern DS 18. Works superbly but looking for documentation for service, parts list, anything would be valuable.

dag616 said:

Hey just to see is anybody alive on this thread. Any luck finding documentation? I have the same lathe, made in 1956, Fritz Kern DS 18. Works superbly but looking for documentation for service, parts list, anything would be valuable.

Click to expand...

Hi dag616,

Would you be able to post some photos of your lathe please? The photo above is not very good, hard to see detail. I notice it has "covered" ways, like the Graziano lathes - a great design feature.

I hope you get some response for a manual etc.

Peter