Carriage stop

I need a little help here. From time to time I see references to Carriage Stops for South Bend lathes. I don't have one on my 13" lathe and I'm wondering just what it will do for me.

One some lathes I've seen where carriage stops will disengage the power feed. I don't see how that can happen on my 13" so I'm assuming that a carriage stop for a South Bend does nothing more than physically stops the carriage from moving past a set point.

What am I missing

Thanks!

Brad

"a carriage stop for a South Bend does nothing more than physically stops the carriage from moving past a set point"

That is what it does. For some operations, they are very helpful. I got along OK with out one for years. However, not that I have a home made one, it has come in handy a number of times. Gary P. Hansen

garyphansen said:

"a carriage stop for a South Bend does nothing more than physically stops the carriage from moving past a set point"

That is what it does. For some operations, they are very helpful. I got along OK with out one for years. However, not that I have a home made one, it has come in handy a number of times. Gary P. Hansen

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Gary, thanks for the reply.

I'm wondering if you can drive the carriage into the stop under power and expect the clutch to slip. The thought of doing that scares me a little bit, although I can't think of why there is a clutch in the carriage unless it is for something like running into a stop.

In case it isn't obvious I haven't as yet used my SB lathe . I'm still in the process of tearing down, cleaning and figuring out what all needs to be repaired or replaced.

Brad

Last thing you ever wanna do is feed into the carriage stop,unhappy things will happen.

They are meant to be bumped the last little bit by hand.

The clutch is meant only to transfer power to the carriage feed,without it if you were to bump into something like the chuck,part face or carriage stop you could break gear teeth or shear keys,the clutch is there to give enough slip to keep nasty things like that from happening.

"I'm wondering if you can drive the carriage into the stop under power and expect the clutch to slip."


Many have had that idea and many have broke things. Don't try it. South Bend actually did make a few Lathes that had automatic stops. I have never seen one in person but I have seen photos. If I remember right they had an extra feed rod and were not driven by the key in the lead screw. I do not know if they were ever a standard idem or if they were just experimental.

I think the clutch was just so you could stop the feed with out disengaging the lead screw. Gary P. Hansen

BKahler said:

I need a little help here. From time to time I see references to Carriage Stops for South Bend lathes. I don't have one on my 13" lathe and I'm wondering just what it will do for me.

Click to expand...

It will let you turn to a shoulder with pinpoint accuracy. A variation of the carriage stop utilizes a dial indicator mounted in the stop parallel to the ways - both are very useful when you need to turn parts to exact lengths. You don't need to spend big bucks for an original; they are easy to make if you have a mill.

I am dead set against carriage stops. I was happy when I got my 10L, and found that a carriage stop that I had previously in my shop fit the 10L exactly. I was threading one day with the carriage stop stored as far to the left of the ways. I thought that it was out of the way of the threading operation, which was near the headstock. I accidentally contacted the carriage stop before I could get the half nut lever disengaged.

Well, everything jammed, and I could not get the half nuts to disengage. When I got the half nuts unjammed, which I did by running the lathe backward. The casting on the carriage stop was broken. I don't think any other permanent damage was done, but as far as the carriage stop, it is a hazard and can go to hell! Don't bother giving me advice on what I should have done, I have more experience as a machinist than practically anyone on this forum. 52 years. Stuff like this can happen to anyone.

Lord Byron

I recently picked up a carraige stop for my 10L.

My first use of it was to turn down stock (actually it was a round blank of water buffalo horn) to establish a shoulder a press fit ferrul had to fit against. I set the stop and used the power feed on the carraige to move AWAY from the stop. Then I'd disengage and manually return to the stop, set my tool in with the cross slide and go again. It worked great. I was making 6 screwdriver handles, and had to turn 1" to .625" or .500" (depending on the ferrul diameter). So...being able to do it quickly and accurately was nice. Also...water buffalo horn doesn't grow on trees. (nor bushes even). And at about $8 per blank, I didn't want to trash any.

To Bruce's point, I guess a guy could leave it unlocked when not in use, so that if it contacts it will slide. To his point that bad things happen to good people...NO DOUBT. But having a stop or not won't increase/decrease the odds appreciably. By the same logic I should throw away my chuck keys for sure, because I've left them in and started the lathe more than once. (Yeah...I know...I suck at running a lathe. To my credit...I haven't done it for a while...but might do it again later today.)

Phil

Brad, I won't add another warning as you have enough of them. If you're looking for a carriage stop, I was told that a stop from a 10L was the same as a 13". Perhaps someone here knows for sure?

To build a stop that will disengage the feed you would really need to build a dog clutch to fit into your leadscrew, the apron clutch isn't really suitable. You would then have to build a stop that trips and disengages the dog clutch - I've seen photos of the sort of thing on old drummonds and myfords, there would be quite a bit of fabrication involved.

I wouldn't try to teach Bruce how to suck eggs, but I don't see that his incident was any different to running the carriage into the tailstock or headstock under power - I guess the difference is that after years of use one knows where these large things are and the carriage stop may not be where we instinctively know there is an obstacle.

For sure you only want to feed up to it by hand.
Alternative ways to get accurate longitudinal feeds are to lock the carriage and use the compound (hand feed only, limited range), or to fit a handwheel and dial (125 graduations for 8TPI screw) to the tailstock end of the leadscrew - I can't think how you would do that without getting or making an over length lead screw, you also need a way to keep track of the number of full turns.

The other way I can think of to automatically stop a South Bend will depend on your control set up - if you use an invertor with LV controls or a contactor that supports additional controls you could arrange a microswitch stop which will kill the power. I would suggest you will want to look at an electronic brake as well to prevent overrun, especially if you have a lot of rotating mass involved, which you could on a 13".

As I said in another thread recently, I have a micrometer barrel ready to make a stop because I think it will be useful - so far I have always managed to find a way around needing it, even if it means stopping well short of my target and then facing the shoulder to length later using the compund. I have also used pieces of wood as temporary stops for feeding up to by hand.

bigmac said:

Brad, I won't add another warning as you have enough of them. If you're looking for a carriage stop, I was told that a stop from a 10L was the same as a 13". Perhaps someone here knows for sure?

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I can tell you that the 10L and 13" stops are different. I learned this the hard way when I bought an SB micrometer stop on eBay. The seller said that it would fit 10L and 13" and the body may well be the same but the clamp portion is not. Mine has a 13 on it and the "hippo teeth" are real short, too short to clamp a 10L bed. The bolt also has a 1/2" square head rather than the 7/16" square head like the 10L tool post, carriage lock, taper attachment, etc.
I would be happy to trade parts if someone with a 13" lathe has the 10L clamp and bolt or sell the entire unit for what I paid $75 plus shipping.
BakoRoy

I have a long travel dial indicator instead of a stop. It serves the same purpose, plus many others, and if you go beyond zero, no problem. I have no desire for a hard stop and it does seem like an accident waiting to happen.

Best idea yet, if you insist on a carriage stop.

Lord Byron

BakoRoy said:

I can tell you that the 10L and 13" stops are different. I learned this the hard way when I bought an SB micrometer stop on eBay. The seller said that it would fit 10L and 13" and the body may well be the same but the clamp portion is not. Mine has a 13 on it and the "hippo teeth" are real short, too short to clamp a 10L bed. The bolt also has a 1/2" square head rather than the 7/16" square head like the 10L tool post, carriage lock, taper attachment, etc.
I would be happy to trade parts if someone with a 13" lathe has the 10L clamp and bolt or sell the entire unit for what I paid $75 plus shipping.
BakoRoy

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I would be interested in buying your micrometer stop for a SB13" if it is still available. I just received this thread today but it is dated August 2011. Thanks, Gary

BKahler said:

I need a little help here. From time to time I see references to Carriage Stops for South Bend lathes. I don't have one on my 13" lathe and I'm wondering just what it will do for me.

One some lathes I've seen where carriage stops will disengage the power feed. I don't see how that can happen on my 13" so I'm assuming that a carriage stop for a South Bend does nothing more than physically stops the carriage from moving past a set point.

What am I missing

Thanks!

Brad

Click to expand...

I have one that came with my Sheldon. It's almost a match to the SouthBend ones I've seen out there. Anyway, it works great if I'm not using collets. With collets I don't have the clearance to use it between the QCGB and the carriage. And I use collets 70% of the time. Then I have to use a solution similar to Doc's idea with an indicator.


Best Regard,
Bob

Beyond Conrad's method, how does anyone turn accurately to a shoulder?

IronReb said:

Last thing you ever wanna do is feed into the carriage stop,unhappy things will happen.

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I get away with it, but there is a procedure.

My lathe is a Leblond heavy duty, old and worn, lots of backlash in the gears (and they may be important to my method)

I crank the carriage the whole time so when the carriage hits the stop, I can kick the feed out before the backlash is taken up.

Maybe that is not actually "feeding into the stop", but I get constant feed rate ( nice finish) the whole cut.

CarlBoyd

Cole2534 said:

Beyond Conrad's method, how does anyone turn accurately to a shoulder?

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DRO or compound set parallel to the Z axis. I'm not a fan of the compound method so tend to use a dial indicator on lathes without a DRO.

Teryk



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I’m an electrician not a machinist,but where I worked they always took all the attachments off the machines when they were done. Guess that’s why I do that myself. They did it as a courtesy to the next guy to use the machine. I can see from this thread that there are other good reasons to do that. They also cleaned the machine. Something I should do. Oh well.
As to the 13” micrometer stop,it is the same body as the heavy 10. The casting is 1200 RT3 on the one I have. The RT indicates heavy 10 and 13” machines. Thing is as someone mentioned the shoe is different.

Logan had an attachment that bolted on-to the apron with a rod and cantilever that would hit a stop and disengage your half-nut. It's a little rube-goldberg, but I always through it would be fun to make one. A lot of lathes came with this stuff designed into them.