Help ID 1927 Lathe

Newbie here and I just purchased a South Bend Lathe serial # 33942 marked catalog 520-A 9 inch swing 4 foot bed. What strange is it completely manual with no power feed. I have scoured the internet with out finding anything that matches.

My second question is about the motor. The lathe came with out a contershaft bracket but as you can see the motor has has a 3 step pulley attached. Was it direct drive and where did the motor mount thanks for any help

I believe this is called the pattern makers Lathe. Mainly used for making patterns for foundry work. They needed precise control over the operation of the machine. But they did not need power feed. I have not seen much documentation on these machines, Since they are a specialty item. Basically the same as a standard 9JR, but without the power feed. since it did not have power feed the price was a lot cheaper. Note, from my understanding, It is not economical to convert one of these machines to power feed. You would have to purchase a new spindle, Gears, Apron, Lead screw and bearings. But the machine is usable as it is. You just need to move the carriage and compound manually. A Carriage stop and dial indicator is a big help with this type of machine.

stay safe and have fun.

Joe.

Welcome animal, glad you were able to post pictures. This is a third option that I did not consider when you posted at HSM. You have a plain turning lathe. A rare, low cost model for operations that did not require threading. It would still work for many jobs- you can use taps and dies for most threading ops if you need. Adding a leadscrew and gearing is certainly possible, but you would need most of another lathe to do it: banjo, change gears, reverse tumbler, spindle gear, leadscrew and brackets, apron with halfnuts. If you wanted power feeds, you would need the powerfeed apron and geared cross feed screw instead.

allan

Oh, and I hope that's a really low speed motor, otherwise you will be running the spindle pretty fast.

allan

Thinking it probably should have the usual motor and countershaft arrangement, likely not horribly different than a post-war 9" used.