I'm probably purchasing a South Bend 9A this morning.

CVRIV · Feb 20, 2021

I'm excited. New to this forum, new to this lathe. I've worked with lathes back in the day as a child in school. Lathes are my favorite machine. This will be my first lathe, if I get it, which I most likely will.

Its a 9A and I think the bed is 3 to 3.5ft. Its a small one, which is perfect for me as most of the stuff I'll be doing is pretty small. This lathe comes with a whole bunch of extras, tooling, chucks, table, a rebuild kit, etc.

I plan on dismantling the entire thing to do a complete rebuild on it before I do any work with it. I'll have questions.

My first question has to do with grinding the ways. Anyone know of a good machinist in NJ that will grind lathe bed ways? Anything else I should have the machinist do to the machine?

Thanks.

SLK001 · Feb 20, 2021

Welcome to the forum.

Why do you think that you have to regrind the bed? Even with a worn bed, the lathe is still capable of doing accurate work.

And we love pictures here! Lots and lots of pictures!

tommy1010 · Feb 20, 2021

Get it home and use it for a period of time before you (rebuild) it. Yes make sure you get oil everywhere before use. Pictures here are proof you actually got it. There can be more worn than just the bed that you have to address. Grinding a bed is only the first step. Saddle machining and scraping to the bed with headstock and tailstock alignment. Unless you have deep pockets forget the bed grinding. Your parts are not going to Mars.

chipss · Feb 20, 2021

I have a 9a that was virtually new when I got it. I agree with Tommy. There will be wear on the bedways. But, the wear on the saddle ways will be worse than the bed as the iron is very soft. Tear it down, clean the chips out of everything, do the felts, adjust the headstock, true all it up and run it. You'll likely find it will be fine with whatever you'll do with it. *Grinding the bed and saddle/scraping it all in all nice and pretty seems to cost way over $1000.

mc_n_g · Feb 20, 2021

Learn how to use the lathe first.
Grinding the ways will be a waste of money right now. You do not even know how how the lathe functions as it. You need to work on your skills using it first and then really see what it needs.
Look for broken things first. Broken gear teeth, clogged or broken oil fixtures etc. You can lightly stone high spots from dings on the ways make sure to clean well after.

Do not think you are going to rebuild the machine and remove the 0.01" to 0.030" slop in the ways. This comes with the manual machines.

You might need a cross slide nut which happens with a well used machine. You would need to evaluate the cross slide screw also because just replacing the nut does not fix everything.

You can easily get 0.001" (or more) accuracy out of an old worn lathe providing you use the proper techniques. Make sure you take the time to level the lathe so the bed is not twisted. Make sure you have a sturdy table to support the lathe. There are many different methods of checking the leveling. You will also want to check the tailstock alignment to the headstock. Many methods here also. I would suggest you use a good dead center in the headstock for this, not a chuck.

I would not go wasting money until you know and can evaluate the condition of the lathe

CVRIV · Feb 20, 2021

I got the lathe. Many pics to come. I have to wait for my buddy to show up to help me carry it inside. Quick story about this lathe... the guy I bought it from bought it from the son of the original owner. The guy I bought it from didn't use the lathe and I'm not even sure the son of the original owner used it either. I have the original manual/ documentation that came with the lathe. The lathe came with a rebuild kit, maybe 5 or 6 chucks or different sizes, a steady rest, 1 or 2 drill chucks for the tail stock, it came with a lot of stuff. The table it came might be as old as the machine itself. Im as excited as a kid in a candy store. From what I can see, the machine looks to be in great condition, but who knows. It's somewhat disassembled now, but im going to put it back together real quick to check it out, make sure all the pieces are accounted for and then after that I'll tear it down to clean and see how it works.

Pics coming soon.

CVRIV · Feb 20, 2021

Theres no image uploading here?

SLK001 · Feb 20, 2021

CVRIV said:
Theres no image uploading here?

There IS image uploading, but it is kind of complicated. See this post.

MyLilMule · Feb 20, 2021

Congrats on the purchase.

I just acquired an old 13". I, like you, thought I would need to get the bed ground. But I'm holding off on that, for a couple reasons. #1, like the others have said, run it first. I have learned that a worn bed way isn't the end of the world. It'll probably make parts just fine. And #2, I found out to have this done is a LOT of money, at least $700. And that's just the grinding. The ways (and the saddle) then have to be scraped. You have to grind and scrape them both. And then there are other issues that come with removing metal from the saddle and bed (like the alignment of the lead screw to the apron). There are ways to counteract that, but it's not necessarily easy.

Bottom line, I plan on just running it and seeing what it can do as-is. If I end up loving this machine, maybe - just maybe - I'll learn how to hand scrape and then spring for grinding the bed and having the saddle, cross slide and compound all milled. But I don't think I'm going to love it THAT much.

CVRIV · Feb 20, 2021

MyLilMule said:
Congrats on the purchase.

I just acquired an old 13". I, like you, thought I would need to get the bed ground. But I'm holding off on that, for a couple reasons. #1, like the others have said, run it first. I have learned that a worn bed way isn't the end of the world. It'll probably make parts just fine. And #2, I found out to have this done is a LOT of money, at least $700. And that's just the grinding. The ways (and the saddle) then have to be scraped. You have to grind and scrape them both. And then there are other issues that come with removing metal from the saddle and bed (like the alignment of the lead screw to the apron). There are ways to counteract that, but it's not necessarily easy.

Bottom line, I plan on just running it and seeing what it can do as-is. If I end up loving this machine, maybe - just maybe - I'll learn how to hand scrape and then spring for grinding the bed and having the saddle, cross slide and compound all milled. But I don't think I'm going to love it THAT much.

Ugh.... Dont know if I want to go through all that. I have a feeling it'll be fine just the way it is without all that work. Just a feeling.

So... Well, I'm going to figure out how to upload pics here first before asking any other questions. This thing came with so much stuff.

G-Man24 · Feb 20, 2021

CVRIV said:
Ugh.... Well, I'm going to figure out how to upload pics here first before asking any other questions.

Let me know if you figure it out I've been trying for a week to upload a picture.

Homebrewblob · Feb 20, 2021

CVRIV said:
Ugh.... Dont know if I want to go through all that. I have a feeling it'll be fine just the way it is without all that work. Just a feeling.

So... Well, I'm going to figure out how to upload pics here first before asking any other questions. This thing came with so much stuff.

G-Man24 said:
Let me know if you figure it out I've been trying for a week to upload a picture.

What devices are you using?

To upload pictures you can use mobile, to load FULL SIZE full resolution pictures requires a computer.

You can load pics on your phone by selecting the “use desktop website” option in your phones browser settings, this is different per phone (iPhone,android and so on)..

Once your on the desktop page (if you see a white page then refresh the page or hit “back” and it’ll correct) you need to hit “reply to thread” and you’ll see some new options available.

One of these settings is a “picture of a tree” and you need to click that and follow the prompts.

It’s really not hard once you do it one time

G-Man24 · Feb 20, 2021

Homebrewblob said:
What devices are you using?

I'm working from a laptop. Besides being a member of several other forums I'm an administrator on two of them. I've uploaded thousands of photos over the years. Nothing I try works here.

CVRIV · Feb 21, 2021

Here are the pics. I'll have better, more detailed pics, as I move forward with this.

I have the original catalog and the measurement guide. I also got a rebuild kits along with a manual on how to rebuild the lathe.

Here's a pic of the extras I got.

Here's the machine with all the extra chucks I got.

CVRIV · Feb 21, 2021

Here are the gears. You can see a steady rest in the back there.

Lead screw where i believe more the wear would be.

Quick pic of the ways....

CVRIV · Feb 21, 2021

Another pics of ways.

The chucks.

This Chuck with no threading???

Quick pic of the carriage.

Box 1 of tid bits.

CVRIV · Feb 21, 2021

Box 2 of tid bits.

It came with a table as well. I think the table it as old as the machine itself. I'm going to keep the table but do soke work to it. I think the original owner did an OK job making it but kind if half-assed it a bit for my liking. I dont have a pic of the table yet.

What do all of you think all of this is worth? I want to see where I'm at with the amount of money I spent to get it. lol.

SLK001 · Feb 21, 2021

The chuck with no threading is just without a backplate. You only need to add the proper backplate to have another chuck for you lathe.

Did you create an album for your photos?

Did the carriage come detached, or did you do that to move it?

CVRIV · Feb 21, 2021

I didnt create an album for my photos. I did all that on my phone, it was annoying. Ill look into creating albums later.

We tool the carriage off to lighten up the machine to carry. I tried the carriage out before removing it. It was so smooth. It was smoother than I thought it would be. Was impressed.

Homebrewblob · Feb 21, 2021

CVRIV said:
Box 2 of tid bits.
View attachment 314411

It came with a table as well. I think the table it as old as the machine itself. I'm going to keep the table but do soke work to it. I think the original owner did an OK job making it but kind if half-assed it a bit for my liking. I dont have a pic of the table yet.

What do all of you think all of this is worth? I want to see where I'm at with the amount of money I spent to get it. lol.

Lathes are like brake pads.

We can all use a set of pads but no one wants a set of worn out pads, might not be able to even use them.

Condition is everything. If that lathes was NOS then you could have a few thousand dollars in your hands, if the half nuts/bed and spindle are worn out then you have a pile of scrap iron.

I would guess you have *roughly between 500-1500$ in value. It all depends on a lot of variables.

What brand are the chucks?

I'm probably purchasing a South Bend 9A this morning.

Aluminum

Stainless

Stainless

Cast Iron

Cast Iron

Aluminum

Aluminum

Stainless

Hot Rolled

Aluminum

Plastic

Stainless

Plastic

Aluminum

Attachments

Aluminum

Aluminum

Aluminum

Stainless

Aluminum

Stainless

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