USNmechanic
Aluminum
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2016
I currently have 4 complete lathes, and I’m looking for advice on which one(s) to keep. There are 3 South Bend lathes, each with different advantages, and a Logan. I didn’t plan on collecting lathes, but I started with one that I cleaned and repainted, and ended up buying two more for the attachments because they were really good deals. The other was given to me rather than sending it to the scrap yard. I don’t really have a large enough shop for all of them, and don’t want them just sitting around getting rusty when somebody else could be putting them to use. I’ll just describe all of them and would appreciate any advice or shared experiences that may point me in the right direction.
South Bend 9A – 444R 4 ½’ Bed
This is the one that started it all. I bought it completely in pieces and spent almost a year and a half cleaning, stripping, and repainting it. It has cast iron head bearings and a horizontal drive with a very cool ½ HP motor. It’s bolted to a 2” solid-core door since I haven’t built a bench for it yet, so I haven’t spent any time trying to level it, but I’ve made several parts with it and it works great. It does not have a two-step pulley on the motor or horizontal drive, so speeds are a little limited. I also have a follower rest, steady rest, and decent collet set with drawbar that fit this and the next lathe. Between my sentimental attachment and the 4 ½’ bed, this one would be hard to let go.
South Bend 9A – CL344ZD 3 ½’ Bed
I’ve only had this one for a couple of weeks now. It has the under-mount drive with a two-step pulley on the motor, so twice as many speeds as the first one. The cabinet is in great shape, and I think the only thing missing is the key to the drawers. I just finished disassembling and cleaning everything outside the cabinet with the exception of the headstock, and it is in excellent shape besides the paint. The gears in the QCGB look like brand new, there is very little wear in the half nuts, the flaking is still visible on almost every surface that would have been scraped, and the first cuts last night on a round of aluminum almost frosted my eyes. The cabinet is really nice and very convenient, but at 6’4” I would probably need to build some risers to bring it up to a more comfortable height. I’m not sure if I would miss the extra foot on the bed if I were to keep this one, and I would probably want to strip it down and repaint it sometime in the near future which is not a small task.
South Bend 10K – CL670Z 3 ½’ Bed
I bought this one from a guy who hadn’t run it in 8 years. He assured me that his father bought it from the original owner, who used it to repair film equipment. It’s got a lot of grime and surface flashing, but looks like it’s lived a very cushy life. The areas that I have cleaned still show a lot of the flaking, and everything appears to be very tight. It’s a horizontal drive, and appears to be complete. This is also a 12-speed drive, and has a lot of nice features such as the tailstock wiper and micrometer dial, and larger spindle bore. It also has a complete collet set from 1/64 up to 9/16”. I don’t have a follower rest or steady rest, and I know that the purchase cost of these can be substantial. I don’t know that there’s enough here to choose this over the previous two, but it’s one of the choices.
Logan 11” – 1955 3 ½’ Bed
A local machinist friend gave this to me. It was used as a production machine and is currently covered in a film of clay-like material, but seems to be a rock-solid lathe. It has flame-hardened ways in excellent shape, a production t-slot cross slide with an extremely worn screw/nut, and preloaded sealed headstock bearings that feel very smooth. It also has a very nice ¾ HP two-speed 3-phase motor with a two-step pulley and v-belt counter shaft/headstock drive. I bought a nice turret tail-stock for it on a whim, and planned to tear this down and clean/repaint it last year but life got in the way. The cabinet is probably twice as heavy as the CL344ZD, and has a removable coolant/chip pan. I plan to keep this and machine a new cross feed screw with whatever other lathe I keep. I only mention it here because maybe having this one makes a difference for which other I should keep.
If you’ve made it this far, I apologize for the novel and appreciate hearing any and all advice.
-Keith
South Bend 9A – 444R 4 ½’ Bed
This is the one that started it all. I bought it completely in pieces and spent almost a year and a half cleaning, stripping, and repainting it. It has cast iron head bearings and a horizontal drive with a very cool ½ HP motor. It’s bolted to a 2” solid-core door since I haven’t built a bench for it yet, so I haven’t spent any time trying to level it, but I’ve made several parts with it and it works great. It does not have a two-step pulley on the motor or horizontal drive, so speeds are a little limited. I also have a follower rest, steady rest, and decent collet set with drawbar that fit this and the next lathe. Between my sentimental attachment and the 4 ½’ bed, this one would be hard to let go.
South Bend 9A – CL344ZD 3 ½’ Bed
I’ve only had this one for a couple of weeks now. It has the under-mount drive with a two-step pulley on the motor, so twice as many speeds as the first one. The cabinet is in great shape, and I think the only thing missing is the key to the drawers. I just finished disassembling and cleaning everything outside the cabinet with the exception of the headstock, and it is in excellent shape besides the paint. The gears in the QCGB look like brand new, there is very little wear in the half nuts, the flaking is still visible on almost every surface that would have been scraped, and the first cuts last night on a round of aluminum almost frosted my eyes. The cabinet is really nice and very convenient, but at 6’4” I would probably need to build some risers to bring it up to a more comfortable height. I’m not sure if I would miss the extra foot on the bed if I were to keep this one, and I would probably want to strip it down and repaint it sometime in the near future which is not a small task.
South Bend 10K – CL670Z 3 ½’ Bed
I bought this one from a guy who hadn’t run it in 8 years. He assured me that his father bought it from the original owner, who used it to repair film equipment. It’s got a lot of grime and surface flashing, but looks like it’s lived a very cushy life. The areas that I have cleaned still show a lot of the flaking, and everything appears to be very tight. It’s a horizontal drive, and appears to be complete. This is also a 12-speed drive, and has a lot of nice features such as the tailstock wiper and micrometer dial, and larger spindle bore. It also has a complete collet set from 1/64 up to 9/16”. I don’t have a follower rest or steady rest, and I know that the purchase cost of these can be substantial. I don’t know that there’s enough here to choose this over the previous two, but it’s one of the choices.
Logan 11” – 1955 3 ½’ Bed
A local machinist friend gave this to me. It was used as a production machine and is currently covered in a film of clay-like material, but seems to be a rock-solid lathe. It has flame-hardened ways in excellent shape, a production t-slot cross slide with an extremely worn screw/nut, and preloaded sealed headstock bearings that feel very smooth. It also has a very nice ¾ HP two-speed 3-phase motor with a two-step pulley and v-belt counter shaft/headstock drive. I bought a nice turret tail-stock for it on a whim, and planned to tear this down and clean/repaint it last year but life got in the way. The cabinet is probably twice as heavy as the CL344ZD, and has a removable coolant/chip pan. I plan to keep this and machine a new cross feed screw with whatever other lathe I keep. I only mention it here because maybe having this one makes a difference for which other I should keep.
If you’ve made it this far, I apologize for the novel and appreciate hearing any and all advice.
-Keith