South bend 14 1/2”

Hi all, I’m curious if anyone’s ever swapped a bed out from one lathe to another? I have a 14 1/2” with a 5 foot bed, been turning away some work cause my bed is too short. (Not life threatening as I work a full time job but I want to go completely on my own one day) I’ve found another south bend with an 8 foot bed, it’s a 14 1/2” as well. The other machine has been somewhat torn apart and missing several things but the bed is supposedly good. My question is are the tailstock/headstock machined/ground together and not interchangeable, or is that null and void since I would be swapping my headstock/tailstock/carriage to the donor bed? I’m sort of sentimental towards the lathe as I got it from work for free, it was owned by Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel and the numbers come back as a 1941 And I know on that premises they made decking for battleships So it was part of the war effort. I really like it and seems to run very nice. Any advice is appreciated

When brand new, everything was machined together. 80 years later I can guarantee the same parts from the same lathe would benefit leveling, alignment and trimming out. So I would not be personally scared to swap parts. But I would run test bar in head stock to align to ways and such. You could scrape or shim head stock to get in align.

Tail stock base and carriage/saddle would definitely need to be scraped in if swapped.

Tail stock centered, aligned and all that to headstock.

If I had the shop floor space, might be tempted to have both. You'd have two lathes that could share spare parts, tools, whatever.