South Bend 9a price

I'm looking to buy my first metal lathe. I know nothing about machining and have been doing alot of reading. I found a 1955 South Bend 9a for sale locally. He wants $2000 for it. Seller says that it was recently restored. It comes with extra 4 jaw chuck, some cutting bits, and a tail stick drill chuck. He says it has all the guards and side stock gears for the threading gear box. Is this price high or about right? Attached is a picture of the lathe. Thanks for your time.

If it's really ready to go and condition is good then that's not bad...old lathes are expensive and if all you have to do is tool up, you can spend your time making stuff rather than fixing a lathe.

Looks nice.. is it missing the side cover on the left side? Hard to tell from pictures. FYI, I just got my 9A 3 1/2 bed for 1,100$ with every attachment,3 and 4 jaw chuck,collets,taper attachment,hundreds of cutting bits,chucks etc,etc... mine did not come with a stand...I had to build it. I’m in South Florida, so I’m sure locating has a lot to do with pricing.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the replys. Good find and nice setup. I think he took the guard off for the photos. Says he has all the guards for it. I've been thinking about it for the last couple days. Probably should'nt think to long and just get it.

I like the South Bend base that he has - lots of drawers for storage. I don't like the wheels, because the lathe will never be level. Yes, it's nice to be able to roll around and out of the way, but to get accuracy, the lathe needs a dedicated spot where it can be leveled.

What does he mean by "restored"? If it was a real restore, it will mean reground and scraped bed and turcite applied to carriage and tail stock, in addition to new felts and paint. Base your price on the condition of the bed - if heavily grooved, it means that the lathe wasn't restored, so drop your offer by 40-50% of what he is asking.

All the lovingly applied paint in the world on an old clunk does nothing to make it a "restored" machine tool

This breed is just a nice looking old clunk. You could politely inquire along these lines

There are I expect fully restored examples out there that have yet to be painted - they will out perform any nice looking old clunk

It's a nice looking lathe....or at least it has nice looking paint. Be very careful you're not just buying a fancy paint job for the money. If you are a novice at this, then find somebody who knows about these machines to go look at it with you. The mechanical condition of the lathe is way more important than the quality of the re-paint job.

Fair price IF IF the lathe is in good, tight, serviceable condition.
Needs to be inspected and run under power/test cuts to confirm for that price.
With a satisfactory visual inspection only (light wear to ways, all gears in good shape, acceptable backlash, etc), I would offer a reduced amount

Inspecting it under power will be good to see that everything works, but you won't get a straight cut with it on those wheels.

A lathe of that size IMO either better have had the ways redone recently or come with a lot of tooling. Otherwise it is in no way worthless, but it's value will really hinge on what else is for sale near you and how much you want to spend on the lathe after you buy it (tooling and/or repairs).

Greetings, it is I, Steelballs……

Here in New Yawk, SB lathes come up for sale quite frequently. I check the Auctions International website on a daily basis and see all sorts of machine tools up for bid. A few days ago a fully tooled 9A came up for auction at a school in Westchester County, and I was intrigued. I made an appointment to see the lathe and other tools (think mint Benchmaster mill on factory pedestal) and off I went. An hour later I arrived at a middle school. Upon inspection the lathe was indeed fully tooled and had the undermount motor configuration. There was some wear in the ways near the chuck, easily visible to the naked eye. Needed a good cleaning but it struck me as a great lathe for someone looking to get into metalworking/machining, etc. I did not bid on the lathe as I have two lathes already but it ultimately went for $460. I though that was reasonable even factoring in the 18% auctioneer's fee and local sales tax of 8% or so. The moral of my story, if there is one, would be to be patient, know what your looking for and looking at, and try not to get burned.