I was passing by an auction house so I dropped in to see if they had
anything interesting. Not much chance of finding anything, after all
I'm
only buying extra special machines from now on. As soon as I saw the
legs,
base casting and tail stock of this lathe I knew I was going to bring
it
home. According to my wife I think everything is extra special.
Here's a close-up of the tooling. A really nice replaceable tip set,
as new with 4 external, 4 internal, and a parting tool. There are also
3 used fixed tip bits. In addition to the centre and chuck shown, it
also
came with the face plate, a Cushman 4" three jaw chuck and a 6" 4 jaw
chuck.
A close-up of the bed. Sorry for the crappy picture. Is that a vice
mounted there? It certainly is. There are no obvious signs of related
bed
damage. I don't know what to make of the previous owner. The motor
mounting
job is very well done (this was originally a treadle lathe). The tin
covers
are also thoughtfully designed and well made, but with poor mounting
and
of tin so thin I'm surprised I can't see through it. The chip/drip tray
can barely hold up the chuck key. And then there is the vice....
I was surprised to find that when moving the carriage with the jibs tight I could detect very little wear in the ways. When I got home I noticed there is a small piece of steel wedged between the ways, presumably to spread them to compensate for the wear. Yikes! No signs of damage however.
The lathe is probably late 1800's. It has every feature of more modern small lathes except one. The rack and pinion feed for the carriage is not geared and so is useless for manual feed while cutting. As a result feed via the lead screw is always required and on this lathe the screw is well worn. The lathe is of the same capacity as my Advance, but is of heavier construction all round. I figure I'll use them to make parts for each other.
Some shots of the countershaft arrangement. As is obvious, its very
rigid. Its not quite right though - the countershaft runs too fast and
there is no easy way to de-tension the flat belt.
You can also see the change gears fitted to the machine (the only ones it came with). There are two that look original and two that appear to be newly made steel replacements.
Here's an 1896 catalogue pic of the number 14 lathe which is a close
match for my lathe. The belting, which probably isn't original on my
lathe,
is the only difference I see. My lathe is missing quite a bit: