Lathes

Show me your Lathe. The desk top lathe or the one the size of tractor trailer truck, single tool or turret. It would be nice to have the manufacture, the size, and a little history on the lathe if it is available.

Today marks 0 days since new shiny tool for me. New lathe day! Got it assembled and running, and made a quick part out of malleable iron (from a black iron pipe nipple). Just to get to know the machine. This part will be an arbor to let me work 1/4" tees in a 1/2" collet, for 1/4" frosty burners. NPT thread on one end, 5" shank (I got it 3 thou over Edit: 5 tenths over, cause I can't read apparently) on the other end. I'm a pretty happy guy! There a couple of areas the lathe needs modification methinks. First off, there's no steel anywhere to clamp a dial holder to. Even the headstock enclosure is aluminum (I know that's why I can afford this …

I know some on here have lathes in their shop. Have you ever made a fixture or jig to make something special? Here's a small fixture I made to cut a little rack gear out of alumuminunum for a project I had. It was in the experimental stages as you can see by some of the mangled teeth. I eventually worked the kinks out and also cut some out of cast iron.

Finally got myself a lathe and a milling machine. The lathe is an old craftsman 6x18 metal lathe. It has a marathon 3/4 hp dc motor. and the mill is a grizzly. Real excited to put them to use. Small but they should do the trick for my shop. Can always use a friends machines if I need bigger

Built this little bugger in about a day. Its bed is made from two, 24" pieces of 1 1/2" angle iron, welded to an angle iron foot at each end and drilled for mounting to a bench. The headstock is made from 3/4 plywood and oak boards, the spindle is the spindle from a toro lawnmower deck that my brother's wife destroyed and he gave to me to "make something with it". It turned out that its threads were the right ones to hold this cheapy little 3" three jaw chuck i had around. The motor is a 1/20hp 1500rpm fan motor from a walk in cooler and the drive is from a vacuum cleaner flat belt between two pulleys. The headstock pulley of homecast aluminum turned on the metal lathe an…

A 1911 vintage 16” lathe. Tight as the day it was built, not a bearing in it.

I'm evaluating whether getting a small lathe is a good decision for me or not. I've really enjoyed making mini burners, and one day I'd like to get into model steam engines. I have <10hrs of experience using a metal lathe before. My biggest constraint here is that I need to be able to carry this hypothetical lathe up and down a flight of stairs by myself. It's not negotiable for me right now. Here are the types of jobs I have in mind for a lathe: cutting an internal taper (1:12) on a piece of 3/4"(D) x 1-1/2"(L) schedule 40 stainless pipe drilling 25/64" holes in a malleable iron plumbing tee (at biggest, a 1/2" x 1/2" tee) turning ODs and…

So I have a Boice & Crane I'd estimate is 80-100 years old that had been adapted as a small metal spinning lathe. I finally have the Wonder Hut (my metalworking studio---studio because I am a pretentious artiste) close to done and ready for projects and this lathe may be in the top five of first set of projects. I say top five because I have fabricating to do, but I'd really like to get this lathe operational. Maybe. Which is why I'm posting this. I think I could probably clean everything off and just get it working but I think I'd like to try re-habbing it and perhaps replacing the ways. The headstock is quite beefy cast iron with ball bearings that are wor…

Hey everyone I got a small lathe and a mill last winter and have been quite busy with other obligations so I haven't really been able to use It that much. I have made a couple simple projects since I've had it just some shop chores but this is the first somewhat complicated project I have made. I thought it was pretty cool. This is the milk selector switch off of my wife's expresso machine. It broke about a year ago and I tried to glue it with epoxy a couple of times but it broke as soon as I put it on. So 4000$ worth of machine tools and 6 hrs of shop time later we have a sweet billit aluminum switch for our 30$ used espresso machine from the swap and buy. The project …

Hello All, 20 years plus picking up & restoring old machines, this has to be one of the most spirited or daring one to date...... I picked up a LANG lathe recently where it was located in a tiny little shed. This lathe has sat in the same shed for 60 or so years where a housing estate was built up around it ruling out all possible extraction options be it fork truck or rollers. There was no option but to hire a crane and lift skywards, over the house and onto an awaiting trailer. It a sight to behold....terrifying in fact! Here's the old girl.....a beauty of an old LANG lathe....all 2.5tons of her.... The heavy lift arrives and sets up.…

So I've started messing with my atlas 618 I got in December. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Did a few passes on the side and face of a piece of steel. It only came with the cutoff tool but I bought a cutter for a dollar and tried it out. I should have bought the carbide one he had but I wasn't sure it would fit in my tool holder. Anyway, where do you find cutters? I know most of the HSS ones come as blanks but I've tried google and can't find stores that carry any of them. I'll probably order online but would like to find somewhere local. What would I put in to search google, like "specialty shop" near me. Also, does lowes have them? Website wasn't showing anyt…

So in the process of restoring my lathe I got the chuck completely apart. Should I just fill it with the oil I'm supposed to use to lube it or should I put some grease in before I seal it all up?

I'm looking for info on this lathe: It's advertised as a "Rockwell hand turret lathe". I'm wondering if these are considered decent machines and what a price point might be for a used one? Thanks for any leads on information. -Eric one more picture:

So one of the things my dad got me and brought in for the holidays is an old Atlas lathe. The motor works, everything on it seems to move. It is missing the tailstock or what ever it's called, I think that's it though. It also needs the belt for the drive shaft. I had a few questions about it. First, how do I figure the size of the belt I need? Can I just use a string and wrap it around the pulleys and that's the length belt I need? I'm not sure how belts are measured and labeled so I'm fairly clueless. Also, do you think it will be possible to find a tailstock? I've not been able to find what I believe to be a model on the lathe but have found very similar looking ones t…

Howdy, I have the opportunity to pick up a very old 18" conehead lathe for a song. I've wanted to tinker with a big lathe for a while, but I also want to keep my focus on forgework. I'm sure everyone understands the appeal of a new machine tool. This acquisition would mean trading 12" of shop wall space. I'd be putting the lathe in an environment that is probably hostile to its livelihood. Since I don't have much training with machine tools I can't say for sure that I will get the use out of it to justify the trade-off in shop space. It is rather long for what I imagine using it for, but it is a beautiful old machine and in fine shape. I don't make a livin…

I have a chance to buy a Atlas model 618 lathe in good condition for $500.00 is this a good price.

Can anyone tell if it is possible to cut metric threads with this lathe by the pictures below? my Shop lathe lists metric threads on its "gear selection" but this one does not. I know that because it has a "American" leadscrew that if I do find the right gear I will have to leave the half nut engaged and stop the machine at the end of the threads, pull out, and then reverse the machine back to my starting point. Thank you, Russell Doerr

Need a wood lathe, then build one.

I was thinking perhaps all smart folks on here could help me out with something and I'll get to that in a minute. But what I've been building lately is a little home made lathe roughly based on Dave Gingerly's lathe book except I'm not using aluminum castings but rather I decided to make it out of steel.. A couple of mistakes I've made was one I went cheap and instead of using cold rolled steel I used what I had available which was hot rolled stuff and I've had heck getting everything flat.. But I've overcame this problem with a good amount of valve grinding compound and lots of sweat and I've hand lap the bed down to .002 and not in these pictures which are a couple…

A mostly finished spring lathe. I've been watching too much Woodwright's Shop and decided to make some wood gouges and chisels the other day. I've gotten tired of using the drawknife/rasp/sander to get close to round or oval handles, so I finally broke down and made one. (so now I need to make more chisels and gouges for the lathe...to make handles for the chisels and gouges, to..... Used Harry Rogers's Youtube vid for the plans, adjustable and breaks down easy. There's no hardwood at all in the thing, poles (bungee, not the traditional 20 ft sapling) and the treadle go in today, plus the pins for the poppets, from a broken garage door screw with square thread. …

The inside jaws have been installed on my lath for years and I've marked them to match the chuck. But today, I needed the outside jaws to hold a large piece. That's when I realized that those jaws were not match to the chuck. Spent a bit of time using the "hit and miss" method.....then shut off the lights and went inside. Even a fool knows his limits. So what is the secret, math formula for timing these jaws to meet in the middle..........THX, Keith

I've long regretted selling two lathes I used to have, and this came up for sale one day when I mentioned I was looking for one. Despite the condition, missing parts, and suspect heritage, I grabbed it. It seems to be, more or less, a southbend 9" model c. Except for a gouge that doesn't seem to affect function, the bed seems to be free of major wear, rust seems only minor, no pitting. The gears are all free of chips and are missing no teeth. The cross slide is someone else's homemade contraption. Also included was a compound crossslide from a hardinge lathe that had some busted and missing parts. With the exception of the swivel mechanism, the compound s…

So, I was reading a book from 1902 on silversmithing couple days ago and ran into some pictures of a bow lathe, something I hadn't seen before being used for polishing and bowls and such. Quick! To my trusty Google page! And I came up with this.

I am needing a thread dial for a LeBlonde 13" lathe. If anyone has one for sale I would be interested.

I bought a Logan gear change lathe the other day; 10" swing 24" centers. I got a 4" 3-jaw chuck, 8" 4-jaw chuck, faceplate, dog, pair of centers, Jacobs chuck, full set of gears, straight, left, right angled tool holders, and some tooling. I paid $700 for all of it. I currently have it completely disassembled for cleaning. I have contacted the Logan company for the users/owners manual and a parts catalog. -Hillbilly