Rockwell hand turret lathe

[edennis]

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:

[Kozzy]

Most aren't set up for lathe threading--they are for repetitive operations on whatever bar is chucked...bores, shoulders, counter sinks, etc.  I see there is a die-head insert in the turret but that is not the same as being able to properly thread on the lathe.  It looks like this one doesn't have the leadscrew so I assume there are no provisions for threading.

It's also not set up ideally for a toolpost---there is some stuff that is missing to give you that ability..no proper cross slide or compound.  It does have a cut-off slide so you could partially fake it but it won't be the same thing.

So...if you were making 10,000 of exactly the same bushing, that would be a wonderful manual lathe to have (though virtually everyone would do that CNC these days).  However, as a shop lathe, this one isn't what you really want.

In short, this is a useful and great machine for someone who has specific use for such, but it's not a great "all around" lathe for what most people would do.  The collet set-up is also extremely accurate and a great thing to have...again, if you are making only parts that this machine excels at.

I'm curious if you know the asking price.  Since my work actually often could use such a thing, I might bite somewhere between $ 500 and $ 1000 depending on the included tooling but it's not worth much more than that to most people..and a lot less to someone looking for an "all around" shop lathe.

FYI, they also used to make these with a hip actuator instead of the crank handles---there was sort of a wide forked thing that stuck out at hip height and you'd use your hips to move the slide--keeping your hands free for other tasks on the lathe like loading and unloading quickly...sort of like having 3 hands for making a zillion of the same parts.  Bet that made you walk funny by the end of a long day.

I should add..those old rockwells are a great lathe and not junk--back in those days they were built to true industrial standards, not like the "rockwell" brand of today which tends to be nothing but a brand stamp they put on some homeowner tools.

[Frosty]

Ditto here. You'd have to need to do some repetitive production jobs to get much if any use from it. That's a specialized machine from the 20s maybe?

Save it from the scrappers if I had room and keep it for parts maybe. A good motor would make it worth a hundred bucks maybe two. But that's me and I don't have much use for another lathe. Not having a leadscrew means it'd be hard to convert to something useful. Might have to change pullies on the belts to change speed.

Frosty The Lucky.

[edennis]

Thanks for the responses! Not gonna  bite on this one, though it's  temping if only to save a cool old machine. I believe the asking price  was 900 or something around there.