For those who don't know its URL by heart,snip Note that
rec.crafts.metalworking
is not the only group which uses the dropbox, so don't depend on others
having seen your article to understand what the photos are about.

Text explanation's forthcoming, just wanted to get the photos up pronto.

snip
It might help to see a close-up photo of the threading chart
(right-hand upright of the headstock) which might give some clues as to
what is what. It is far from legible in this photo, and would probably
need posting with no quality trade-off and no cropping to remain
legible. Don't bother trying to e-mail the photos to me, they would be
too large, and as such, be rejected by one of my anti-virus features.

I'll get a photo of that, although it's not too interesting. Can't get out to
the garage right now.

snip
parting off. I could be mis-identifying them, however.


I'm not much of a collet guy, so I can't help with that. Not for this lathe,
though--it only has a 1/2" spindle bore. From memory, the ones on the wire are
around 1.25" in diameter. The collets in the board have about 3/4" shanks (or
whatever the collet equivalent is) that are smooth for most of the length with
the rearmost 1/4" or so slightly larger.

I'll agree that it looks too large for the cross-slide. Can the
tool bits be adjusted to center height with that compound and the large
lantern-style toolpost?

The bits are perfectly centered, just the dovetail isn't right. Looks like it
was used like this for years--no idea what kind of work was turned out.


I see something else which looks interesting. snip threading stops
which clamp onto the dovetail
behind the cross-slide.


Yes, that's right. I noticed that when I got it--one of those very vintage
features.

I see a follower rest (under the green lampshade -- Tools2), but
I don't see a turret (presumably for the tailstock taper) -- unless it
is under the follower rest. Which photo is it in? Tools6 appears to
have a firm-joint caliper under the other tool bits and debris.

The turret's taper-end is visable sticking out above the follower. The body is
a cylinder with a big slot in it. In the slot is the turret disc with 6 or so
different size holes. Disc is slit almost in half so when you clamp it in place
the tools are secured.

One of the things in the box under the board of collets (Tools4)
looks like a custom gear or pulley puller -- for a single size.

This machine came with several of those. I actually gave away a similar one
last year after no one could find a specific use for it.

Do you find matching holes on one side of the carriage or the
other to match those in the follower rest?

Yup, they're there.

Looking at the apron, with the gear sticking up from it, I would
guess that there is a matching gear on the cross-feed leadscrew,
accessed through a hole under the carriage. At a guess, the
double-ended ball handle (with no crank) selects between cross and
longitudinal feeds, and the round disc to the right of it is the clutch
which couples the leadscrew to the feeds. This is supported by a keyway
in the leadscrew. It means that you won't need to use (and shouldn't
use) the (worn) half-nuts except when threading.

The ball knob is the clutch, the round one's the selector. Unscrew, slide up or
down, screw back in. How does one avoid using the half nuts when making cuts?
The nuts are the only thing that couple the carriage to the leadscrew. Cross is
driven by a sleeve with a key.

Are there two or three inverted V-ways on the bed? In any case,
the steady rest (to the right of the carriage -- "Lathe3") doesn't look
designed for that bed, as it has *two* female Vs -- unless it is
intended to turn it around so you can mount it with the steady fingers
to the left or the right.

That's what I was thinking. The lathe just has one V-way for the tailstock. It
fits perfectly, so it looks like I would work. I'm not positive--it's one of a
couple items that seem to have been stored underground.

I presume that the bearing sleeves on the big countershaft
snip
I would like some closer photos of just the bearing
sleeves to verify this.

That's correct. The frame is made out of really rough iron--at first I thought
cutting torch but looks more like cold chisel. How it's mounted is really
ingenius, as far as hack engineering goes. The wider channel section sticking
out was bolted to the underside of the bed. The narrower section was bolted to
the end of the bed, under the gears. Seems to have worked for all these years.

I find the smaller pulley to the right (as shown) interesting --
perhaps to drive some accessory power feed. Or perhaps it is a sliding
actuator for a dog clutch to stop and start the lathe while allowing the
motor to continue running. This sort of thing would be needed with the
original line-shaft power, since a single shaft would be powering many
machines in the shop at the same time.

It's just a couple flanges on a sleeve. No idea what it is--it seems fixed to
the shaft.

It looks as though you have a pretty good 4-jaw chuck for the
lathe, but it is missing the backplate -- unless it is in one of the
boxes -- perhaps under the stack of faceplates in the bucket.

The backplate is actually mounted on the spindle. Looks like they didn't want
to unscrew it even though it's not stuck.

Hmm ... the lever (Tools3) to the right of the handle bar on the
left-hand tray) *might* belong to the tailstock -- to clamp or release
the bolt down to a plate below the bed to allow the tailstock to easily
be re-positioned.

That's a pipe wrench, actually. You can see the tailstock's clamp in the lower
left of that same tray.

One object in the tray to the right of it looks like a plain
miling cutter for a specific gear tooth form -- and a certain range of
tooth counts. You would need a mill and an index head to make proper
use of this, of course.

There are several normal milling cutters, including an arbor, in this mess.

Oh -- is there a 3-jaw under the faceplates? Perhaps also a
backplate for the 4-jaw?

Yes, a smaller 3-jaw. See above about the backplate. There's also a very small
4-jaw in another box without jaws.

Right now -- I don't see anything in that batch of photos on
which I would be likely to bid -- lacking better identification. I'm
not sure what you are calling "tapping heads". More detailed photos,
excavated from all the other clutter which surrounds them, might allow
better identification.

There are several of them of different sizes. I assume they're tapping heads
for a DP. Big metal cylinder with a taper or shank on one end, a long arm
sticking out to one side, and an old-timy tap chuck on the other. Press in on
the tap chuck and it rotates with the main body, pull out and it reverses.
They're very, very old.


How much modification would be needed? Does it work?

The dovetail is 1/8" wider than that of the compound base, and it's a different
angle. I figure it could be milled to the right angle, and an extra-wide gib
used to take up the width. Not ideal but for something this age it would be
cheaper than a corrent compound.


Lots of them above -- including guesses -- as best as I can do
based on the photos.

Good Luck,
DoN.

Thanks for the input. Only thing I can say is that it was free. The previous
owners who actually used it are still in town, so I might see what else I can
dig up.

GTO(John)