Ignoramus12951 wrote:
On 2010-02-15, Jon Elson wrote:
National Acme was bought by DeVlieg-Bullard II, good folks to work with,
but as they sold nothing under $100K, they weren't too concerned about
having a machinist make a single gear for $475. I decided to braze the
tooth back on instead!

Anyway, Bourne & Koch bought out DeVleig-Bullard, and they seem to have
dumped the Sheldon prints, so now parts can't be made at all.

This is really disgusting, typical and is a very bad side of the
merger mania.

Well, I don't KNOW this is true. Somebody may have scuttled out the
back door with the prints, and are setting up shop to make some of the
common wear parts as we speak. I sure HOPE this is the case. But, what
I have heard is that Bourne and Koch are NOT making parts for Sheldon
machines, period. It may hardly matter, as it made NO sense to have
them make one-offs for the smaller Sheldon lathes. There are not that
many of the R-series and other larger lathes where it WOULD make sense
to go to such expense. DeVlieg-Bullard II had the prints, and would
quote the price to make parts at least for R-series machines, but I
definitely did NOT want to pay their quoted price.

Anyway, I have no idea how many Sheldons are left floating around. I
did a huge rebuild on an R15-6 (15 x 42", 5 Hp, 2.25" spindle bore, D1-6
mount, 80 threading feeds) made about 1968, and it is now a dandy
machine! But, I don't know if there are enough left for anybody to make
a buck making parts for them.

Jon