In article , DoN. Nichols says...

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/Seneca_Lathe_1.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/Seneca_Lathe_2.jpg

Hmm ... I would like to see a more detailed close-up of the
apron. Don't e-mail it to me, because I'm blocking anything over 30k to
keep the spam out, but another upload to the dropbox would be nice.

Looking at it, I *think* that the four-pointed star wheel is a
friction clutch to power feed. And I think that the power feed is only
longitudinal, as I don't see a control to switch it to the cross-feed.

OK, here's one:

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2000_retired_files/Seneca2.jpg

I'm not sure which of these has already been posted, but for the record:

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2000_retired_files/Seneca1.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2000_retired_files/Seneca3.jpg
http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2000_retired_files/Seneca4.jpg

and

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_2000_retired_files/Seneca.txt

The four-pointed knob is of course the feed clutch as you suspected,
DoN. The half nuts lever protrudes out of the far right side of
the apron - there is actually a square slot on the side to allow
this.

The control that allows one to switch from longitudinal feed to
crossfeed is a stud that protrudes out the front of the apron,
on the lower right corner which is a sort of wing nut where the
wings are turned as round spheres. (the reversing tumbler
adjustment also sports one of these)

The adjustment rides up and down in a slot in the apron front,
so one loosens the knob, and lifts or drops the wingnut handle,
and then re-tightens it in the correct place. His lathe has
those nuts with a very large diameter base so they pretty
much hide the slot. Also in his photo showing the apron, I
think it's in the "up" position. In my photo it's definitely
"down" and the base of the nut is small, so it would be easy
to see the slot, except the crossfeed handle is partly
obscuring it.

I can only detect *one* sylistic difference between mine and
his, and that is the handle for the tailstock ram clamp.
Mine had seen some rough use, somebody engaged the back gears
while running and stripped off a couple of teeth. THere is
a serviceable repair in place. Also the lead screw support
on the right side was at one time ripped off the machine,
another serviceable repair is in place there. More about that
monenarilly.

I bet those two machines came off the production line quite
near to each other. He hasn't mentioned ths serial number,
but mine is:

2537

Which is stamped between the V-ways on the bed, directly
above the tailstock-end leadscrew bracket.

Back to the leadscrew bracket repair on this machine. It is
apparent after using it briefly that the apron has NO
lockout that prevents one from simultaneously engaging the
longitudinal feed and the half nuts. All modern machines
have this lockout, because if one does engage them both
at the same time, it effectively locks the lead screw,
because the two drive ratios are different.

In my lathes case, somebody did this, and the drive
from the spindle gear ripped the right-hand side bracket
right off the machine at that point. So anyone with
a lathe like this should be fore-warned to avoid accidentally
doing that while the machine is in actual use.

Oh, there's one more dropbox photo, forgot about this one,
a bit blurry:

http://www.metalworking.com/DropBox/_1998_retired_files/jim6.jpg

Jim


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