"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
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"Mike Henry" wrote in message
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"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
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snip

Moving a 36" lathe is actually quite doable Harold, depending on the
lathe.
An Atlas/Craftsman 12"x36" can be moved by one person if the lathe is
strapped to a refrigerator dolly. A friend & I have moved a Clausing
12x36
and a Rockwell 11x24 to our respective basements, but each of those
required
a fair amount of disassembly. Each of the latter two weighs around 1,000
lbs.

A Monarch lathe would be beyond by skill and tool set, but I seem to
recal
pictures on the web somewhere of someone who managed it with the help of
professional riggers. They brought it in through an outside concrete
stairwell with a crane, AIR.

I've come to the conclusion that 1/2 ton is about as much as I can handle
in
a basement move and that drops a few tens of pounds as each year passes.

I agree, but you're talking about smaller machines, not 36" machines. I
think you missed my dry humor. As I said, lathes, at least in the
environment in which I was trained, are not specified by bed length, but
by
swing. Bed length is important to, but doesn't define a machine in the
same sense as does the swing capacity, which I'm sure you understand.
As
the post stands, to the casual observer, you'd be talking about a large
lathe. Needless to say, you and I understand he's not talking about such
a
critter. I thought it was a great opportunity to pass on to a novice,
in
a light hearted manner, a way of asking in such a way that he/she would be
better understood by the masses.

Yep - missed the joke. Reading too much on the Internet trains one not
think literally but to read between the lines to discern what was actually
meant rather than what was stated or asked. At least it seems to have
affected me that way.

Look at it this way. If you had an interest in a 12" machine with a
center distance of something in the area of 36", but found a lathe that
had
the asked for 36" centers but was a 24" machine, would you still have an
interest? Yet, if you found a 12" machine that had longer or shorter
than
36" centers, it might still be acceptable. Bed length doesn't change a
machine's features the way swing does.

Center distance can be quite important, but most lathes have the vast
majority of wear within a narrow band, near the chuck. In essence, bed
length is rarely used once you're beyond about 24".

That depends - the last 12" on my Clausing 5914 makes a nice place to park a
bed turret g. The turret doesn't get used much, but it would be used a
lot less if I had to load/unload it.

Mike