I found an old Seneca Falls 10" x 36" lathe. It's in fair to good condition, no rust except on the chrome handwheels. It has been stored in a heated dry basement for 15 years. The only marking I spotted was cast in the fron surface of the bed, and read "Model 20".

The head stock, the carriage and the tail stock were all snug and smooth.

The drive system looks like it is a complete cobble job. It was a "trapeze" looking affair and fashioned from twisted and straight v-belts, on a 2x4 lumber platform that the previous owner (now deceased) had apparently attached to his ceiling.

The whole "trapeze" contraption was leaning against a wall so I didn't see it run, but it apparently was reversible according to the current owner, who had never run it in 15 years.

I've seen the info on www.lathes.com but there isn't much detail about the drive system, nor what tapers this lathe employs. Can any one the forum direct me to a source of info on this lathe so I can see what the drive train is supposed to look like?

I've seen the info on www.lathes.com but there isn't much detail about
the drive system, nor what tapers this lathe employs. Can any one the
forum direct me to a source of info on this lathe so I can see what the
drive train is supposed to look like?

Try this:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/senecafalls/index.html

There's a link for "Drive Systems" that might help.

Best Regards,
Keith Marshall


"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"


"J. Mark Wolf" wrote in message
...

I found an old Seneca Falls 10" x 36" lathe. It's in fair to good
condition, no rust except on the chrome handwheels. It has been stored
in a heated dry basement for 15 years. The only marking I spotted was
cast in the fron surface of the bed, and read "Model 20".

The head stock, the carriage and the tail stock were all snug and
smooth.

The drive system looks like it is a complete cobble job. It was a
"trapeze" looking affair and fashioned from twisted and straight
v-belts, on a 2x4 lumber platform that the previous owner (now
deceased) had apparently attached to his ceiling.

The whole "trapeze" contraption was leaning against a wall so I didn't
see it run, but it apparently was reversible according to the current
owner, who had never run it in 15 years.

I've seen the info on www.lathes.com but there isn't much detail about
the drive system, nor what tapers this lathe employs. Can any one the
forum direct me to a source of info on this lathe so I can see what the
drive train is supposed to look like?


--
J. Mark Wolf

Looks like I'm not the only one who just became the owner of a Star
lathe.

Can't help with the drive system, but have some comments on the taper.
The lathes.co.uk site doesn't seem to mention the taper so I did a
little measuring of my own last night.

The tailstock taper on my 9" Star is a standard Morse #2 taper. The
headstock taper is a different story... it isn't a Morse, Jarno, or
Browne and Sharp taper.

The taper is somewhere around 0.035 and 0.034. Best I could do using
telescoping hole gages and a caliper to measure depth and diameter. The
raw numbers look something like this: 1.000 major 0.917 minor 2.416
length. Those were quick measurements the other night trying to see if
it matched any of the standard tapers so take those numbers as rough.

The previous owner made a sleeve adapter to use standard MT2 centers in
the headstock. Others in this newsgroup have done the same.

In article , J. Mark Wolf says...

I've seen the info on www.lathes.com but there isn't much detail about
the drive system, nor what tapers this lathe employs. Can any one the
forum direct me to a source of info on this lathe so I can see what the
drive train is supposed to look like?

You won't find one site that shows what 'the' drive system
looked like, because these were designed to be overhead lineshaft
driven, and there are so many ways to skin that cat that work
it's amazing.

Basically all you need is a countershaft bolted to something
solid above or behind the machine, and a motor to drive it
via a reduction. The reversing is now done by electrical
switching of the motor leads.

The tapers IIRC may be Jarno on some of those machines, if
not MT2.

Jim


--
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[quote=Keith Marshall] I've seen the info on www.lathes.com but there isn't much detail about
the drive system, nor what tapers this lathe employs. Can any one the
forum direct me to a source of info on this lathe so I can see what the
drive train is supposed to look like?

Try this:

http://www.lathes.co.uk/senecafalls/index.html

There's a link for "Drive Systems" that might help.

Best Regards,
Keith Marshall



Yes, that is the link I was referring to. There aren't many good pics or diagrams of a stock drive system. It also doesn't refer to what tapers are used in the head and tail stocks.