First lathe

heddrik

Well Known Member
Bolt it down securely and get it as level as possible. The better the level, the less taper you have in longer cuts. A precision level may be available some where, but any level will help. Check it in X and Z and several places down the ways. Looks good . First rule : NEVER leave chuck key in the chuck! What sort of tooling do you have?
 
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nana1962409

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
Thanks James. Heddrik it came bolted down to the table it is on and I’m planning on leaving it on that for now. As far as tooling not a lot came with it. Everything I got with it is in the pictures in the first post. Pretty much the steady rest and some other cutting bits. I don’t normally leave the chuck key there I was cleaning the table up and stuck it there so I didn’t put it with my other tools in the tool box
 

Tooth

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 3
Nate, here is my first lathe that my father in law gave me 30 years ago. Originally I believe it was a treadle lathe. Was converted sometime in the 20s or 30s to an electric motor lathe. Has a very drive to change the head speed and I have a reader that reads the RPM. You simply move the variable speed pulley up and down to increase or decrease the speed. And it will run pretty slow or crazy fast. It was made in Rockford Illinois I believe in the 1870s or 1880s.:wacko You won’t make any NASA parts but it works really good for some of the stuff that I do. It’s my first go to. I’ve done a lot of crazy things with this thing. I have a steady rest it has different gears and it has an auto drive and a lot of extra parts. Pretty good deal for free. And it will be handed down to my son and my grandson. Hopefully for not another 50 years though:confused It was made by WF. & J Barnes Co. Rockford IL. You have a nice lathe and you’ll wonder how you got by without one once you start using it. Good luck!5D810EFC-8AC8-4224-B782-9255A4F7BA90.jpeg9795E258-F190-4095-AA9E-032204FDA2EF.jpegF8EA76D0-5CC1-496E-B162-7F9C6369E6D8.jpegE7E0DBA9-18DF-4649-90AA-DA66C1E97418.jpeg6FD8E2BB-7EEF-4704-B5C2-0D3F8B29B2F0.jpegEA794312-ECAD-4E4E-ACFC-5312F6D699EA.jpeg
 

64ss409

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 9
Back nearly a century or so ago, most shops had overhead line shafts that were driven from one power source. From it, flat belts came down to drive lathes, grinders, drill presses etc. Eventually those were converted to individual electric motors. A neighbor has 2 of those old drill presses that came out of a local blacksmith shop. They have been converted to electric.
 

nana1962409

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
That’s a pretty cool lathe tooth and looks like you got a fair amount of tooling with it.
64ss409 I have seen the pictures of those type of setups and have seen lathes for sale that ran off that type of system over the years that I have been casually looking for one.
Today I made my first part. Just a simple bellhousing dowel pin for my sisters 4x4 elcamino project. The donor motor is missing one. I could by it for a few bucks but figured it would be a perfect simple project to play with the lathe. Most of my cutting bits are dull or chipped so I did my best to sharpen them up. Need to practice that more or thought about getting a smaller grinder to do that on.979B2502-AF95-44A7-866A-3A2601053460.jpeg
 

Tooth

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 3
There’s an Amish machine shop in Russellville Missouri who uses a diesel generator that powers a shaft that goes completely through the shop that they run all the tools off of that main shaft with flat belts, they even run bridge ports with a pulley system off that belt.
 

Iowa 409 Guy

Well Seasoned Member
Supporting Member 15
There’s an Amish machine shop in Russellville Missouri who uses a diesel generator that powers a shaft that goes completely through the shop that they run all the tools off of that main shaft with flat belts, they even run bridge ports with a pulley system off that belt.

There was a little crushing plant in SE Iowa set up that way. It was inside a building. I should have taken pictures as it's gone now.
 

DonSSDD

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
An acquaintance had a shop in his yard like that, probably built in the 20’s. He was a machinist and his father was a machinist and built the shop, both worked at a large forge/machine shop locally.

He also restored a 57 Bel Air sport coupe, a 57 Star Chief convertible, a 61 impala convertible 348, and was working on a black 57 Nomad when he died. He took a day off work, not feeling well, found out he had cancer, died about a week later. He was about 65.
 

Junky

Well Known Member
Sometimes when I read a post like above, I am hesitant to click "like", because there is nothing to like when you read about the tragic end of a life prematurely. I guess that I hit the like button out of respect for the person telling us about his experiences, friendships, and acquances.
 

Seon

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
Many many years ago I worked part time in a machine shop while attending college and saw many machinist missing hand digits due to changing speeds on overhead belt driven machines.
 

LMBRJQ 60

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 4
Down south of here about 300 miles is a place called Oterehua where the hayes family started their engineering works business. Dave Coots has been to the E Hayes store in invercargill and witnessed a wooden engine running where he was over here. Well their machine shop is flat belt and over head shafts through the whole building and it is run by a water wheel from the local stream.
It is preserved as a working museum now and has open days 3 times a year for the public to witness how things were done.
http://www.hayesengineering.co.nz/

Well worth the look

Steve
 

nana1962409

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
Well being I am stuck at home until dec 11 I have been playing with the lathe some. I have picked up some more tooling and playing around with it. I have had some things turn out ok and other crappy. The one thing I hadn’t had apart was the headstock yet so today I was getting frustrated turning some stock so I tore it apart and cleaned it all up and adjusted the bearings and reassembled it. It made a big difference on the cut now it’s just me needing practice. Also the bearings and races were etched like my research said so my lathe was built around late 1944. CE6F58B2-2599-48CC-B9D4-6179CA5BD4E8.jpeg2B5C9DE3-5780-4C21-B2E1-ED8D1BF3C2BB.jpegC5702A49-46CE-4D04-A25E-57AE32337E12.jpegFA867C5B-8EC2-4177-A443-B3887F0084B0.jpeg209827FA-7925-4903-9222-DBF3CD33450F.jpegB6DC1D31-BDA6-49E2-84EF-0DE2D06D62F2.jpeg
 

nana1962409

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 2
It did James and it runs so much smoother too. I was trying different insert tooling and my regular hss and trying all sorts of different radius on the hss hss tooling as well as all different speeds and nothing was making a big difference until the headstock got cleaned and readjusted.
 
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