1925 South Bend

Hey everyone, I just joined, really happy to be a part of the forum here. As an introduction, a quick summary of my South Bend story:

About four years ago I bought a 1925 or 1926 South Bend 11 x 5 lathe, It ran but was in pretty rough shape cosmetically. I didn't know enough to be able to check its accuracy, I just assumed it probably wasn't "like new" but also probably good enough for the simple parts I was interested in making (for my motorcycles and other little projects).

So I began tearing it all apart and stripping all the pieces of layers and layers of old paint. This particular lathe apparently was on a Navy ship back in the day. It was all battleship gray, with many critical parts (handles and lubrication points) painted red. I assume to make it easier for 18 year sailors to run and maintain the machine.

After I had all the parts stripped and some of it primed, I got sidetracked with life and ended up with a bunch of boxes filled with all these parts laying in my basement and garage. Fast forward 4 whole years later (where does the time go after 40??), I was ashamed of my procrastinating ways by letting this project stall for so long. Plus I was a little intimidated by trying to put it all back together again. Although I'm mechanically inclined, I never owned a lathe and all those gears and bolts and weird parts sitting in all those boxes was looking pretty hard to put back together.

But, I got the bug again a few months ago and decided to set myself to righting this wrong this spring. So I finished priming the last parts and got some tractor paint enamel with hardener and painted all the parts in gray. Was going to go black like the original, but decided to just stick with gray. Now I kind of wish I went black, but what the hey; I like gray too.

Part by part I figured out where everything went. Amazingly I hadn't lost anything. The hardest part was the apron, which was basically a big clockwork mechanism. But once you delved into it, it was pretty straightforward. The parts can only go back together one way, so it was actually a neat little puzzle putting it back together.

So my lathe is all back together and all cleaned up and looking pretty good if I don't say so myself. I'm so glad I turned that pile of junk into my basement into this phoenix from the ashes. Now I want to learn all about it, fix it up, tune it up and use it the way it was supposed to be used.

That's why I joined this forum to share my story and hopefully learn from you folks. Here are a few pics of my finished lathe...

You did a fine job on that one, guess it's time to make chips !.

I enjoyed looking at your lathe, particularity the counter shaft.
Thanks for sharing, you should be proud!

She looks great. If you browse through the SB section of the forum you will find tons of info on tuning up your lathe. Looks to be pretty close to the ground from the pics. I guess people were a little shorter back then. If it's two low for you, you could lag bolt a 6x6 or such spanning the legs front to back. Leaving them extend a little to the front and rear would also make your machine a little more stable and add some dampening affect. Mike

Beautiful job and great story! Welcome!


Steve Shannon

Thanks everyone. First, I wanted to apologize for the multiple postings. I had some trouble signing up and then logging on and making my first post (the forum software thought I was a spambot). And now I'm trying to delete the multiple posts and just leave the one, but I can't find the option to delete. If anyone knows how or if it can be done, please let me know.

As to the lathe: yeah I'm totally psyched now that I have it together! I only ran it briefly just to make a few chips with a steel rod first and then the aluminum round stock you see chucked in the pics. The bit was very dull so it was more of a grinding cut. I have been watching youtube vids on grinding various lathe bits to the correct profile. I've also downloaded and read "How to Run a Lathe", which is a fantastic and very readable book.

Before jumping back into making chips, I want to check out the spindle in more detail and make sure it's set up properly before I really start using the machine. I have the end cap bolts only snugged up, not really torqued down or anything. I notice this lathe does not have any shims between the caps and the headstock journal mains. Not sure if they're missing or if that's how many of them were set up back in the day? There still appears to be a gap between the upper and lower mating surfaces, they are not bottomed out.

I did read the South Bend technical bulletin on checking spindle endplay. I haven't broken out a dial indicator yet, but I did take a steel bar thats end was wrapped in a soft cloth rag (I don't have any brass or aluminum stock yet) and I used it to pry gently yet forcefully upward on the spindle. I could feel no movement in the spindle at all and it still rotates nice and smooth. Obviously I know it's probably moving some, I just mean at least it's not visibly clunking back and forth with a basic hand/eye inspection. However, there are grooves in the bearing caps, as I'll post pics of below. I guess at some point it may have been run dry or had some rough treatment somehow in the past 90 years. I'd like to fix all that as best as possible soon, any suggestions would be helpful. I was reading another SB thread where someone with scratches on their spindle had put it in a wood lathe and polished it with buffing compound that way. Then they took a foam ball on a drill (a MacGuires miniball or something) and polished the inside of the bearing journals in a similar fashion. Does that sound reasonable? here are pics of the journals:

I don't think your brass looks that bad for a lathe that's almost 100 years old.

Before you do anything crazy, I would buy some shim stock, set the bearing clearance with a good test indicator and see how it works. You can always come back to this later if you have a real problem.

Nice Job! Welcome to the forum. My restore is going on it's 6th year.

Very nice job rebuilding your lathe. I see you have the original overhead countershaft. I just started cleaning up my 1925 9" x4 lathe, which is very similar to yours only smaller. and was reading in catalog no 83 that the motor and countershaft was joined with a drive shaft of some short - no belt. Also your photo shows great detail of the universal bearing on the end of the back gear shaft - which makes the backgear self alinging with the cone pulleys. Way cool!

Alas, my lathe is missing the countershaft - the last owner threw it away as it was 'collecting dust in his garage and taking up to much space'. So am looking for a replacement.

Did you encounter any black finish on the lathe when you stripped it? If so, probably was ' Japaning' , a finish originally applied at the factory in 1920's. It consisted of an asphalt emulsion mixed with Lindseed oil, baked on. Maybe the navy specified grey enamel in those days...

Glenn

Really nice work, I'm currently doing the same but with a 1928 9" by 41/2' with a quick change gear box. I'll post pictures when the weather changes!!