Back in 1998 I ran into a great deal on a SB lathe. Below is part of the article I wrote about it.
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A few weeks ago I asked my junk man if he ever picked-up any machinery, and if so bring it by. It may be worth more to me than the scrap yard. He started talking about some old computer printers and stuff he had found, but I explained that I was looking for machine shop stuff, you know, cast iron. He told me he had an old "metal cuttin machin", he didn't know what it was, just that it was 3-phase and nobody wanted it. I told him 3-phase was not a problem, and questioned him some more. He open his glove box and handed me a bent up piece of brass. I looked at the plate and at the top center it said (in bold letters) "South Bend Lathe Works". I told him I was indeed interested. The machine was in a pile of old chain link fence and posts only about two blocks away. It was still on a very large oak pallet, and held down with some large steel straps. I couldn't see it very well, the plastic tarp was disintegrating, but I could see that there was indeed a lathe under all of that. I offer him $250 for the mess, and he gladly accepted the offer. I went to get my engine hoist back from a friend while he and his helper loaded the lathe on his truck with the help of a large front end loader. We got the lathe over to my storage warehouse and unloaded it with the help of the engine hoist. Only then was I able to really get a look at my find. The lathe was a South Bend Heavy 10. It had a Springfield Armory property tag. I'm sure the pallet was the one the government had mounted it to when it was surplused. A quick inventory showed that it had the following tooling: 3-jaw, 4-jaw, hand-wheel collet closer, 17 collets, face plate, drive plate, threading dial, micrometer carriage stop, collet rack, and bunch of other small stuff. A few items were very rusty, but most of the tooling and the lathe itself was covered with cosmoline. The lathe cleaned-up nicely, and with a new paint job looks like new. Most of the ways still have frosting. I removed the 45 year old 3-phase motor and installed a new single phase unit. The machine runs beautifully. BTW, The lathe is on a cabinet stand with three drawers. I even have the key for the drawers!
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Here is what the lathe looked like after I scraped off much of the dirt, and after I did a complete tear down and rebuild. I sold the lathe years ago. I was hoping to find someone who understood the significance of the Springfield Armory tag, but the guy who bought it was more interested in building model steam engines than gunsmithing.