Bought me a 10L!

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SCLead

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Hey folks,

New to the forum, I figure an introduction post is only polite.

I've been machining for about ten years now, all manual stuff. By day I'm a mechanical design/fab guy, so I split my time between Solidworks, turning wrenches, and standing behind machines in the shop. I just (finally) found the winning deal on a Heavy 10 (which I've been prowling for since that first machining class ten years ago haha).

1966 vintage 10L, 4ft toolroom model. Immaculate condition when I found it. D1-4 spindle, came with a few chucks and faceplates but not much else. The ways are flame hardened, but predate the "Flame Hardened" badge on the front, identifiable by a stamp in the right rear way "DDB200RG."

I need to hack together a phase converter or spring for a VFD, and start piecing together tooling and whatnot. I expect to go through the machine bit by bit and replace oilers, clean things up, etc.

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Nice- is it the 8187 model? From a dealer or individual?
mark
 
That is very nice machine! I have 2 10L lathes they are great machines. I'm jealous, I don't have a 4' bed or a D1-4 spindle.
 
Nice machine, and welcome to the site. Never a wrong question can be asked , we`ll try to answer and help out. Good luck have fun, BE SAFE.
 
Thanks folks!

Mark, you're correct. Catalog number is CLC8187AB.

I bought it from a seller on Craigslist. I'm relatively confidently able to trace the machine's history back to the beginning. The individual I purchased the machine from purchased it from another private party, who had purchased the machine at auction quite a few years prior, from his employer. He then left it covered up indoors as he already had other lathes he used regularly. The individual I bought it from purchased it with intent to restore, but decided to keep his other lathe that fit the space available in his shop better - meaning it's seen no real use likely since before I was born. It was purchased new by Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in Livermore, California. There's still an AEC - LRL badge on the machine, denoting Atomic Energy Commission - Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. LRL was the name given to both the Livermore lab, and the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) after E.O. Lawrence died in 1958.
 
Yep that's the "toolroom" version- has an extra precise leadscrew, not sure how much more precise. I read somewhere that the leadscrews were one part that SB didn't make themselves, which sounded odd to me
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Congratulations! I am much more impressed with my '63 10L now than I was when it was given to me. Yours looks very much like mine, though I note that the belt engagement lever is shorter on yours. I'd kill to have that D1-4 spindle.

I believe that SB stopped attaching the flame hardened bedways tag when it became standard instead of an option.
Consider replacing the flat drive belt with a timing belt. Mine no longer slips in a heavy cut, but it will stall the motor. I'd like to go to 2hp.
 
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Mark, I've heard from a former SB employee that the leadscrews were made in house on a special machine that essentially single point threaded them, from both ends at the same time.

The timing belt upgrade is definitely on my short list, MrWhoopee. It's got an (original?) 3/4hp motor in it now, which I figure I'll run until I feel like it's too small for me. Running it at all will require a VFD or RPC though, and since the lathe wasn't even exactly "in the budget," I'm expecting to be in the doghouse for a while before I can buy everything to get it running.

I did get to run it at the seller's house and boy-oh-boy is it smooth. The tightest indicator I have is .0005" and that hardly vibrated on the spindle bore under power. I spent the better part of an hour or two going through the machine, even though I was ready to buy before he even plugged it in and turned on his phase converter :grin:
 
I looked into them briefly. I was trying to figure out how to run two motors off one static converter, but my research came to an early end. Once I figured out how they work, I decided they're not for me. Being an older motor on the lathe, and a similarly old 3ph coolant pump onboard, I'm not keen on running them on suboptimal power for fear of decreasing their longevity. I'm also not a fan of trimming 30-50% of my power off the top. Definitely a reasonable option, I won't tell anyone not to use a static converter, but I'm really in no rush to get the machine online. Thanks to that, I'm prowling Craigslist and ebay for a 7.5-10hp motor for the right price to build into a home-hack rotary converter. Since that'll probably take months on the low side, I've got a VFD bookmarked somewhere that will be the fallback if I decide I'm eager to get going. The added cost of a reasonable VFD over a static converter is more than worth it to me, and I'm already running into the need for more 3ph, so a rotary only makes sense.
 
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