Did Herberts of Los Angeles make metal lathes?

[Mechanizoid]

I've been watching the local classifieds for used/vintage lathes. Most of the time, I can recognize the equipment for sale... if not, a quick google search usually turns up some pages with good info. Recently, however, I saw a local CL ad for a "restored vintage Herberts of Los Angeles No. 5 metal lathe". A plate on the machine reads "Herberts Machinery and Supply Co. Los Angeles, Cal.",definitely and the bed casting has "No. 5" in raised relief. I can't link to the ad since my account is new, but I will upload a photo.

A google search for Herbert No. 5 brought up capstan lathes of British manufacture, which are most emphatically NOT the lathe shown in the ad. I narrowed the search to "Herberts of Los Angeles lathe" and found a page on Vintage Machinery devoted to a "Herberts Machinery Co." that was based out of Los Angeles, CA. This page says that Herberts was a manufacturer of woodworking equipment, including wood lathes. Some were sold under the name "Wood Wizard", others under the Craftsman brand. No mention is made of any metal lathes. There are some pictures, but they are fuzzy reproductions of original ads for Wood Wizard, and I can't tell if the lathe in the CL ad is similar in construction.

At this point I'm quite confused (and curious!). Is this an actual metalworking lathe made by Herberts of Los Angeles? Or is this actually a wood lathe that someone converted to use as a metal lathe? It looks heavily modified.

 

[cross thread]

Interesting looking lathe , I can't find anything either . I doubt this is a modified machine , but you never know . It looks to have a leadscrew but some gears are missing . It defiantly has back gear , pre OSHA I would say . Does it have a tail stock ?
Mark .

 

[Mechanizoid]

Interesting looking lathe , I can't find anything either . I doubt this is a modified machine , but you never know . It looks to have a leadscrew but some gears are missing . It defiantly has back gear , pre OSHA I would say . Does it have a tail stock ?
Mark .

Yeah it does... I'll put a picture here. The presence of the leadscrew makes me think it's probably not a modified wood lathe, but it definitely looks like it's missing some parts. So strange that we can't find any reference to such a machine existing!

 

[twhite]

My guess is a wood lathe. Maybe they offered the carriage and cross slide as an add on to convert to light metal cutting.


Cutting oil is my blood.

 

[Dave Smith]

maybe the tag is just a machinery dealer tag and the metal lathe is manufactured by a company who didn't put idenity on it.--I have a very nice small unidentified horizontal mill with a tag 225 but nothing else to identify who manufactured it.
hopefully some member will recognize this lathe or have one like it. * did you purchase it?
Dave

 

[markba633csi]

Obviously a Star Trek hippie lathe: "Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!"

 

[Mechanizoid]

maybe the tag is just a machinery dealer tag and the metal lathe is manufactured by a company who didn't put idenity on it.--I have a very nice small unidentified horizontal mill with a tag 225 but nothing else to identify who manufactured it.
hopefully some member will recognize this lathe or have one like it. * did you purchase it?
Dave

Very interesting. I assumed every manufacturer put an identifying mark on their equipment, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I have not purchased it, but I might take a closer look and ask the seller about its origins.

I suspect I might want to avoid mystery machines, especially since I'm looking for my  first lathe.

 

[matthewsx]

How much is the seller asking?

Unless it's really, really cheap you should probably keep looking.

John

 

[MrWhoopee]

I have to assume that your interests would require the ability to cut threads. That machine would require a stack of change gears since it doesn't have a quick change gear box (QCGB). Even if it has those gears I would recommend that you continue your search. If info about the lathe is scarce, the change gear chart for threading would be non-existent.

 

[Mechanizoid]

How much is the seller asking?

Unless it's really, really cheap you should probably keep looking.

John

The seller has the asking price of $550 on the CL listing. I haven't replied to the ad since I have no real interest in buying a lathe that I cannot identify or find info on, and I don't want to waste the seller's time if I'm not seriously considering purchasing the machine. Evidently the seller is having trouble selling the machine, since they recently dropped the price (it used to be ~950 iirc).

I am still very curious about the origin of the lathe since it's such a mystery machine. I definitely agree that this is not a good buy for me, especially since it is missing the threading gears.