I picked up a nice South Bend Lathe with 4-1/2’ bed. It’s also a Model # 444R. But this lathe came with some tooling and a taper gauge plus 3-jaw and 4- jaw chucks. It’s also mounted on a nice steel workbench which has 4 drawers.
Anyway it appears to be in good condition. It’s a War production lathe just like my other 444R. So the plan is to keep the new lathe and best parts of my other lathe which I’ll swap with this “new” acquisition.
FWIW, this lathe was an estate find. It belonged to a retired machinist who purchased it @1947. He was working at Higgins Industrial in New Orleans building PT boats. When the war ended, he purchased this lathe, a drill press and 3 other pieces of machinery for 600.00.
The retired machinist recently passed. He was 100 years old. So, he was 2nd owner and now I’m the third owner. His son who is also a machinist has a shop which I’m guessing his dad opened. And his son is also working there. So it’s all a cool story imo. Third generation shop. Fwiw, the 100 y/o guy had a real nice home workshop. Real nice stuff all the way around.
I doubt I’m going to be using many parts from my other lathe. This newer one is just in very, very good condition.
The only thing that comes to mind is that there appears to be a little more backlash in this crossfeed than my other lathe.
Anyway it appears to be in good condition. It’s a War production lathe just like my other 444R. So the plan is to keep the new lathe and best parts of my other lathe which I’ll swap with this “new” acquisition.
FWIW, this lathe was an estate find. It belonged to a retired machinist who purchased it @1947. He was working at Higgins Industrial in New Orleans building PT boats. When the war ended, he purchased this lathe, a drill press and 3 other pieces of machinery for 600.00.
The retired machinist recently passed. He was 100 years old. So, he was 2nd owner and now I’m the third owner. His son who is also a machinist has a shop which I’m guessing his dad opened. And his son is also working there. So it’s all a cool story imo. Third generation shop. Fwiw, the 100 y/o guy had a real nice home workshop. Real nice stuff all the way around.
I doubt I’m going to be using many parts from my other lathe. This newer one is just in very, very good condition.
The only thing that comes to mind is that there appears to be a little more backlash in this crossfeed than my other lathe.