- Joined
- Nov 5, 2015
- Messages
- 9
...because I brought home a 14x60 Hercules-Ajax lathe today. It was made in the early 1970's by Yamazaki-Mazak in Japan. Its a nice machine. Everything works, and moves smoothly. It came with a 12" Cushman 3 jaw chuck, a 1/2" drill chuck, and a live center. All for $1100. The seller seems like a great guy, and I think he was happy that the lathe went to a good home. I was really looking for a 12x36 or 13x40 machine. This is way bigger than I need, but extra capacity never hurts!
My brother drives a tow truck on the side, and he moved it for me. We got it off his flat bed, onto some car dollies, and moved into the garage without getting ourselves hurt. Way better than my last machine moving experience.
My plan is to clean everything and give it a fresh coat of paint before I move it to its new home in my garage. I need to get a BXA QCTP and some appropriate tools. I may also downgrade to a pair of 8" chucks (3 and 4 jaw). That 12" is a heavy beast and I'm not sure I want to be installing and removing it. I also have to decide what to do with the coolant setup. I doubt I will ever run coolant, so I may just strip it off the machine and set it aside. I am still trying to decide whether to go with a VFD or RPC for power. It's a 5hp motor, and I can only find one or two 5HP VFDs that run on single phase 220, and a 5hp VFD on a 5HP more may be stressful for the VFD. I can get a 7.5 hp RPC and know that I have capacity to spare.
I have a South Bend 9A that I have been using for a while. It is a decent little machine, but nothing like the big Turn-ado and Cincinnati lathes we had at my first engineering job. I learned how to machine and built A LOT of stuff on 2nd shift in that lab. LOL. This machine is much closer to what I'm used to using.
My brother drives a tow truck on the side, and he moved it for me. We got it off his flat bed, onto some car dollies, and moved into the garage without getting ourselves hurt. Way better than my last machine moving experience.
My plan is to clean everything and give it a fresh coat of paint before I move it to its new home in my garage. I need to get a BXA QCTP and some appropriate tools. I may also downgrade to a pair of 8" chucks (3 and 4 jaw). That 12" is a heavy beast and I'm not sure I want to be installing and removing it. I also have to decide what to do with the coolant setup. I doubt I will ever run coolant, so I may just strip it off the machine and set it aside. I am still trying to decide whether to go with a VFD or RPC for power. It's a 5hp motor, and I can only find one or two 5HP VFDs that run on single phase 220, and a 5hp VFD on a 5HP more may be stressful for the VFD. I can get a 7.5 hp RPC and know that I have capacity to spare.
I have a South Bend 9A that I have been using for a while. It is a decent little machine, but nothing like the big Turn-ado and Cincinnati lathes we had at my first engineering job. I learned how to machine and built A LOT of stuff on 2nd shift in that lab. LOL. This machine is much closer to what I'm used to using.
