Lathe ID?

PHPaul

PHPaul

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This lathe is on Craigslist as "Free for the taking". Free Lathe

The legs look a little like the ones on my Seneca Falls Star 30. The apron looks similar as well.

That appears to be a 4-jaw chuck. I'm wondering if that might fit mine. The rest of it looks pretty rough but if the chuck is usable it's well worth the 2 hour trip to go get it.
 
He sent me a bunch more pictures of it (and posted them to the CL ad). It's almost certainly NOT a Seneca Falls, but I'm curious enough to ride over on the bike (any excuse for a motorcycle ride is a good one...) and look at it closer. If the chuck can be made to fit my lathe it's worth the effort to go pick it up.
 
Those cast iron legs would be worth it even if the lathe is beyond saving.
 
Might be "Worcester Lathe Co." or one of the many companies making lathes in the Worcester / Fitchburg MA area like F.E. Reed, L. Robbins, A. F. Prentice, Prentice Bros... You might find a name on the legs.
 
The change gears would probably sell, once you know the tooth count and pitch.
-brino
 
Being a confirmed pack rat, I went ahead and brought that lathe home yesterday.

I finished tearing it down this morning and haven't found anything serious wrong with it or anything major missing. I've also been over it very thoroughly and can't find any identifying marks. Nothing cast into the bed, pan, legs, headstock or apron. No tags. Did find one 4 digit number stamped on the inside of the apron but that's it. No change gears and not seeing anything that looks like a provision for them, just forward/reverse idlers for the lead screw.

I'm thinking for a Winter project, I'll clean it up good, lube it and put it back together and see how it works. At the moment, all I have into it is a tank of gas. If cleaning and reassemby produces a working machine, I may go to the effort of stripping and painting.

I would like to thoroughly clean the headstock casting and belt pulleys and this leads me to a couple of questions:

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First, it has bronze (I assume) bearing shells. There's a little scoring but nothing that I think will seriously affect running. I'd like to submerge the casting in some solvent to remove grease and loose paint but I'm concerned about damaging the bearings. I'm also loathe to remove them for fear of tweaking them out of shape or not being able to get them reinstalled properly. Which way should I go with that? Soak bearings and all or hope I can remove and reinstall them without tearing them up?

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Second: If I remove the drive gear on the end of the spindle shaft, I can slide the belt pulleys off and clean them up properly. I can see that it's keyed to the shaft and I suspect I can just pull it with a gear puller but I'd appreciate an experienced opinion on that.
 
Lathe is coming along. Got the ways all cleaned up, they're in pretty good shape other than a little dinged up right under the chuck.

Got the saddle and apron cleaned up and repaired. The apron and lead screw were off it when I picked it up and show evidence of someone making some repairs.

Made a new shaft for the intermediate gear on the manual crank for moving the saddle and replaced a missing pin in the gearset.

The shaft that the crank handle goes on looks like it had been partly repaired but they didn't drill and pin the handle to the shaft so any load on it at all the handle just spun on the shaft.

One of the gears on the mechanism that shifts power feed from saddle travel to cross feed was bound on it's shaft, freed that up.

As nearly as I can tell, all the functions of the saddle, apron and cross feed are now working.

On to the head stock!
 
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Got the flat belt in the mail and finished putting it back together today.

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Made some chips with it just to check that things were in alignment and it didn't make any funny noises. All I had to do was snug up the end play on the spindle a tad and align the tailstock to the headstock. Chuck has ~.001 runout at the body which I call pretty good for a lathe that's may be as much as 100 years old. Chucked up a precision ground pin and was able to dial it in to about half a thou without too much fussing.

Need to shim the outer headstock bearing cap as I can't snug it down without it binding, but other than that, I'm happy with it as it is.

Total investment 1 tank of gas to go get it ($40), a new flat belt ($25) and some #12-3 cord to wire the motor and switch with (about $25, I bought 30 feet to have some on hand, didn't use all of it) so <$100 all told and a week of my time puttering at something I do for enjoyment anyway.

Now I've got to decide whether to keep it or sell it. Don't have room for two of them. Probably keep the Seneca as this one has some issues with the lead screw drive. At least three gears have been built up with brazing and re-cut and one still has a big chunk of one tooth missing.
 
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