Lodge and Shipley 16"x8' Model X Lathe

[Brain Coral]

Hello Jake,

Thank you for your words of encouragement... That Reed Prentice lathe that you have looks like a real beast and a workhorse.

I was off work early yesterday afternoon, so I puttered in the shop for a bit, putting the tail stock back together. I reinstalled the cam locking lever and the eyebolt into the main casting and adjusted the dog point screws for a nice rotating fit, and placed the main casting onto the base, with the help of my shop crane. Before the two parts went together, all mating surfaces were liberally coated with way oil. It went together nice and snug, but I could easily slide it side to side on the keys, with no slop, whatsoever.



The felts are wicking oil very effectively, in fact, as the base just sat there for a few days with the oil sump full, I could see that the oil level was dropping slightly. Once I had the remaining parts all back on the tail stock, it moved like silk, and takes very little effort to crank it along the ways. I will replace the crank handle on the wheel with a new one and will add some Gits oilers when they come in.

Brian

 

[Brain Coral]

Here's a couple more pics....



In the parts diagrams that I have, it shows the tail stock barrel engraved with graduations directly. However, on mine, it looks like it would have had a ruler installed into this shallow relief cut. Can you shed some light on this Jake?



Brian

 

[4GSR]

Brian,

My Lodge & Shipley had a similar groove cut and a special graduated scale installed. I don't remember details, seem like it was gradulated in 1/8" increments. My tailstock spindle was chromed and ground to fit the recently re-bored tailstock housing before I bought the lathe. You may get lucky and find a scale from Starrett that will fit the groove. I know of a couple of lathe manufactures of their time that would install a scale into a dovetail groove and carefully roller burnish the edge to secure the scale into the groove. I have a 12" narrow Brown & Sharpe scale I manage to pry out of a tailstock spindle before it was turned down to fit another tailstock housing in a rebuild I did many years ago.

Ken

 

[jakes_66]

Brian,

I took a couple photos of the Lodge and Shipley lathes here at work. Neither machine has any scale on the tailstock quill. Both models are larger than the one you're working on, but it's a good chance to share. Here's the 20" machine:



And here's the mammoth 25"/35" model. No scale on that quill either:

 

[4GSR]

Jake, That's a 20" Heavy Duty Model X L & S Lathe. The other one is a 25" raised to swing 35" Model "G" L & S lathe. NICE!!!! They both have different tailstocks from the standard duty lathes like the one Brian has. I don't recall the barrels or spindles being graduated on bigger lathes I've ever been around.

 

[Brain Coral]

Hi Ken, thanks for that information. I found a Brown and Sharpe 6" rule that fits the bill, nicely...



Brian

 

[Brain Coral]

Hello Jake,

Thank you for taking the time to take those pics of your lathes and their tail stock barrels. Those are some beasties... !!

Brian

 

[Brain Coral]

I worked in the shop for a bit, last night. When I first went to look at the lathe, the compound slide had no movement, like it was frozen. The hand wheel would turn a bit, though. So, I decided to take that apart to see what was the matter. My first thought was the gib. As I removed the gib, you could clearly see that the tab holding the adjusting screw had broken away, at some point, and a couple of washers were put in to act like the slot.

It also looked like someone had flipped it over and milled a new slot, which was also broken out. I think that I will mill the end to a flat, just up to the shoulder of the slot and mechanically fasten a tab of steel to the end, and then make a new shoulder screw that fits with no slop, and it will work just fine.



The second photo shows the cross slide gib for comparison.





The compound shows some wear, but also retains some original flaking. The oiling hole that leads to the two gears and thrust washer was packed full of chips, but oil was still able to make it's way through. I'll add a couple of Gits oilers to those locations.

The dial and handle are frozen together. The handle shows quite a bit of rust and I assume that the micrometer collar would have been free to turn on the handle, and then lock in place. It make take considerable time and effort to get it free.

Brian

 

[4GSR]

Brian, Your thought on fixing the gib was exactly my ideas of fixing gibs that I've used in my past. And if you had to put a spacer in there too if needed. Yeah, your compound is in far much better shape than mine was in. Had to remachine all of the surfaces to get flat again and had to add a 1/8" thick shim to the back side of the gib and lots of scraping fitting to get it right. Thanks for sharing. Ken

 

[Brain Coral]

Thank you for your kind words, Ken....

From what I have seen so far, this lathe was neglected for some time, while in use, but was stored for quite awhile. I filled the apron reservoir with oil, and there seems to be a little resistance to the oil pump, but it feels like oil is flowing. I will have to take the whole works apart to see if oil is getting to where it should.

I am loathe to move the lathe into it's final shop location, as I want to be able to remove the feed rod, leadscrew, and clutch rods, as part of the apron and carriage work. In the meantime, I have a 16" South Bend lathe nearly ready to go out the door, as well as the Prentice Bros. lathe to work on this winter. I wll also have to relocate my Colchester Master to allow the L&S lathe to be moved into place. I'll have to set down some strict priorities for myself, as it is too easy to get caught up in tearing completely into the L&S lathe. The Colchester will be my workhorse to manufacture parts, should I need them, but at the present, I can't access either one of my milling machines. So, I must work on the last remaining items on the South Bend. Then I will be able to spend all of my time on this lathe.

Brian