Southbend Lathe Info

Any kind of $ number on this as it sits? Running and not completely wore out?
And thank you for all the great knowledge.

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It's worth whatever you want to pay for it. What have similar lathes sold for near you? What comes with it? Is there anything in all those drawers? Does it run? Will it do what you want to do with it? Does it need 3 phase power? These are things you need to figure out. Scrap price is probably a bit more than $100.00 US and work up from there. I hate to be a pill, but speaking from bitter personal experience, learn enough to know what you are looking for before you buy something.
 
I have a similar model but longer bed. I really like the storage also with the full drawers. I bought it from a fella that got it from a naval storage facility in VA. Came off a navy ship at some point, and was set up for dual power - mine is 110/120V and the 12V (?) system is not present, but the switch box and wiring is all there yet. Interesting machines - I love mine! Heavy 10 w/48" bed.

Oh BTW - it does not look nearly that nice anymore. Lots of chips since this paint job.

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pebbleworm said:
I hate to be a pill, but speaking from bitter personal experience, learn enough to know what you are looking for before you buy something.
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I have NEVER been known as an optimist, but I do disagree with this.
My first lathe was a small Sears/Atlas 109 series. In those days I was amazed to just find one in any condition and really did not know very well how to evaluate one. It did have some accessories; both 3 and 4-jaw chucks, a jacobs chuck for the tailstock, etc. I bought it for $400. At the time that was a lot of money to me.

Over the next few months I started making plastic and aluminum parts; not bad. When I tried steel, it went bad......so much chatter. I spent a bunch of time figure things out, I learned to sharpen bits, I replaced the rocker style tool post with a small quick-change one, adjusted gibs, found workarounds and the limits of the machine. I learned an awful lot from that experience. In fact if I had the choice to do it over I probably would.

Today I am very comfortable evaluating a machine. A year ago I bought a 1937 SouthBend 9" for ~$600. Is it perfect? Nope, it shows some wear, but it has really opened up the possibilities. It is many, many, many times better than the Atlas. But I can directly apply all the things I learned to the bigger, better machine.

Recently, I traded in that Atlas lathe for credit against some other tools I was buying. I got a bunch of (used) gear cutters for half their marked price. It's hard to tell exactly what I got for it cash-wise, since the store could play with their profit on the gear cutters too. But in the end, it was definitely worth it.

If there is a "trick" it is to set expectations properly.....and that is different for everyone. It is influenced heavily by what jobs you'll be doing, what materials you need to turn, the condition of the candidate lathe, the time and skill you have for re-building, the machine prices in your area, your finances, etc.

Sorry to the OP, this does not add up to a hard number, there are so many variables......
-brino
 
I would dig hard around the shop. Their could be thousands of dollars of parts and accessories for that lathe lying around. Look hard for any steady rest or chucks, they may not fit in the drawers. Also try to figure out if it is "original" I hate buying machines that other people have worked on.
 
Things can work out! Just make sure ut actually works. I still have the first lathe I bought in the pre-internet era- a 6 " Atlas Mk. II. No tooling, no change gears, no toolpost and decayed plastic gibs. Writing to Clausing put me into convulsive sticker shock. At least it was cheap at an auction... A bit later after reading some more old books I started looking more at the VERY few machines that showed up for sale in the paper. The one that could actually power up was some WWI era monster run off of a Romex wired, beer keg size motor as a 3 phase converter. The sparks, corona discharge and ozone made for a show and the owner would tell me nothing about how it ran or what he made with it. That it was in the back of a dark damp and cold shed lit by a couple of trouble lights only added to the experience. It came with a 3 jaw chuck. I then checked out some lathes at the local scrapyard. Again, no tooling whatsoever, and another in-communicative owner. "what do you want for this one? I asked. "You tell me" was the response. He had previously done time for buying a load of brass grave markers and planters from a local cemetery so I decided to pass on that lot. I kept learning more with each one I looked at and finally bought a filthy, earlier Atlas 618 at a county shop auction. Had tooling and some spare parts and a cigar box of tool bits so I was almost in business. Then three weeks later I left town for a new job and haven't really been back for 20 years. You can take a risk and it may pay off, but just make sure what you buy can be used once you get it home. The blue Atlas still irritates me when I look at it. In the meantime I bought and used a Unimat,, learned more and a couple of years ago bought another well tooled 618 that I am really starting to enjoy in my tiny, big city garage/shop/storage area.
 
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First off let me say I'm new here and by no means a lathe expert, I live in Texas and very few smaller machines pop up, those that do are usually pretty worn out, I looked at a few older machines and and most even to my untrained eye were pretty darn sloppy, I didn't want a total restoration project, I placed a "lathe wanted" ad locally and got good response and purchased a nice CM machine I think will serve me well, anyway, in my searching I knew I was making a trip to Tn so I searched that area and I saw that green south bend in NC listed for 1500, it's been listed for well over a month, I emailed the guy he said he would take 800 with no haggling, I had already purchased my lathe so I didn't go look at it, if it's workable he would prob take less if you flash him some cash, he's just a used equipment dealer, prob got it pretty cheap, as for the color on it I believe it's local NC school colors and not jd green so it may have come from a school auction at some time, hope that helps, it would be a nice one to have if it's worth getting for sure, good luck.
 
OP , you may get better responce if you post in the south bend section , lots of good info in the stickies also.
 
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