Starting the search

[MrWhoopee]

Looks to me that there is a well-defined ridge at the top of the way (picture 10), showing quite a bit of wear. Those can't be hardened ways, or that lathe has seen a LOT of use and not much oil. If there is flaking visible in the unworn areas of the ways, (far tailstock end), then they are not hardened. Hardened ways were ground. I have a '63 Heavy 10 with hardened ways that spent most of it's life in a somewhat crude job shop. The ways show no wear. Having said that, I've run worse. It's still quite possible to do accurate work, but doing it over much length gets to be a challenge since the wear is concentrated at the headstock end.

The price is not out of reason, especially considering the tooling.

 

[Nesse1]

Looks to me that there is a well-defined ridge at the top of the way (picture 10), showing quite a bit of wear. Those can't be hardened ways, or that lathe has seen a LOT of use and not much oil. If there is flaking visible in the unworn areas of the ways, (far tailstock end), then they are not hardened. Hardened ways were ground. I have a '63 Heavy 10 with hardened ways that spent most of it's life in a somewhat crude job shop. The ways show no wear. Having said that, I've run worse. It's still quite possible to do accurate work, but doing it over much length gets to be a challenge since the wear is concentrated at the headstock end.

The price is not out of reason, especially considering the tooling.

I was just about to post about the wear. That ridge is DEEP. Looks like a lot of wear.

 

[markba633csi]

I can't really tell if that's wear or just oil smear- hard to tell from pictures, you really need to examine in person
I would hold off on passing judgement until you do the test Ultradog mentioned in post #30

 

[Ultradog MN]

I was just about to post about the wear. That ridge is DEEP. Looks like a lot of wear.

View attachment 485862

It may be evidence of substantial wear or it may be a long gouge caused by something.
A friend of mine has an old lathe. His has a couple creepy gouges on that V way but his swayback is really not too bad.

 

[tq60]

These are great machines, if the price is good, go for it.

That Ridge makes some but little difference.

Vertical movement of 20 thousands at the edge of a circle is not much.

For hobby use it really does not matter as you measure as you go.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

 

[Seuss54]

Looks to me that there is a well-defined ridge at the top of the way (picture 10), showing quite a bit of wear. Those can't be hardened ways, or that lathe has seen a LOT of use and not much oil. If there is flaking visible in the unworn areas of the ways, (far tailstock end), then they are not hardened. Hardened ways were ground. I have a '63 Heavy 10 with hardened ways that spent most of it's life in a somewhat crude job shop. The ways show no wear. Having said that, I've run worse. It's still quite possible to do accurate work, but doing it over much length gets to be a challenge since the wear is concentrated at the headstock end.

The price is not out of reason, especially considering the tooling.

Yea I noticed that when I was there I wiped away the oil and grease on the V way there and felt it with my finger (there's a decent picture of it too attached to one of my previous comments labeled lathe-10). When I felt it last it was small enough I couldn't get my thumbnail underneath. You can definitely feel it and I've seen it on other southbend lathes but it wasn't particularly deep, of course I could totally be off base on the severity.

Then only reason I mentioned the ways being hardened is from the serial number card I got from grizzly. The serial number I got from the seller matched the one on the machine and the one on the card grizzly sent me. Perhaps Hard. Bed doesn't mean hardened ways? I did not see any flaking underneath the tail stock when we moved it forwards to verify the serial number. Also in the picture you quoted I think the grime built up on the ways and the lighting makes it look VERY deep but picture lathe-10 I think gives a better view.

This lathe made it way to a sawmill at some point in it's life and was there awhile until a father and son bought it to learn on. Apparently the never ended up using it so they sold to the gentleman I purchased it from. Maybe this history can provide an idea where the wear comes from?