what type of lathe?

[rampa room artillery]

 i was just wondering what type of lathes everyone has, as i am looking at buying another lathe. 
    i will start i have a 1338 supermax lathe. and now looking for a larger machine.


rick bryan

[flagman1776]

There are a lot of lathes out there.  Mine is too small & limiting.  My headstock bore is just 1" (through the headstock).  I don't have enough swing over the bed & also over the saddle for larger projects.   Larger machines are actually cheaper (in my experience) because fewer people have space for them.   

My SouthBend  Model C9-10 JR  vintage 1930s
~30" between centers, 3" swing over the cross slide, 4.75" over the bed 
The drill press is not part of the lathe...  It is just occupying the other side on my home made bench.  I can't waste space in my corner of the basement.  A lot of my tools are clamp mounted to the bench or recessed carriage bolts through thick plywood, clamped to the bench.  My reloading set up has long been that way.   The SouthBend IS bolted down however.

[GGaskill]

I have several (and I just moved another one last Saturday.)  Two 1940's LeBlonds, a 15x36 and a 17x54; and a Logan 2555VH, a 12x23.  The smaller LeBlond is a work in progress and I would probably give it to someone who was willing to take it as such.  On the other hand, I might be able to scrap it for parts and recover more than its purchase price.  Who knows.

I only use the big one if I need its size as the chuck doesn't run very true and there are teeth missing on the lowest speed gear.  But it has its uses.

I would like to get a CNC lathe to do Rodmans and such but they aren't cheap.


Logan 2555VH


LeBlond 17x54

And here is a link to both of them in use.

[IvarForkbeard]

The one I have access to is a Hendey, about a 1934 vintage.



Tis an oldie but a goodie.

[Cat Whisperer]

I had ONCE thought about bolting two 1338's together for longer tubes.

 

[GGaskill]

I had ONCE thought about bolting two 1338's together for longer tubes.

I had to taper a couple of 5' poles for a project once so I made a bed extension for my 17x54 from a piece of 6x8 fir, glued on a piece of moulding for the V-way and held it together with steel cable and a turnbuckle and a lag screw to lock down the tailstock.  Not a real elegant solution to the problem but I was able to turn the poles.

[flagman1776]

I had the pleasure to work in at Concordia Yachts in Mass...  the carpenders had a set up for turning solid wood spars for "Beetle Cats"...  a one-design sail boat.  http://beetlecat.com/store/scripts/default.asp
They had a wood plank pattern made which bolted to either side of a sizeable I beam...  which envoluped a home made wood lathe.  After the blank was trued by eye on a planner, it was mounted on the wood lathe.  As the stick rotated, a router was run up the pattern creating mast ready for finishing in a single pass.  Very impressive.  Wish I had pictures!

[Soot]

I've got a 1936 Sheldon 10 x 26.

[Drilling Man]

  My metal lathe is a 12x30 Turnmaster....here's a pict. when i first brought it home,
 

 
  I don't use it all that much,
 

 
  Even though it's a great lathe...
 
  DM

[shred]

I've got a 1936 Sheldon 10 x 26.

Wow!  I have one of those old Sheldon Metalworkers as well (# L341), though not nearly as well painted.  There aren't many around.  Fun to run, though I do most work on a 12x36 import nowdays.

[Soot]

Mine is L439, must be at least a year newer, a spring chicken.

[Microboomer]

Lathe in Progress:
I wanted to post this back in December when the thread was started, but I didn't have a picture. It's a 20 year-old project that I started back to work on last Fall.  It's the only lathe I have right now.  Oh yeah, no powder can in the photo so should point out it's a 7x13.  Guess it won't ever turn out any heavy artillery!
andy

[Soot]

Cool project, tell us more about it.

[Microboomer]

David Gingery wrote a series of books called 'Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap' - the 1st one is 'The Charcoal Foundry" and the 2nd one describes this lathe.  The idea is that you could build a charcoal fired furnace with a 1 quart iron crucible and build the lathe with aluminum castings using hand tools and then use the lathe to build other machines.  I built an 240V electric furnace using a clothes dryer heating element and started casting aluminum on the patio of the apartment I was living in. (I made a sand box to pour over, to avoid safety problems with molten metal and cement)  I originally chose the electric furnace to avoid unwanted attention at the apartments, but the bonus is that I can replace the element and get bronze melting temperature.  Anyway I deviated from the plans a bit, and cheated by using the machine shop at school to clean up castings.  I got to the point where I had all but maybe 3 castings to go and then graduated, got a job, had kids, etc. The project got put on hold.  It would be cheaper to buy a mini-lathe than to build this, but I used scrap aluminum and spread the costs out.  Of course the experience of learning how to cast metal is priceless.  I think the biggest single cash outlay was the $50 +shipping I spent on a 3"x"1/2"x36" piece of ground steel I got from Enco, which I thought was outrageously high at the time!  The plans called for a 4-step pulley drive system and a 1/4hp motor, but now-days the right sized pulleys are so expensive I decided to buy a working treadmill with a variable speed motor (people often give these away, but I had to spend $20) last Fall.  With all the Aluminum parts, it won't be the most rigid tool in the world, so I'll have to take lighter cuts.  Of course, the first thing I'll want to make when I get it working is a cannon barrel!

[smokehouserex]

 
 
  I have a Atlas 12"x 33", backgeared, screw cutting lathe with quick change gearbox, bought new in 1978, by a friend and I bought it in 1981.
 
  HM

[Soot]

Awesome project Microboomer.

[Frank46]

I think a good rule to adopt is if you are contemplating building cannons, pick out the lathe and get one size bigger. You need the extra room or bed length for the various drilling and reaming operations. Otherwise you run out of bed length very fast. By the way, my lathe is a jet 13x40 geared head lathe. Bought it so's I could do some work on some of my rifles. Frank

[Victor3]

I think a good rule to adopt is if you are contemplating building cannons, pick out the lathe and get one size bigger. You need the extra room or bed length for the various drilling and reaming operations. Otherwise you run out of bed length very fast. By the way, my lathe is a jet 13x40 geared head lathe. Bought it so's I could do some work on some of my rifles. Frank

 I'd take that a step further and say to get the longest bed lathe you can afford (money & space wise). If you have the right tooling you can make small parts on a large lathe but not large parts on a small lathe.
 
 I have a Clausing 5914 (12 x 36) I'm in the process of rebuilding as a back-burner project. Nice machine, but can't really make too long of a barrel on it.
 
 On a side note, most will eventually want a mill for any serious cannon work. A Bridgeport-type is far more useful than any of the toy machines, but (as opposed to a large lathe) doesn't take up a whole lot more space than a small one does.