I figured I would introduce myself, and post a pic of a LeBlond that I used to run. She was built in the 40's and is still in use today. She has a 12 foot swing. Set up usually required the use of a 20 ton crane.
Yes that's me. The part in the pic is a water strainer for a nuke plant. It weighs around 5,000 lbs. the face plate has 6 jaws and the tail stock has 3 jaws. The jaws in tail stock have the ability to move independently or simultaneity. At 35 rpm you can feel the breeze off the work piece, and pitch chips across the shop. Definitely one of the most fun machines that I ever ran. It would dim the lights in the entire shop every time I threw the switch. Moving tooling required a small crane.
If I remember correctly (it's been a while) it was running around 20 rpm. The higest I ever had it was in the low 40's. The gearbox went as high as 160, but I don't think it would be possible to get that high. I would crank it up around 40 RPM turning a part that was close to the faceplate.
A friend of mine works at a plant that makes and rebuilds centrifuges. The lathe is so big that the operator stands on the carriage when you run the lathe.
The shop where I apprenticed (Kaiser Steel in Napa Ca.) had a very similar one, it started life as a 40" swing, but was blocked up to swing 86", yours appears to be a factory raising job "raised in the sand". Ours was 31 ft between centers.
Wow. Just what you need to turn those big armatures for the hydroelectric generators at Hoover dam
Mark
ps most of us, myself included, don't have any idea of the scale involved in machining things that big. An operation we consider second-nature like changing a tool bit becomes something akin to doing a space-walk- great pic Brandon
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