Mystery Monarch - 1920's?

[transplant_wi]

This lathe is new to me, and I would be very interested in any info about it. As far as I can tell, it is an 11" Monarch Junior, made between 1924 and 1928. In many respects it looks identical to pictures of an early Sheldon lathe, nut my crossfeed selector (? not tried that yet) is a knurled nut type, rather than a lever. At the tailstock end of the ways is stamped:

Inspected By E.J. Berger
K646
G

There is no nameplate, but on the gear cover is a brass plaque with the thread pitches to change gear table, and at the bottom of that 'THE MONARCH MACH. TOOL CO., SIDNEY, OHIO'. If I recall, the spindle bore is about 1.25"

I recently purchased it from a friend, cleaned-up, lubed and painted the motor (GE 220v, 1/2 HP), and added the safety switch (for which I feel I should apologize).

The lathe came with the following tooling:

All the change gears referenced on the plaque
Taper attachment
Armstrong straight, left, right and cutoff tool holders, boring bar
Spare drive belt, almost full box of Clipper clips and a 4" clipper tool
Drill chuck
MT4 dead center
MT4 to MT2 adaptor
Steady rest and follower rest
Face plate
3-jaw scroll chuck
4-jaw independent chuck
Collet chuck and a full set (plus extras) of B&O #1 collets
A few mystery parts, which look like shop-made fixtures

After a few guesses I willl tell you what I paid. BTW, it all fit into my poor Honda Civic!

 

[pjf134]

Transplant_wi,
Nice find and I hope it runs good for you, don't know about getting parts for it though. The controls look weird to me or maybe your friend made them that way. If your friend is close to you he might have charged you $100 for it or maybe free since you had to do some work on it. It does sound like it is complete with all the tooling. Come on and tell us what you paid.
Paul

 

[transplant_wi]

I added the switch, but what looks wierd? It runs fine. I paid $650 for it, and feel like that was a fair price with all the tooling. I know some people have made better deals, but I am happy with it.

 

[transplant_wi]

Thanks Dalee - yes, the ways seem good, and I do have the taper attachment. If you go up to the parent forum to my Lathe Tool Cart posting, you can see the taper attachment bits lurking in the back of the right side.

 

[core-oil]

Transplant,
I like your lathe, a nice size for the home workshop, it is very smart in its black livery, & having its original motor and drive from the era, makes it a nice bit of technological history, as well as being most handy,

She is about the same size as my old 1926/ish Colchester which has a nice cone drive headstock as well.

 

[8ntsane]

I certainly cannot add to any infro on your lathe.
But I must say, It looks sweet. Looks like a nice machine from your pics, and the price you paid was decent too. I love those oldies, though if I had it, I would probably get her all cleaned up, and just park it off to the side to look at it. They look so cool.

Nice score, and good luck with it.:thumbzup:
I like it!

 

[jbrowne]

Nice machine!

Yours looks very similar to the one I just posted pictures of, including the 3-position feed gearbox selector. Did you manage to find any manuals for it?

Seeing your countershaft setup leads me to believe that someone may have modified mine. The guy I bought it from had no information on it, only that it was worth $400 firm.

Again, nice job on the restoration!

 

[RCPDesigns]

I just bought K641 and it was also inspect by E.J. Berger
Mine isn't in great shape but it should be restorable. Has taper attachments, 3-jaw, 4-jaw and 2 face plates. It is missing the part of the motor mount that fits over the headstock but it does have the rest of the motor adapter. It has damaged worm gears but I think I can make those and get it running again. The ways look very good.