New To Me Lathe

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Skeetshooter01

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I picked this lathe up on Monday. The previous owner said that it was a South Bend. I cant find any identifying marks on it! Any ideas
 
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I am not an expert either but the headstock, back gears, gearbox and apron all look like those found on South Bend lathes. That being said, I have never seen one quite like that before. To locate the serial number, go to the right end of the bed. It should be stamped on the the top of the bed, right next to the ways. Once you have the serial number, you can go to Steve Wells website http://www.wswells.com/ and from the serial number, determine the year it was made. Based upon the fact that it is a "top oiler" it is probably from the 20's or 30's. Looks like the half nut lever is missing from the front of the apron too. Did you get any of the drive components with it? Looks like it uses an overhead drive system. Good luck with it. Looks like one heavy duty machine.
Earl
 
Nice looking machine. The lead screw is also missing. Not sure that any lathes were ever built and released deliberately not able to thread, but I suppose that can't be ruled out. Otherwise, perhaps a previous owner had trouble with it, and started a repair. Or perhaps was unable to obtain proper repair parts.

It reminds me of an American I used to have. Mine was 1913 built, so I'm thinking maybe yours is 10's-20's.

Be sure and keep us up on your progress, and anything you find out about it.
 
I'll try to answer some of the questions intelligently if I can! Serial number: On the ways near the tailstock there is a number "1" stamped in the bed.There is a number "1" stamped in the back of the saddle.
The lead screw is there though the picture doesn't show it very well.
The "half nut" is controlled through the knob to the right of the longitudinal crank.
The previous owner said that he had the drive components hung from the ceiling.
The bed is 5 feet long over it's entire length and the swing is 13 inches.
The only other marking are on the back gears "Browning" and "Mayville,KY"
It did come with a box oof threading gears though without the plate on front I think they will be useless!

I'll try to post some other pictures today to see if that will help identify it!

Another question I have is does it have to be driven by the overhead drive system or can I fabricate a mounting system to mount the pulleys and motor?
Thanks to everyone who has posted! I'm very,very new to this hobby and will have many questions in the future.
 
I'm still not seeing a lead screw. It should be a ~1 1/2" diameter threaded rod parallel with the feed drive rod. That I see. Usually they are either an Acme thread, or as Shadow noted, a square thread.

Looks like you got lots of goodies with it. And most of the top drive. You'll have to fab up some "bracketry" to mount it, looks like.

Good stuff!
 
There is a rod that runs from the gear box on front to the end of the lathe toward the right.It is not threaded although it does have a keyway over the entire length. The lavert on the apron has three positions . The bottom is the longitudinal travel,the center is for threading travel and the top position is the cross slide travel. The "half nut" or clutch is controlled via the knob that is located to the right of the longitudinal crank. Threading is done by using the forward and reverse switch. once the cut is made the lathe must be stopped and reversed. Then stopped,crossfeed adjusted to cut deeper and the lathe started in forward and so on until the threading is completed.
that's why it is important to identify the lathe and get the threading information.
 
Here is a picture of the lead screw set-up on this lathe. Picture was taken looking up under the saddle.
 
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Like I said earlier I am new to this hobby and want to learn.There is a YouTube video that shows this type of threading. It does seem like an awkward way to cut threads. But the video does a relatively good job of explaining how this is done.
I looked the lathe over carefully and there doesn't seem to be any provision for another shaft.

There are several experienced machinists at work and I think I'll ask one to come over and check this out !
I think it is worth what I paid for it and will probably do everything I expect it to do.
 
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