Hello, this is my 1st post on this site, hoping for some help on my new-to-me SBL Model 9A. It's in very good to excellent condition from what I can tell (haven't brought it home yet). For some background, I am a hobbyist with virtually no experience with machine tools. Here are a few of my questions:
That should oughtta be a good machine for you. I've got the rear drive model on a bench. It's a very simple, yet functional, and very user friendly machine.
- The serial number ends in an X, which South Bend says means that the spindle and swing type is "Special". Not sure how to interpret that.
You'll have to sort that out. It's probably not anything huge, it just means that "something" was non standard. I know some internet charts say that it's something special about the spindle, but my belief is that it's not limited to that, it just means that "something" about the lathe is not standard.
- I have to move this lathe to my house. Can I sling up the lathe, separated from the cabinet (it's and under drive type), just in front of the headstock? Maybe balance the load by moving the carriage and tail stock?
You can. Best is to go between the bed rails and lift by the webs inside there. Also best if there's another person who can steady the lathe. Not sure exactly what you plan to use to lift your slung lathe, but any way you sling it, it's prone to being unsteady. Not like "trying to shift", but more that it just likes someone to have a hand on it. Not carrying it, or splitting the weight or anything like that, just steadying it.
- The motor is single phase, so must have been swapped in at some point. Are there significant benefits to replacing it with a 3-phase motor and phase converter?
Loads of them shipped that way. Couldda been a quarter or a half horse motor in 110 volts, or depending on when it was made, it could have been standard OR optional to ship it with no motor at all. Or they had 220 volt versions. I'm not really sure when (or if) these ever shipped in three phase. I'm sure they did at some point, but I think the design predates the availibity of three phase in any degree where it would have been called a standard in an industrial setting. That came later on in terms of production of these lathes.
The big reason people do three phase conversions and phase converters is that they get electronic phase converters that also give some speed control to the motor. Of course that is quite nice. Your 9A is not difficult to change speeds at all (although you still have to do it), so I don't really see the cost or effort of such a modification returning a huge benefit. It's also a very small motor in industrial terms, so you probably aren't gonna have much if any returns based on motor efficiency, and given that you're (I'm assuming) going to run the phase converter on 120 volts, that might even go backwards. Run it. See what you've got. Right now, it plugs into a regular wall outlet.
Another note about motors here, the lathe uses plain spindle bearings. You really don't want to push the RPMs any further than what the factory gave you for that reason. Yes, you can, and in short bursts, they survive it quite well, but trying to dial the lathe up to modern "carbide" speeds and feeds numbers, that's just not a good plan. And as far as horsepower? I still use a leather flat belt to drive the spindle, it slips easy, WAY before the motor stalls in all but one gear setting, and my motor is one half horsepower, not much, but the biggest they offered. This will visibly deflect and displace parts of that lathe which just shouldn't move when things don't go will. I'm going to highly and strongly recommend that you learn the lathe first, before you hot rod the motor and belts. You'll find that a belt which slips all the time and a motor which isn't strong enough might not actually be a belt or motor problem. It might actually just be a couple too few degrees of rake on the cutting tool, or a couple too many thousandths per rev on the feed rate. Or you're trying to cut something with a poorly selected insert that's plowing metal instead of cutting it.
- It has the lantern-type tool holder. I have the wants for a quick-change holder but since I'm a novice I'm guessing that's premature?
I'm gonna disagree with the forum as a whole here. Well, a little bit maybe. Mine came with the rocker/lantern tool post. I use that for most of what I do. It does not come with pre-ground inserts or repeatable geometry, and it's kind of fiddly the first few times you set it up. But it works exceptionally well at two things- It will do a lot, but it's a skill It gets you a skill that you need either way.... Nobody's born with it. It'll be a learning curve. It'll teach you about tool geometry, cutting forces, and general good practice as far as making tools that cut well and finish well, versus brute force forcing the lathe to take on stuff it doesn't want to. It won't be an overnight thing.... But it'll make you better at using the lathe and better at using the quick change tool post if/when you decide to go that route. With or without the quick change tool post, one thing to understand is that until you learn to visualize and understand what's actually happening in the cut... You're gonna be frustrated with the results you're getting. You need that in order to adjust, and make changes to get the results that you're looking for. That will go with ANY way you choose to anchor the cutting tool to the lathe. Being able to determine, select, make, or otherwise have just the right cutting tool, when you figure out what is a good, free cutting tool for the material you're cutting, the size of the cut you're taking... Tool forces go down, belt slips are all but eliminated, horsepower rarely comes into play, chips get managable, strings become less and less common, tool deflection (and whole lathe deflection) get too be way less, so hitting final diameters starts to fall into place a lot easier. How "slow" is the rocker/lantern post? Well, it's not "quick" as a quich change, but realistically you just put the holder in, put the cutting tip where you want it, and snug one bolt. It's not that quick, but it's not that slow.
That said, I did make a tool post and holders (on the lathe, using my rocker post
) that will support tools truly horizontally, and adjust the tool height fully parallel so that I could get into some things that just didn't exist, and this little lathe was NEVER meant to cut. There's a lot of materials available to me that are induction hardened (case hardened), and that makes the work piece tougher than high speed steel. So while I strongly suggest that the rocker post is a lot more useful than it's given credit for, (and with some practice, isn't really all that "not quick"), and does everything the lathe was ever built to do, I will say that the lathe was built before a lot of modern alloys and materials ever came into being. Including insert carbide tooling. So I'm sure you'll want something eventually. And I will also throw in another qualifier- Quick change tool posts cost real money. Far from the most expensive upgrade, you'll have way MORE expensive wants as time goes on, but if you throw money at every annoyance you find while you're at the beginning of a long learning curve... It'll eat you out of house and home, and you'll learn to hate the thing because every time you want to do something to do with it, you're gonna have to wait for the internet to ship you something... Which leads to my point- If your lathe does NOT come with a couple (or more) tool holders for the rocker tool post that's on it- Well, now you're back to real money, and that might change my approach some.... For as much as I value the education that comes from the rocker post, I'm not going to go so far as to say that you should tool up the lathe twice....
I've found wedge-type and piston-type QC holders, what do these terms mean?
Thanks for any info.
Those are how the tool holders lock in place when you "clip" them onto the tool post. Those terms are based on one type (the most popular type I believe) of tool post. The wedge type uses a sliding dovetail, so the dovetail expands to lock the holder to the post. The piston type does this by pushing outward on the holder (with a piston), thus making the dovetail tighten up that way. By nearly any metric, the wedge type is the more technically correct way to do such things, more repeatable, more rigid, and all that. In practice, on a small lathe, it's splitting hairs rather finely, and most hobbyists aren't really gonna see much if any difference. Especially on a smaller lathe. Larger lathes, I'm sure the difference becomes more tangible. So then cost comes into play too. What are YOU going to get from the difference? That doesn't devalue the value of learning about the tools, cutting geometry, feeds, and speeds, But you can grind high speed steel for a quick change tool post too. I still say that learning to do this makes you better, EVEN IF you're going to settle on nothing but insert tooling in the future.
If you can swing it, I'd probably look first at the wedge type. But if cost is an issue (none of my business....), I wouldn't think you should feel slighted by the piston type. It'll won't technically be as rigid as the wedge, but it WILL be as rigid as the rest of your lathe. So what do you get out of the wedge? Well, probably something, but if the piston type is as rigid as the rest of the lathe, are you really loosing? Either way, look at the cost of the individual tool holders to go with the post you pick. The more basic they are, the easier they are to come by (or make, eventually), and you will want plenty of 'em. The initial investment will be a fraction of what you have into it by the time you're have most of what you need. (And don't worry, you'll NEVER run out of what you "want"...).
I guess what I'm saying is that your new lathe is a tool. It doesn't "spit out parts", it's the tool that YOU use to make parts. Like a hammer. If you nail two boards together, and you keep getting rose pedals all around the nail, it's not any inadequacy in the hammer, nor will a new hammer fix the problem in any way. Once you're proficient with the hammer, there are loads of upgrades, different styles, different weights, and ways to make you more efficient at some particular job, but none of them will help if you're not hitting on the mark every time. Or the guy two towns north of me who used to use a chain saw to carve bears out of old tree stumps. My chain saw won't do that. If I bought the side cutting carving chain, that's still not gonna fix the problem... It'll let me grind sideways with a chainsaw, sure, but that is not the problem.... So as a general, top down overview type opinion, I think that bringing the lathe home FIRST, and USING the lathe, getting some practice in, making it work as it should, AS IS, is by far the best approach. If you can't make it work well (and it will work well), you really have no idea what needs upgrading, or what upgrades will benefit you.
