This Southbend 9” lathe a good buy?

[DaveBarbier]

Sorry in advance for the long post!

Hey guys, sorry I didn’t post this weekend but I have news about the lathe. I am not an expert when it comes to determining condition but I feel this lathe is in great shape. The ways still have the original hand scraping even right near the chuck, though it is a little worn off there. I couldn’t feel any wear with my fingernail from the carriage or the tail stock and when I nip the carriage down a bit near the chuck and then crank it over to the tail stock it doesn’t bind at all but I do notice it getting ever so slightly tighter but still easy to crank. The spindle is rock solid and the spindle nose and threads are super clean. All gears are in great shape, no broken teeth or even much wear on them at all that I can notice. The lathe as well as the guy’s shop was clean (except he recently turned some wood so I vacuumed that up) and the shop was very organized, makes me happy to see that and shows that he cares. The lathe was oiled nicely and was quiet when we turned it on and the headstock didn’t get hot.

I ended up buying the lathe if you can read between the lines . And instead of $950 I paid $1200 because he had some other stuff that I thought was good to have that he didn’t want to include in the normal price. I had my little pickup truck FULL and it was making my truck sag a lot. Kinda scary but it was all good.

I had two friends help and as I was taking the lathe apart (motor, legs and stuff) they loaded my truck up with flats of misc stuff. I just went through it all and there’s a lot of stuff. Not sure how many pictures I can post but here goes. I’ll try and list stuff first.

•cast iron legs and risers
•Steady rest
•Two collet draw bars (one regular draw bar and one speed lever thing)
•Three spindle thread protectors
•Bunch of collets
•Two micrometer carriage stops (one normal and one with I think 5 different positions
•4 chucks (a 3 jaw chuck that uses the collet draw bar, 2 normal 3 jaws and a 4 jaw)
•Two face plates
•A pile of tool holders mostly Armstrong, left and right handed
•A bunch of HSS and carbide (inserts and brazed)
•A cookie tin of Jacob chucks
•a few live and dead centers
•a turret thing that goes in the tailstock?
•couple oil stones
•some tooling that says Carboloy?
•Boxes and boxes of taps, drills, endmills and reamers
•oh, and another tiny Craftsman lathe, haha

I’m sure I’m missing a lot of stuff so see below for the pictures.

Can anyone tell me what those two parts are that I’m holding in my hand?

Also, what are those Carboloy things and what kind of inserts are those Century Tool inserts?

Any idea if I can date this machine? 49804NAX10 is the serial number. So that’s the 49,804th made? N is the 9”, A is the Quick Change Gear, Friction Feed Apron and Overhead Countershaft Drive, X is special?

Thanks ALL for the help!

 

[francist]

Yup, that’ll keep you busy for a while! Great looking lathe, congratulations

-frank

 

[dbb-the-bruce]

Ah man, you scored.....
The first hand photo is for a dog drive, it clamps on a piece held between centers and an arm or tang engages it to spin the work. It's old school best way to turn true.

Second looks like it's used to hold a die grinder (think dremel tool) in cross slide.

That's a great haul for $1200. Looks like the same cigar boxes my kit came in! (ha).

Congrats.

-Dave B

 

[RobertB]

Really nice score!

 

[martik777]

Amazing deal, you could pay for that lathe just selling part of that haul. Large dials too!

It's very rare to see one that age with intact frosting all the way up to the chuck. I've seen them for sale like that over $5,000

Looks like it was made around 1961 and has a special spindle swing or hole (denoted by the "X") . I think it may be 10", check you spindle hole size too.

Serial no decoding:

South Bend Lathe Co.

www.southbendlathe.com

South Bend Lathe Works - Serial Number Registry | VintageMachinery.org

vintagemachinery.org

 

[mikey]

Looks to be in beautiful shape, Dave! It looks like you got everything he had; great for you, kinda' sad for him. Glad it worked out.

 

[MontanaLon]

If I am not mistaken that is a shaper tool holder top right
.

 

[hman]

Great looking bunch of goodies!!!
+1 on Dave B's identifications. The lathe dog would require a stud to be installed on the face plate, and driving the dog through the notch. The second item is indeed for a Dremel. I used to have a Dremel "drill press" with that identical clamp on it. Unfortunately, this clamp will only fit the old style all-black cylindrical Dremel tools. The modern ones have fatter bodies with an oval cross section.

 

[DaveBarbier]

Ah man, you scored.....
The first hand photo is for a dog drive, it clamps on a piece held between centers and an arm or tang engages it to spin the work. It's old school best way to turn true.

Second looks like it's used to hold a die grinder (think dremel tool) in cross slide.

That's a great haul for $1200. Looks like the same cigar boxes my kit came in! (ha).

Congrats.

-Dave B

Thanks Dave! Ah a dog drive, got it. I was going to say that it looks like the regular dogs I have but without a tail. Unsure if it was meant for something else. Thanks for this.

So many cigar and tobacco boxes! But my favorite is the Marlboro pack full of high speed tooling, haha.

 

[DaveBarbier]

Amazing deal, you could pay for that lathe just selling part of that haul. Large dials too!

It's very rare to see one that age with intact frosting all the way up to the chuck. I've seen them for sale like that over $5,000

Looks like it was made around 1961 and has a special spindle swing or hole (denoted by the "X") . I think it may be 10", check you spindle hole size too.

Serial no decoding:

South Bend Lathe Co.

www.southbendlathe.com

South Bend Lathe Works - Serial Number Registry | VintageMachinery.org

vintagemachinery.org

Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that value, that’s crazy. Don’t plan on selling it though, haha.

Yeah the X is “special” but not sure exactly what that means. It does have a dowel pin towards the back on top of the headstock. The speed collet closer with the lever fits right on it. Is that what the X means? What do you mean to check my spindle hole? I guess I don’t know these machines enough to notice what’s different about this one, if anything.

So it could be a Model A 10”? On the Southbend link you gave it says N in the serial number means 9”. I measured the spindle center to the ways (with a tape measure so not that accurate) and got about 4 1/2”. I’ll have to do more digging. The serial number does say 10 at the end but I’m not sure if that’s the swing or something else.

There is a bit of damage on the cross slide. A tiny bit of chewing up so it’s not perfect but I’m definitely not complaining!

About the age I’m getting some conflicting info. The 49804 to me shows 1931? Or at least on the Vintage Machinery link you gave the closest serial number to mine is 1931. One YouTube video says that the date of casting is on the inside of the ways by the tailstock. Any truth to that?