This Southbend 9” lathe a good buy?

[bhigdog]

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

Not to detract from the machine or it's condition but the "frosting" looks to be newly done...................Bob



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[MontanaLon]

Not to detract from the machine or it's condition but the "frosting" looks to be newly done...................Bob



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It is almost "too good". And doesn't look very similar to the scraping under the head on my 10".

 

[DaveBarbier]

It is almost "too good". And doesn't look very similar to the scraping under the head on my 10".

Hmm interesting. In looking online at south bend ways scraping I don’t really see any consistencies between the ones online either.

But I guess it’s possible it was ground and redone. There a way to tell?

 

[MontanaLon]

That is above my pay grade. Richard King would likely be able to tell you. My lathe had faint marks at head and tail stock when I bought it, when I took the head stock off the pattern under the head was the same as the pattern that was visible close to the headstock. Another good spot to look is between the tail stock base and body. They scrape those surfaces and they don't see much wear usually.

Even if it is fresh it doesn't mean anything bad. Particularly with the tooling you got. My lathe was around what you paid for the whole package there and had 2 chucks, 2 dog drivers, an adapted steady rest and a couple of centers. And it was the best looking set up I had seen in 5 months of looking at anywhere near the price. Everything with tooling like you got was $2k or higher.

 

[matthewsx]

At that price, for a desirable machine, and all the other stuff.

No way you'll be hurt

It should make a good first machine and if/when you want to upgrade you'll come out ahead if you decide to sell it. But you probably won't sell because, um, more tools....

John

 

[bhigdog]

It's very common to see used machines "dressed up" by running a Biax power scraper over the wear surfaces to look like factory scraping. I'm pretty sure the pictured scraping was done by hand not with a Biax. Again, not trying to detract from the machines condition. A bit of freshening up the scraping is way common. My Bridgeport was obviously dressed up with fresh scraping and is just fine. I didn't even bother mentioning it to the dealer I bought it from. I'm just saying "frosting" has little to do with wear in a used machine unless you are certain it's original...........Bob

 

[DaveBarbier]

Thanks guys, it doesn’t matter to me but would be cool if it was original. With nipping down the carriage and moving it down to the tailstock it doesn’t get tight so the bed has little wear. I’ll be removing the headstock to get it up on the legs when I clear that area of the shop, so if the scraping is different I’ll post pictures. Of course if it was rescraped they could have removed the headstock too so only if it’s different we’ll have an idea what’s going on. Fun stuff!

 

[mattthemuppet2]

I wouldn't worry about it, even if there is wear (doesn't sound like there is much) you'll still be able to do good work. I think you did really well and a great story to boot.

Personally, if you can I would go to great lengths to avoid removing the headstock. You most likely won't affect alignment if you did, but given how important to its function is having the spindle properly aligned to the bed, I wouldn't want to mess with it. Certainly not to look at any frosting under the headstock.

 

[Choiliefan]

^^ What he said. ^^

 

[DaveBarbier]

I wouldn't worry about it, even if there is where (doesn't sound like there is much) you'll still be able to do good work. I think you did really well and a great story to boot.

Personally, if you can I would go to great lengths to avoid removing the headstock. You most likely won't affect alignment if you did, but given how important to its function is having the spindle properly aligned to the bed, I wouldn't want to mess with it. Certainly not to look at any frosting under the headstock.

Ok cool, that makes sense. Thanks