# New to me South Bend, 13x72 (13x40ish), SN 14464TXK



## 428Bird (Apr 14, 2014)

Hello All,

I joined this forum a little over a week ago while I was still searching for my first "real" lathe. Previously I had been the very short term of a 1929 South Bend 9" Junior with pretty much everything missing, and then a craftsman 109 - which was a complete piece of junk. A few days after joining, my 13 shows up on Craigslist, north of Dallas. I drove up a week ago (Monday the 7th) with a trailer to go check her out.

According to the seller, the lathe was bought at auction in 2010 from a trade school. I knew this already as he has posted up the SN on the craigslist ad and I had done some google searching to see what I could find. I even knew what he paid for it:

https://www.renebates.com/archives/a_list.php?id=2121&cat=all

That's a link to the auction archive. 

Anyway, the CL pictures looked pretty decent so I drove up. Here are some pics, but they aren't the greatest.




We started up the lathe and ran through the feeds and such. Everything seemed to work fine with minimal noise. The bed looked fine for a school lathe, but there was some damage to the compound where someone had crashed it into the chuck.




Here's a rear shot of the gear train - only one gear on the entire machine has a missing tooth and it's the big idler. The large plastic box at an angle on the left side is the static phase converter.




Big dials because I'll probably need them one day. You can just see the damage to the compound here. Also a brazed repair to the taper attachment. Looks pretty solid to me.




Here's a look down the back side. The lathe came with the taper attachment and two chucks. The 3 Jaw is a genuine South Bend. Not sure of the make of the 4" though. They're both in pretty good shape.




Didn't get shots of the load in because we were in a hurry trying to beat our unpredictable Texas weather. Long story short, I disassembled the lathe to how you see it here, picked it up with an engine hoist that I had taken with me, then rolled the trailer underneath. 

Once I got home I took the bed off of the legs and unloaded each piece individually. I sat the bed on a couple of saw horses and started to clean.




For the most part the bed is in fine shape. I don't see any kind of scraping that others talk about on their beds, but there is minimal damage. A straight-edge confirmed that the bed isn't swaybacked like a broke down mare either. 




The cross slide however had a little line worn in on both V's. You can just barely catch it with a finger nail. Did a chip or three get caught in a wick? The other side:




No groove, just a scratch that you can barely catch a nail on. Not sure I should worry about it TBH. Your thoughts?




One thing I WILL have to replace is the crossfeed acme screw. In the pics the center 4 or so inches the threads are worn down to points. Oddly enough the brass nut looks okay. I'll also need to replace the two thrust washers that operate the taper sleeve.

Things I do not have pictures of are the teardown and cleaning of the apron. Though the cross and long. feed functions worked fine during the test run, I decided to pull the apron and check for debris and for the condition of the oil and wicks. It was all junked up pretty bad and packed up with swarf and chips. I cleaned it all and am in the process of replacing the wicks. I purchased the excellently written book and wick kit off of ebay.

I also pulled the spindle from the headstock and though the main bearings look okay, the inner thrust bearing fell all to pieces. I'll need to source a replacement before I can reassemble. Anyone have a used one? The dimensions are 1-7/8" ID by 2-9/16" OD by about 1/2" thick. I'd use a used one if someone had one laying around.

That's all for now. I'm slowly getting the apron back together, and I'm working on other small things. I probably won't paint the lathe at this point as the finish seems to be alright - just very dirty internally.

Thanks for looking!

Britt Bettell


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## mattthemuppet2 (Apr 14, 2014)

great job Britt, looks like it's going to be a keeper! It was interesting to see how much the lathes went for in that auction. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay? Any plans on getting a VFD to replace that static phase converter? Keep up with the pics


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## 428Bird (Apr 14, 2014)

mattthemuppet said:


> great job Britt, looks like it's going to be a keeper! It was interesting to see how much the lathes went for in that auction. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you pay? Any plans on getting a VFD to replace that static phase converter? Keep up with the pics



He was asking 2100 and I offered 1800. There aren't many lathes, especially South Bend's in this area, so when they do show up they command a premium. Not sure if I overpaid or not but I'm happy for the most part. No plans on getting a VFD yet. I'll probably stick with what I've got and spend the $$$ on tooling.

Britt


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## Duey C (Apr 15, 2014)

Nice find Britt! That old gal cleaned up real nice! It's a beauty in it's "workin" clothes".
AND
You know what the devil to look for when checking "things".  I like the BIG dials too!

Hehehe, I'm patiently waiting for a 1929 9" model C with a lot of goodies. It'll make a nice addition to my lathe addiction.
Glad you found this bunch of folks!

Du


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