10K Gap Bed???

I have never seen this. Pricey but what a great rebuild this would make!

Oil flaking is best performed on the surfaces you can’t see- the underside of the carriage, the underside of the cross slide, the underside of the compound, the underside of the tailstock.
Oil flaking creates a void that fills with oil and gets trapped.
The oil acts as a bearing surface, rather than metal to metal contact .
Hydraulic principle is that liquids cannot be compressed, the oil flaked surface (when oil is present) has lower drag, than just machined surfaces (also with oil present) with little or no provision for oil retention.

I would like to see closer pictures to see how “factory” the scraping was.
Another thing I question is if the bed is hardened or not-oil flaking or scraping hardened materials is dubious at best.

To quote John C. McGinley from the movie Platoon,
“I got a bad feeling about this one, Sarge”

rwm said:

I have never seen this. Pricey but what a great rebuild this would make!

10K South bend Lathe GAP BED LATHE LONG BED RARE TO SEE GAP 115 | eBay

LOOK AT ORIGINAL FLAKEING ON BED HAND DONE FROM FACTORY. NEEDS CLEANING WILL BE CLEANED UP WHEN WE ARE DONE MORE PHOTOS SOON . WE DO HAVE COVER FOR SWITCH.

www.ebay.com

Click to expand...

not only the gap bed, but take a look at the cross slide. I have never seen that wide cross slide before.

I think it’s (the cross slide) either a very well done modification or a factory special order. You can see it’s only using one side of the factory dovetails, with a machined insert on the other side.

It says pool cue lathe, but I can’t imagine why you need extra swing for a pool cue.

Yeah, that cross slide looks crazy. Are you guys thinking this is not an actual SB? Hard to believe someone would make modifications like that? Could this be a rare custom order? It seems to me that the extended cross slide is necessary so you can get the tool post close enough to the gap. It would not work otherwise.
EDIT: here it is

They are uncommon!

Cool!

It looks like the cross slide is custom, and more likely shop made. In your illustration, the compound is mounted further left than on a standard lathe. So the dovetails would have also been on the left side.

Of course, being as old as it is, the entire carriage may have been replaced at some point along the way to get an otherwise derelict machine back to work.

I don't think so. I think they made a mod at the factory. Seems reasonable to keep the same basic saddle, and just make a new mold for the cross slide itself. Adding a rail to the saddle is easier than a new mold.