10K Gap Bed???

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”
 
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
1732196488083.png

They are uncommon!
 
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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.
 
The cross slide is not the standard one, that one comes with the gap bed option. It is bigger "to the left only", and the reason behind it is that between that and the compound rest, it allows you to "reach out" and machine whatever in the gap. . You'd be very limited with the standard one stopping five inches short on travel.

The flaking on the bed ways is factory on this "family" of lathes. It's backwards (in my mind), but it's how they did it, so it "couldda" been for a good reason, it "couldda" been faster/cheaper/more efficient than flaking under the carriage, but I "presume" there was a reason behind it...

I'll bet it goes for the asking price. It's high, but they don't show up very often, and when they do.... I've seen 'em go for higher. lower too of course, but prices take on a life of their own with uncommon things, especially when a brand new in the box specimen would still be worth more in parts than it is as a whole.
 
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woodchucker said:
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
Click to expand...
IMG_4357.jpeg

IMG_4356.jpeg

I wasn’t sure what you disagreed with. But these are definitely two different castings.
 
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