1941 Monarch 12” KK: My First Monarch

C

Calandrod

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I am buying my first American made lathe! It will be a big upgrade from my current Korean lathe. I should get it next week.
 

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I am curious, is this nearly identical to the CK? I don’t seem to find near as much information about the KK as I do the CK.
 
The CK and KK are very similar, I'm not sure what the exact differences are by model, my CK has the leadscrew/feed reverse lever through the apron whereas the pictures above show the reverse on the side of the headstock between the spindle speed selectors. Monarch seems to have introduced new features on a given model over the years, and then at some seemingly random point would change the model name. From the pictures, it looks like one of the four spindle speed selectors is broken/missing?

IIRC, Keith Rucker on youtube (vintagemachinery) has a KK with a good video series on rebuilding his. The associated website (vintagemachinery.org) has quite a bit of manuals on the older Monarch's in the Manufacturer's index/publications section that you can dig through to try to determine if there are other differences. My guess is the KK evolved into the CK/CW/CY line with few differences between them for those made in the '40's.

editted to add: Looks like Keith's is actually a model K, not a KK.
 
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FWIW, call Monarch (they still exist as a company although they're not really making machines) with the serial number, and for something like $50 they will send you the parts manual and operators manual for your machine. You can ask for the build sheet too (free?), which will tell you who bought it initially, and what factory options were included in the order.

It is worthwhile to at least clean out both oil pump filters. Basically just silver dollar sized pieces of felt, generally easy to just replace. There is one in the headstock and one in the apron. The one in the apron is under the cap on the left side of the apron. The one in the headstock is harder to access.

Feel free to message me if you have other questions.
 
rabler said:
FWIW, call Monarch (they still exist as a company although they're not really making machines) with the serial number, and for something like $50 they will send you the parts manual and operators manual for your machine. You can ask for the build sheet too (free?), which will tell you who bought it initially, and what factory options were included in the order.

It is worthwhile to at least clean out both oil pump filters. Basically just silver dollar sized pieces of felt, generally easy to just replace. There is one in the headstock and one in the apron. The one in the apron is under the cap on the left side of the apron. The one in the headstock is harder to access.

Feel free to message me if you have other questions.
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Thanks for the info! I will definitely do that. I’ve been enjoying reading through your thread too.
 
Congrats!
No one really knows the differences between a 12C, CK K, KK, etc.
A couple of observations.
That's a big honking 4 jaw on there. 13" maybe?
And that is the slowest top spindle speed I have seen on one. Most were 750 or 1000 rpm.
But it would be fairly easy to change the motor/drive pulleys and bump that up.
 
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