New to machining, bought an old sheldon.

[Mdmorgan19]

Minor point but the common name whether it disappears or not is "ram". Quills are found on drill presses and vertical mills, and rotate.

I don't believe that I ever saw a tailstock ram that would retract that far. Unless you know better, I would suspect that either the ram has been shortened or it is for a different machine. Most won't retract much more than flush.

I've got full travel out, so ‍I don't know. It works.

 

[wa5cab]

OK. Just don't use it with more than about 2" of the ram exposed. Or to put it another way, don't stick it out past the point where you can securely lock it.

 

[lordbeezer]

My tail stock rams goes in about the same distance.

 

[G-ManBart]

I've got a couple of Sheldon lathes and they're solid machines. If you need help or parts there's a pretty active Groups IO page for them:

sheldonlathe groups.io Group

Sheldonlathe is for sharing information about Sheldon, Sebastian, and Vernon machine tools. The Files, Photos, and Links sections contain basic information. Members may upload machine photos to the Photos section. For a manual or parts for your Sheldon, check the Files for "Sheldon Parts FAQ"...

groups.io

 

[wa5cab]

lordbeezer,

Interesting, Is this typical of all or several Sheldon models or only of one or two?

 

[lordbeezer]

Not sure on that. Had a KS model and a 10” few years ago briefly. Don’t remember. Wasn’t sure about my 11” until I went and looked.

 

[wa5cab]

OK. What about you other guys? Is your lathe an 11" and if you didn't already say, does the tailstock ram stop retracting when it goes flush or just a little past that point or does it disappear into the tailstock before stopping?

 

[Nogoingback]

I would like to get a 3 jaw chuck for it, anything I should know before buying?

The first question to ask is what your budget will be. If the budget is tight, the lower cost stuff
will all be Chinese. Quality at that level is variable, from junk to OK. Some folks around here have
had good luck with Shars chucks, though I have no experience with their 3 jaw stuff so can't advise.

If you have a bigger budget, you can step up to Bison, Rohm or Pratt Burnerd which are all good chucks.

If you go the Ebay route to find one, be very careful and try to find one with very little use. A lot of chucks
on Ebay are worn out.

It would be a very good idea to find a "Set-Tru" style chuck so that you can minimize your runout.

 

[G-ManBart]

OK. What about you other guys? Is your lathe an 11" and if you didn't already say, does the tailstock ram stop retracting when it goes flush or just a little past that point or does it disappear into the tailstock before stopping?

I have two 13" Sheldons....I checked and the ram stops right at flush in the tailstock.

 

[G-ManBart]

The quill, is that the part that moves in and out when you turn the hand wheel? Has inch marks on it? It's there, just all the way in. I have a few different dead centers for it but need a drill chuck. There's a taper attachment installed and an extra one laying in the tray just below the tail stock.

I missed the second taper attachment....that's both unusual and possibly very fortunate. The former Sheldon employee who started the Sheldon IO group (started as a Yahoo! Groups page) once said there was no practical way to fit a taper attachment to a machine in the field, although I have seen a few folks do so...but I would call them very experienced machinists (unlike me!). Sheldon had a standard taper and a telescopic taper attachment, so I wonder if you wound up with one of each...it's possible. If the one in the chip tray isn't really for your machine you could probably sell it for enough to cover the cost of a nice 3-jaw chuck.

As mentioned, be cautious about used chucks....it's possible to get a good one, but you do have to be careful. The folks at Lost Creek Machine seem to always get positive reviews...worth taking a look:

Lost Creek Machine, Inc.

Machine Tool and Tooling Sales

lostcreekmachine.com