Old Sheldon-built Lathe

[Green Frog]

I inherited an old (late 1940s?) Lempco lathe. With research I have identified it as actually being a re-badged early 10" Sheldon with a few mods that went with the contract to build them, I guess. Is anybody else using one of these?

Regards,
Froggie

 

[tomh]

John Knox on the Sheldon lathe group worked for Sheldon and has a lot of information including the history of Sheldon .
You will have to join the yahoo Sheldon lathe group but it will be worth it.
Also check out lathesuk

 

[Green Frog]

Thanks for your response, tomh. I am a longtime member (albeit fairly inactive recently) of the Sheldon Lathe Group and have had several interesting and informative exchanges with John... I regard him as something of a National Treasure for his knowledge and willingness to share it. Surprisingly, he has no information about the Sheldon/Lempco connection, so I'm thinking it may have been a one-off deal soon after WW II and then both companies went their separate ways. Tony's site has a one page description that unfortunately leaves me with as many questions as answers. The little 4 page book from Lempco that he offers in reprint for £15 is a little rich for my blood... I actually bid against him for it on e-Bay and when I found out he was the other bidder, I let him have it, thinking I would buy a reasonably priced copy from him. I didn't dream he would ask more for the copy than he was paying for the original.

Anyway, I'm retired now and starting to reactivate my interest in metal machining and have joined here and a couple of other places to see whether or not any "new blood" on these sites might have some heretofore untapped knowledge. One never knows what might pop up on strange corners of the Internet, does one? BTW I also posted a thread over on this site's Atlas forum about my MFC Mill.

Regards,
Froggie

 

[tomh]

Froggie

Can you post some photos of the lathe? having worked on a army depot for over 30 years I have seen a few lathes badged with other names. Also as a hobby I bought, sold, traded, scraped a few that came from various state& gov PDO. Maybe that will help jog my brain and I can ask around. I may not be able to help but it doesn't hurt to try.
hopefully someone may recognize it.

 

[Green Frog]

tomh, I'll try to get to the lathe this morning and take one or two good pix. The apron and the front face of the bed (near the right end, IIRC) have the Lempco logo cast in, indicating to John and me that this wasn't a single lathe order, but probably one for a number of them, perhaps to test the market. Most of the features of the lathe other than the name are pretty much pure Sheldon, right down to the 3 position "semi-quick change" feed mechanism. I'm guessing Sheldon saw this as a chance to use up some semi-obsolete components while automotive parts purveyor Lempco wanted to provide their customers with a good, entry level lathe. Win-win!

Froggie

 

[Green Frog]

OK, I'm new to this site, so I'll have to feel my way along on pix. How do I attach them?

This looks like it may work... The first shows the apron, then the front of the bed then the gear train (cover removed.) finally here is the semi-quick change gear mechanism.


Except for the cast-in badging and the odd control knobs on the cross feed, it looks like the standard old Sheldon 10" lathe to me.

Froggie

 

[mzayd3]

I find these sorts of manufacturers pretty interesting, especially since LEMPCO has roots in my area- Cleveland, Ohio. Check out this link.

http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=LII


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Green Frog]

Mike,

You'll notice that my pictures show Lempco as being in "Bedford, Ohio" which as you probably know has been swallowed up by and become part of Cleveland much as Lempco swallowed up a bunch of companies. They now make only punch dies and related products... a far cry from the truck axles they started making in WW I, huh? From the name of the city, I can somewhat place an end-date by which my lathe had to have been made, but I really can't find an actual time of manufacture, and neither Lempco nor Sheldon (via John Knox) has been able to pin it down for me either... in fact all I got from Lempco was a sort of blank electronic "look." In point of fact however, the history and the operation of the lathe are two different topics altogether, and so far it appears that I can "follow the leader" with the "real" Sheldon owners and be pretty well secure in the knowledge thus obtained.

Froggie