Sheldon SWQE

J

jsh

Registered
Registered
Joined
Apr 6, 2016
Messages
68
I have not been around here reading as much as I did last spring.
I was still on the look out for a lathe and ran across this one locally. I looked at it last weekend, looked good to me. My machinest tool and die maker buddy could t make it because of weather. Going to see it with him asap.
It come with a LOT of tooling. And is ready to use now.
I have looked on the net and seen prices high and low.
My buddy will look it over with a fine tooth comb I am sure.
Any input from folks here much appreciated.
Jeff
 
As to the SWQE, what does that refer too? Is it a model#?
It has a collet chuck with 25 or so collets, 3 and 4 jaw chucks.
Power cross feed, QC tool post along with the lantern type. Also has the mill post, for lite milling. Tooling,this is rough I know probably at least three five gallon buckets full of a lot of specialty cutters.
Original owner bought it new, he had a gun shop, then another fellow bought it and the owner now bought it from him. The second owner used it for some smithing as well as the third. So with that being said I would say it's tolerances should still be good?
Anyone care to give me an idea of what the going rate for one of these is.
I went to several sales that had 9A and 9B lathes. Zero tooling d looked fair. They sold for $1000-1800. There doesn't seem to be many smaller lathes around this part of the country. I looked at one of the grizzly lathes and it sold for more than a new one!
TIA
Jeff
 
Not an expert on this model of Sheldon lathe. I can tell you that the "S" indicates it is a 11" swing lathe. Not sure about the "W", the "Q" should indicate it is equipped with a quick change gear box. And the "E" indicates it is supplied with the E-drive, a 8-speed transmission. The SWQE is an older made lathe, newer one's are labled as ES56B and or ES56P along with several other designations for the catalog number.

Join the Sheldon Lathe group on Yahoo Groups and John Knox can give you some more information about the lathe along with how old it is. Along with the "SWQE" should be a four or five digit number. This will be the serial number of your lathe.

Price wise, $1000 with tooling is not a bad price as long as the lathe is in good working order and minimum wear on the bed ways and cross slide. Pricing is all over the place on these lathes. But are regarded as being a couple of notches better than a South Bend lathe.

Ken
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I will say I paid a fair bit more than that. Good machines in this part of the country are bringing a premium.
I took my retired machinists buddy with me to look it over. He said it was a fair bit better than his Logan and grizzly machine. His comment was if I didn't buy it for the price, he would. That was good enough for me.
It is leaps and bounds over the new one I was looking at from grizzly. No it is not VFD, yet, nor maybe CNC capable.
I look forward to getting it home.
One other thing. I will be the fourth owner. The original shop manual is with it, which to me keeping it with the machine all these years says something. It was never used in a production shop either. It was operated by the owner each time.
Jeff
 
If it's in the good shape you say it's in, then $1500-2000 wouldn't be out of the question. Maybe even more! Ken
 
Hi Lakedrum,

Welcome to the group. I am a Sheldon owner as well. Mine is an EXL. I've done quite a bit of research on the Metric Threading attachment setups. So let me know if you're interested in the info or need help. Anyway if you haven't already, you should join the Sheldon Lathe group SheldonLathe on groups.io There is tons of info there regarding your lathe and it's free to join. Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Bob
 
Thanks, Bob!

I am a member of that group and am trying to suck up all of the info I can.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top