- Joined
- Jul 29, 2016
- Messages
- 4
I'm new here but wanted to show off my newest addition, an old South Bend 9A . This is my second lathe, the first was an old 6" Atlas that I refurbished then sold a few years ago. Recently I found the need for another machine for a special project and decided a 9" South Bend bench lathe would be ideal.
I looked in all the usual places but my area of the country is a desert as far as machine tools go as they are few and far between. I wound up putting a want ad on craigslist and was eventually contacted by a guy in another state who was heading through my area on vacation. As it turns out he bought it from the estate of a retired machinist who he suspected was the original owner and was purchased as a package deal with some other pieces of machinery he wanted.
After lots of photos, emails, phone calls and texts, we agreed on a price and finally met over the past weekend. Overall the machine shows some normal signs of wear but is in pretty good shape for its age. The ways show a few hits where a chuck or work piece was dropped but the factory scraping is still evident for the most part. Upon close inspection I found the 80T idler gear has a broken tooth and the lead screw bracket has some buggered screws so will need to replace those. Otherwise the machine appears original including what looks like the original factory gray-green paint.
The machine came with the factory horizontal drive unit with v-belt pulleys and an old GE 1/2 HP motor. There was also a decent selection of tooling including 3- and 4-jaw chucks, quick change tool head, live and dead centers, lathe dogs, drill chucks, several loose collets, multiple cutting bits, various micrometers, calipers etc. The only thing it didn't come with that I know I will need is a steady rest and a thread dial indicator so I am looking for those now.
Everything on the lathe works but my plan is to take it apart over the next few months for a complete overhaul with new paint, felts and lubricants. I ordered a rebuild kit with the manual so need to come up with a plan of action so it doesn't wind up as a pile of parts. Although I bought this for a particular project, my long term goal is to build scale radial IC engines some day so I might be looking to upgrade to a larger unit in the future.
I'm sure I will have some questions as I tear into this thing but for now would like to know more about it. First of all the model number is shown as 2544Y. I can't find anything about this online and the closest thing I saw is model 544Y. Any ideas? Next is the serial number 18982NAR9 which the best I can tell means it was made in 1949 but please correct me if I am wrong. Finally I think the B100NK is the part number for the bed itself. Would this number be different for a bed of a different length? Finally I suspect the engraved plate with various speeds on the gear cover was added later. Thoughts?
I looked in all the usual places but my area of the country is a desert as far as machine tools go as they are few and far between. I wound up putting a want ad on craigslist and was eventually contacted by a guy in another state who was heading through my area on vacation. As it turns out he bought it from the estate of a retired machinist who he suspected was the original owner and was purchased as a package deal with some other pieces of machinery he wanted.
After lots of photos, emails, phone calls and texts, we agreed on a price and finally met over the past weekend. Overall the machine shows some normal signs of wear but is in pretty good shape for its age. The ways show a few hits where a chuck or work piece was dropped but the factory scraping is still evident for the most part. Upon close inspection I found the 80T idler gear has a broken tooth and the lead screw bracket has some buggered screws so will need to replace those. Otherwise the machine appears original including what looks like the original factory gray-green paint.
The machine came with the factory horizontal drive unit with v-belt pulleys and an old GE 1/2 HP motor. There was also a decent selection of tooling including 3- and 4-jaw chucks, quick change tool head, live and dead centers, lathe dogs, drill chucks, several loose collets, multiple cutting bits, various micrometers, calipers etc. The only thing it didn't come with that I know I will need is a steady rest and a thread dial indicator so I am looking for those now.
Everything on the lathe works but my plan is to take it apart over the next few months for a complete overhaul with new paint, felts and lubricants. I ordered a rebuild kit with the manual so need to come up with a plan of action so it doesn't wind up as a pile of parts. Although I bought this for a particular project, my long term goal is to build scale radial IC engines some day so I might be looking to upgrade to a larger unit in the future.
I'm sure I will have some questions as I tear into this thing but for now would like to know more about it. First of all the model number is shown as 2544Y. I can't find anything about this online and the closest thing I saw is model 544Y. Any ideas? Next is the serial number 18982NAR9 which the best I can tell means it was made in 1949 but please correct me if I am wrong. Finally I think the B100NK is the part number for the bed itself. Would this number be different for a bed of a different length? Finally I suspect the engraved plate with various speeds on the gear cover was added later. Thoughts?
