JRD77VET
08-04-2018, 8:11pm
Roger and Bill made a road trip up to Watertown NY and picked up this old metal lathe quite literally before it got scrapped. It is now safely stored at Rough and Tumble. The bed on each side is three 22' long beams joined together with wooden pegs. Roger had a good look at the underside and believes it is American Chestnut. It has a similar look to oak but holds it's shape much better and has straighter grain.
While I was getting these pictures today, the stamping in the original end carriage was discovered. In large letters are "N M" and in smaller, 1833 ( the one, the bottom of the eight and the two threes are easy to see in person ) That does fit in with the construction as this type of rail was started to be used in the mid/late 1820's.
We have no idea on who made the lathe but figured in it's original configuration was used to turn wrought iron bars for line shafting. It could handle up to about a 26" diameter between the rails . ( I forgot to measure over the carriage )
The face plate is permanently attached to the spindle. The pulleys shown are for the power feed. On the spindle, the smallest pulley ( "outside" the toothed gear ) at the end used a flat belt to turn a pulley on the bottom under the headstock. That drove a worm gear and the two pulleys gave you two carriage feeds. There is a lever to change directions too.
The rod would be clamped ( inside the wooden beams on the wall side ) and that would give about 24" of travel. If more carriage travel was need, you would retract the rod and reclamp. The carriage simply rides on the rails and a heavy, hanging weight keeps it down on the rails.
Since the tool post rocker wasn't invented yet, you adjusted the tool height by raising or lower the far end of the cross slide. Also shown is the heavy weight to keep the carriage down.
The tail stock is adjustable for side to side and that is held in position by clamping down to the underside of the lathe bed.
While I was getting these pictures today, the stamping in the original end carriage was discovered. In large letters are "N M" and in smaller, 1833 ( the one, the bottom of the eight and the two threes are easy to see in person ) That does fit in with the construction as this type of rail was started to be used in the mid/late 1820's.
We have no idea on who made the lathe but figured in it's original configuration was used to turn wrought iron bars for line shafting. It could handle up to about a 26" diameter between the rails . ( I forgot to measure over the carriage )
The face plate is permanently attached to the spindle. The pulleys shown are for the power feed. On the spindle, the smallest pulley ( "outside" the toothed gear ) at the end used a flat belt to turn a pulley on the bottom under the headstock. That drove a worm gear and the two pulleys gave you two carriage feeds. There is a lever to change directions too.
The rod would be clamped ( inside the wooden beams on the wall side ) and that would give about 24" of travel. If more carriage travel was need, you would retract the rod and reclamp. The carriage simply rides on the rails and a heavy, hanging weight keeps it down on the rails.
Since the tool post rocker wasn't invented yet, you adjusted the tool height by raising or lower the far end of the cross slide. Also shown is the heavy weight to keep the carriage down.
The tail stock is adjustable for side to side and that is held in position by clamping down to the underside of the lathe bed.