Got a lathe - school me!

[bgaidan]

I've been looking for the past few months for one to tinker around with...almost made several bad impulse buys, and then this thing popped up on craig's list tuesday night. I hauled ass up to austin yesterday to pick it up. I won't tell you what I paid, but I probably spent more on gas for the 4 hour trip each way!:flipoff2:

It seems to be in decent shape, just very dirty. Right off the bat the only things I see wrong with it are the bushings that mount the motor bracket to the machine are gone and it kind of flops around and the motor had been replaced with one with a v-groove pulley so there's a v-belt turning the the smooth pulley (for leather belt) on the counter shaft.

http://www.rmp-o.com/albums/posts/IMG_6659.jpg
http://www.rmp-o.com/albums/posts/IMG_6662.jpg
http://www.rmp-o.com/albums/posts/IMG_6664.jpg
http://www.rmp-o.com/albums/posts/IMG_6661.jpg


So where do I start? I've seen a bunch of "how to run a lathe" books on ebay. Any suggestions on which one to get? I have a thread saved from here discussing tooling so I won't ask any stupid questions about that yet. Any good sites to join to learn a little more before I hurt myself?

What about checking it for "trueness" or whatever you call it - make sure it has decent tolerances?

[waywardfool]

How to for a lathe:

http://www.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_use_a_lathe.htm

Now you need a milling machine:

http://www.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_use_a_milling_machine.htm

Happy reading!

EDIT: fixed links....

[arbo]

Get a copy of "How To Run A Lathe" published by South Bend. Any edition will do. Then check out this site... http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/

Lot's of good information and great guys willing to help.

BTW, congrats on a nice lathe. She ain't a perfect diamond, but she will get the job done.

[jnutter]

Looks nice. Classic American Iron rocks!

2nd on the Southbend book from www.lindsaybks.com . It's a good reference to have right there while you are figuring things out.

I think you are going to want to learn how to grind your own HSS blanks. That lathe was designed for HSS and will perform great with it. You will also save a lot of money by going that route. It's really easy to learn and cheap. There's no reason to not try it.

The Antique Machinery section of the Practical machinist forum is the place to go to learn about the care and feeding of flat belt type lathes. http://www.practicalmachinist.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

[bgaidan]

Thaks for the links! I've been reading those sites for the past hour or so and already learned a lot.


The greatest part is I only paid $200 for it...with all the accessories in the pics. From what I've seen on ebay the two chucks I got with it are worth more than that.

[MOSS2]

Books are great but there is no substitute for finding somebody with some experience to show you the basics, mostly safety. I know people missing some body parts that had experience so just think out all your moves especially what your gonna do when our part flies out or your parting tool explodes in your face. Dont power feed into the chuck etc.. Great shop addition though.

[TLCObsession]

There is a Logan Lathe users group on Yahoo Goups IIRC - I have the same lathe. Logan still exists, and the decendant is on the list - he also has a catlog of stuff.

[bgaidan]

Yeah, I joined the group the other night. Seems like there's lots of good tech on these things out there and logan still supports them very well. What a deal!

[D60]

What about checking it for "trueness" or whatever you call it - make sure it has decent tolerances?

Well, you'll get a feel for that once you start using it. You've got ways for the carriage, compound and cross slide. IME the compound will give you fits if the ways are worn; it's up the highest and it's the shortest. Basically it has a lot of force exerted on it trying to pull your tool down. Turn something down to a considerable shoulder then try to go into that shoulder with a radiused tool and see just how bad the tool gets sucked in. In some cases you'll even see the compound jump or hear it clunk.

The other thing that'll piss you off right quick is if the tailstock is offset. Run a test bar, ie say something even just 6" long. Take a cut and mic at your center vs up near your chuck. More than a couple thou will get annoying when you try to thread something, or for any other number of reasons. If you do adjust the tailstock only move it like a thou at a time and then take another cut. You're dealing with a triangle and math I don't yet understand, but little adjustments net big results.

You'll also want to figure out first thing if your cross slide is direct read or total.

Get a Mighty Mag, a dial indicator on a nice Noga base, and some Dykem!

[Urban Wheeler]

I have a Logan 820, very similar. Hard to tell, but yours is the same? Serial number is on the ways at the tailstock end, look here (http://www.lathe.com/ser-no.htm) and see how old it is. Mine is a 1945.

As for the belts, mine is that way too. A v-belt turns the countershaft/step pulley, then a flat belt to the headstock.


By the way, those motor bushings are available at $12 each.