My lathe

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<title>My lathe</title>
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<IMG WIDTH=768 HEIGHT=576 SRC="lathe.jpg" alt="[Lathe picture]">
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My lathe is a South Bend "heavy" 10 inch (as opposed to the 10K, or
"light 10"). Some features are:
<ul>
<li> 3-1/2 foot bed. The official advertised distance between centers
is 19", but you can get up to about 23" if you hang the tailstock
partially off the back end of the bed.

<li> Manufactured on May 10, 1986. I called South Bend to get this information.

<li> 1-3/8" hole through spindle

<li> D1-4 cam lock spindle nose

<li> Flame hardened ways, ground but apparently not scraped

<li> About 900 pounds
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I bought it on April 22, 1996, from an individual on Long Island. We
detached my car's seats (all but the driver's), removed the tailstock
and carriage from the lathe, and removed the lathe proper from the
cabinet. Then the two of us somehow managed to cram everything
(including the detached seats) into my 1977 Toyota Corolla hatchback
car. The little car performed without fault on the 400 mile trip home.
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The hardest part to move was the cabinet. The width of the chip pan is
25 inches. The height of the cargo space in my car is 24-5/8
inches. The chip pan is welded to the base of the cabinet and cannot
be removed. The chip pan is very sturdy sheet metal. Sturdier than the
sheet metal that makes up my car. Thus, pushing the cabinet into the
car involved stretching the cargo space of the car vertically by 3/8
inch. That's once it's in. I think that in the process of clearing the
rear of the car, we stretched the car more than that. The alternative
to this was driving back to Pittsburgh, finding someone with a pickup
who would let me drive it 800 miles (round trip), and making a second
trip. So I was pretty motivated to get it all on one trip.
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The lathe was used in a school during its lifetime. The wear looks
pretty minimal, though it needs a good cleaning. I have this cleaning partially
completed. Some rocket scientist, probably at the school, decided that
it would be a good idea to paint the lathe, and that it would be fine
to brush on the paint with the lathe fully assembled. Thus there is
paint in some weird places. Fortunately the paint dissolves easily
in lacquer thinner. I removed the paint from the underside of the
tailstock ways, and will worry about the rest of it someday when I can
motivate myself to strip it all down and do a proper repainting. I
haven't seen any other paint that will actually affect the accuracy of
the machine.
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