Advice on some used machines

O.K. My personal experience is with the Clausing 5418, the manual belt change one (belt is accessed through a front door in the pedestal, and a lever lifts the motor to slack the belt so you can move it sideways onto another of the five steps. The size of mine is a

The reports which I have read about the hydraulic variable speed show it to be very nice when it works, but if not cared for, it can be expensive to fix.

There are bushings of something like Delrin inside the sliding parts of the pulleys, and if they are allowed to wear through, the pulley parts themselves can wear, and they are expensive.

Also -- the actual hydraulics can develop leaks over time, resulting in a gradual change in speed as you are turning. I don't know which direction it drifts -- that would depend on which spindle has the spring. Normally, it will just need new O-rings and such -- which I understand can be obtained from most any bearing and hydraulics supply place. But Clausing is still in business, and if you phone them with the model number and the serial number of the lathes, they will sell you manuals tailored to the serial number for not too much, and they can tell you when they were made, and to whom they were first sold (sometimes a dealer, as in the case of mine, from 1957.)

Mine had the lever collet closer, too, a 3-jaw, and a bed turret fitted with two floating tap holders, and three 1/2" Jacobs chucks. (I had to find a standard tailstock from other sources, but I do get significant use out of the bed turret (with additional tooling, of course.)

The flame-hardened bed was (and is) in excellent shape.

A nice plus is that the quick-change gearbox includes a fairly uncommon thread, which I happened to need -- 27 TPI (and its multiples and sub-multiples).

The cross-slide leadscrew and nut were badly worn, and I had to replace them, but it was not too expensive. IIRC, it cost me about $1700 on eBay.

I would suggest replacing the existing toolholders and post (which I presume to be a lantern style toolpost) with a quick-change on each machine. For that size of machine, the BXA (Aloris and others) or Series-200 (Phase-II) is an excellent choice, and it is what I got for mine. (I recommend the wedge style, whether you spend the extra money for the Aloris or go for the more affordable Phase-II. The tool holders from both are interchangeable, and I use both.

If you have room, that sounds like an excellent choice.

A bit smaller that the above, and I think that the AXA/Series-100 size is what fits that better. I presume that since it has the 5C spindle, that it is the "heavy 10" (10L), not the "light 10", which is a jacked-up 9" machine with a smaller spindle bore.

I find the belts to be easy enough on the Clausing -- but I've never had a South Bend to work with.

No experience with those at all. Perhaps someone else?

Nice for production, of course. And if you have room.

The latter is a given. I presume that they are vulnerable to the same sort of problems as the Clausing (and as a vari-speed Bridgeport J-head). I don't know how easy they are to work on.

Probably so -- but then the need for a four-head machine is open to debate.

That would be more interesting -- and nice for limited production. The Rockwells could be fitted with tapping heads as well.

I would personally prefer one of the larger tapping heads (but perhaps not a full 3/4" one -- 1/2" should do), and another which would handle from 1/4" on down to somewhere like 0-80. (That is actually what I have --- both fitted with MT-2 shanks to plug into my Taiwanese drill press dating from about 1978 or so.)

If you have the need for that much capability, and the room for both, that sounds like a nice setup -- including the availability of one to repair the other if needed.

I have no idea -- it probably depends on how much he needs the space for other incoming machines. :-) Remember -- I got my Clausing from an eBay auction (though I knew the seller, and trusted him.)

It sounds as though you are setting up for business, not just equipping a hobby shop.

Good Luck, DoN.

"HoloBarre©®" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@rcn.net...

As DoN. says the variable speed pulley on the 5914 can be an expensive fix. The motor pulley on mine was shot and a replacement ran around $900. The rest of it is in pretty good shape, though so I've almost forgotten the repair bill, though it would have been a good bargaining point had I known enough to check it at the time of sale. It features a two-piece variable pitch pulley which is actuated by hydrailic oil. Rotating the speed control pushes or retracts a piston in a cylinder near the top of the HS to force oil through a hose to a similar piston/cylinder on the motor pulley, which in turn extends or retracts the sliding half of the pulley toward the stationary half of the pulley. This changes the diameter of the pulley to affect spindle speed changes. Theere's aa plastic sleeve or bushingon the hub between the two pulley halves to let the halves slide together or apart. The sleeve should be changed periodically ($25 from Clausing) and failure to do so can result in expensive damage. On mine the P-shaped ket was worn in half and the keyway on the pulley was sheared off. Odly enough, the spindle rotated just fine when I looked at the lathe and there was no significant noise. No doubt the damage could have been discovered by simply turning a piece of stock with a moderate DOC, but that didn't occur to me until later. Some folks repair damaged pulleys by welding and machining; others convert them to step drive and install a VFD. Most that have them seem to be pretty happy with them and I can tell you that mine is *much* better than the Craftsman 12x36 I had previously.

$2500 seems a bit high to me in today's market, at least judging from recent Ebay sales, unless it comes with a lot of accessories and/or is in exceptional condition.