Another tool gloat!

Is this the elegant lathe that once graced the Practical Machinist website until Don went corporate? If so, you suck!

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Iggy's gonna put me on his shit list if I keep this up....

Scored a genuine Hardinge Cataract bench lathe today for... $100! It's got surface rust bad enough it'll probably never clean up to showroom appearance, but will certainly clean up well enough to be proud of. Spindle turns freely, but no detectable free play in any direction. Cross feed and compound screws have about 1/3 turn backlash, but that's something I can take care of. Most important, outside of the cast winged nut that secures the cross slide to the bed missing one wing, nothing else is bent or broken.

Question: How hard is it to find taper lock face plates for this lathe? I have a couple nice 3 and 4 jaw chucks for this I'd like to mount up. Pics to follow soon as I get them edited and uploaded.

Jon

until Don went

Not sure what image was used then. But it's the 2nd pic down on this page:

That is, below the picture of the fellows working. It has the earlier, lighter duty tailstock.

Identical but for having a 3 jaw chuck, and I see that it is missing an indexing pin for the side of the spindle pulley. I just assumed the pin was moved from one to the other in the headstock but the picture shows there's supposed to be two.

Jon

Standard 4' taper as used on modern Hardinges? I might be able to set you up with something or another.... You really..really need to make a trip down here some weekend.

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

My turn! A few weeks ago I found a 3HP 20 gal. belt drive air compressor in a thrift shop. Contractor grade, by the way! 50 bucks! motor was full of sawdust, and the air filter was clogged. Blew it out with the old compressor, and away it went! Runs like a charm!

Steve R.

Around five years ago I was checking out a pawn shop and came across a "home built" air compressor, a small belt driven compressor and probably 1/2 HP motor on a frame welded to the top of one of the old riveted hot water tanks. I didn't stop to check out what controls or safety features had been included but there didn't seem to be much for the $75.00 they were asking, I was in a bit of a rush to get far away from this potential disaster. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

I once bought a single phase compressor with a 5 HP Baldor motor for $25.

It was "non-working" because it was not wired right. Took little effort to get it to be "working".

>

Hummm...air compressor..that reminds me...

I have a Curtis 3 head on an 120 gallon tank with a 10 hp 3ph motor if anyone wants it.

I cant use it because my rotary converter is only 5hp.

Its only a couple years old..they went to screw compressor.

Id make someone a real deal on it.

Curtis mod 10HT12 with the E-71 pump

Its only 920 lbs.

Oh..I got it for free....

Gunner

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." -- Benjamin Franklin, /The Encouragement of Idleness/, 1766

sitting not far from me is (was? haven't looked in a week or so) a quincy compressor, looks like the one I have that I drive with a 5 hp motor - it's the compressor only no motor or tank, it's outside behind an industrial building, probably free for the taking - drive around the industrial park adjacent to the Santa Monica airport if you want to see if it's still there - I can't lift it, so I'm not bothering with it (and anyway, I have one)

OK, I'll play

Went to an estate sale to look at a jeweler's oven. That was gone, but the guy had a Microlux minilathe, which is the best of that breed. This thing was upgraded to the 9s - all steel gears, lead screw in ball bearings, handwheels custom made and anodized, ALL the tooling and accessories available, plus a new DRO. I added up almost $2000, bought it for $400. Everything was new, test cuts only. On the way out I saw a like new Jet 5x6 bandsaw. How much? "$35.00 too much?"

Oh, and a hand-tapping fixture, like new $15.

Wife was pretty agreeable about me loading all this into the back of her Lincoln.

OK, I'm an "I d 10 T", several years ago, I attended a jewelry manufacturer's auction where I bid and won some hand tools that no one wanted. Next item was a group of two sample cases, one on 3" swivel casters, plus a thin old brief case. No one beat my $1 offer so I spent $2. On collecting my loot, I opened the unwanted sample case to find it filled with trays of ring samples without stones. Instead of closing the case, my mouth and the exit door, I questioned my find and ended up with a nice old brief case and four high quality casters along with some hardware and scrap particle board. I still use the casters on a "piano" dolly, and a nice old brief case, and slap myself every time I think about it! Gerry :-)} London, Canada

SNIP

Hey Gerald,

We both missed out on a deal today there in London. Do-All vertical bandsaw with welder, in good condition, $250. Well, it was 250 US$, but still I'm kicking MY ass.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

My best was a compressor on FreeCycle. The fella said it just made a funny hum and didn't work. It had a Doerr 220 only motor on it. Sure did make a hum when plugged into 110. Works great on

220.

That was a good "buy", my best on Freecycle was 45 sheets of Colourbond roofing material and it was even the correct length and colour I needed.

Today I bought, at a garage sale, a digital caliper for $40, just needed a new battery.

Maybe you think the price is a bit high but it also included 10 flap wheels and 10 grinding disks for a 115 mm angle grinder, 14 grinding disks for a 225mm a/g and a 15 kg spool of gasless MIG wire. Unfortunately that will not fit on my Unimig, it only takes 5 kg spools ( at about $95 each), but all is not lost, it will fit on youngest son's big Miller 3 phase machine.

All in all, about 10c in the $.

Alan

Oooo.....you did veddy veddy veddy Good!!!

Gunner

"IMHO, some people here give Jeff far more attention than he deserves, but obviously craves. The most appropriate response, and perhaps the cruelest, IMO, is to simply killfile and ignore him. An alternative, if you must, would be to post the same standard reply to his every post, listing the manifold reasons why he ought to be ignored. Just my $0.02 worth."

A compliment from the world's greatest scrounger. Thanks.

If anyone in the Perth, W A area wants 5+ tonnes of firewood, free, contact me.

Alan change oz to au in header