The thing weighs 4800 lbs and is a 12x36 inch lathe.
Made in 1951. Any opinions? Good or bad?
iThe thing weighs 4800 lbs and is a 12x36 inch lathe.
Made in 1951. Any opinions? Good or bad?
i
Not a huge work envelope, but ought to be pretty damned rigid if it weighs that much. How many HP?
5 HP. i
Monarchs are brutes. I don't know if they ever made a bad one.
had to find one to be sure:
Lots a levers to shift, bit of a pain but OK if they all work. Lot of floor space for a small capacity lathe. At least this one went for a song. Make sure its a common spindle head, probably D1-4 for what I see here. A wierd head will cost ya when you go to buy a collet chuck, or four jaw, or face plate .
Monarch builds damn rigid machines. You won't worry about the lathe flexing under load when you take a heavy cut.
Karl
One thing that you should think about is whether the top speed (550 RPM IIRC) will be a problem for you. The headstock is very similar to the Series 61 I bought recently, which has a top speed of 900 RPM, so you could probably safely boost the speed. Even 900 RPM would be too low for me if I didn't also have a smaller lathe.
The series 61 seems to be the offspring of a CK and a 10EE. CK headstock, 10EE carriage/apron and feed change box.
About 4x8 feet. Actual swing is probably close to 16".
As a point of comparison, I paid $2200 for my series 61 with two excellent chucks and a too-small toolpost in a private sale, and it was on Craigslist for some time before I bought it.
D1-6
Hell for stout. Excellent torque and rigidity for doing larger dia work where it is necessary to use the lower rpm ranges...will snap a 2 drill without hardly grunting and it isn't going to damage it whatsoever..
In my estimation, they are amongst the finest of engine lathes ever produced in the US. The only problem with the early models is they're not made for use with carbide, so they have limited stop end) spindle speeds.
Harold
Nuts! I should have read what I typed. I meant to say that the older Monarch's have limited *top end* spindle speeds.
Harold
Can that problem be solved by using an inverter duty motor and a VFD ?
Not so much when turning the larger diameters...
High gear is almost always noisy as hell on those as it is--but probably yes, so long as you aren't running it on a production basis where the bearings will get overly hot.
Also, since the larger chucks usually found paired with older lathes generally suck eggs when it comes to being adequately balanced for high speed operation, you would want to change the chuck out when doing smaller work...still, best to use the correct lathe for the job unless there's absolutely no other choice.
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