Basic lathe question

Depends on where you live: If in the US, it is an 18" lathe -- big mother. If in the UK, it is a 9" lathe. \

Has anyone > heard of "Reed Prentice"? It is a sweetie.

Yep, an old name in machine tools, long gone from the scene.

Harold

If it is 9 inches over the ways, it is an 18 inch swing lathe by US standards. If you were in Britain, it would be a 9 inch swing machine. (We go by diameter, they go by radius.) Height over the saddle, and compound if mounted, are always less than the rated swing, which is swing over the ways.

Note that the measurement should be taken as the closest point on the ways from the lathe centerline. That's usually at some angle to the vertical. In other words, the workpiece can extend down between the ways as long as it doesn't hit them when it rotates.

Gary

Herold, are you going to tell me that the warranty is void?

Tom

Dammit, Tom, you just can't get anything that's up to much anymore. Imagine. Only 60 years old and the warranty is up!

Harold

"Tom Gardner" snipped-for-privacy@ohiobrush.com

A Worcester, MA, toolbuilder, a conglomeration of a number of firms in 1912.

The earlier lathes of F. E. Reed (Fredrick E.) are among some of the best finished ever produced. There's a catalog online somewhere, iirc, from circa 1895 or so. Occasionally an owner will post here as to one of the early machines. They were early (1870s) at the "Junction Shop" in Worcester, a very active toolbuilder site just south of the center of the city. Frank Morrison

I have run one. Most of them that I have seen were from the military. The one I ran was a gear head with a top speed of 1,000 RPM. Nice machine.

Richard W.