Somebody asked what the swing is on my "Reed Prentice" lathe and I don't know. It is about 5-1/2" from the center of the chuck to the top of the saddle and about 9" from the ways. How do you measure this? Has anyone heard of "Reed Prentice"? It is a sweetie.
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.
A Worcester, MA, toolbuilder, a conglomeration of a number of firms in 1912.
[from notes] In 1912 merger of Crompton Associates, F. E. Reed Company, Prentice Brothers Company, Reed Foundry Company, and Reed & Curtis Machine Screw Company into Reed-Prentice Corporation.
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
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