FS: 15x30 Leblond Regal - Maine

Congrats. Got some pictures of the Monarch?

Ned, this is a long shot; I don't suppose that you attended the U of H, did you?

Joe

Needs a good cleaning and some paint.

Here's one that's been done up too nice to use.

Hawaii? Houston? Not me in either case. I got my BSME at Tufts in

1974.

I know LeBlond has a good reputation, but boy was that lathe on youtube noisy . Is yours that noisy too? Lots of gear head noise. I'm used to a variable belt drive machine (Clausing) which is much quieter.

It's hard to compare the video to standing next to a real machine, but at higher speeds it's not real quiet -- straight cut gears at 1800 RPM are bound to make noise.

If you go to the page with the restored Monarch in my later post and look carefully at the pic with the top of the head removed (about the

9th phot down) you'll see it has helical gears. And top speed is only 900 RPM. It also weighs twice as much, despite having about the same swing and center distance.

I know what you mean about the belt drive. My other lathe is a Feeler HLVH clone. At 3000 RPM it barely interferes with listening to the radio.

Looks like a very serious machine.

i

...

One serious piece of old American iron. Makes my 10EE look like a toy.

Ned, I'd got the impression you seldom made large parts. I must be mistaken. I assume you moved up from the Leblond for the extra length.

Karl

Ned Simmons wrote: ...

Yep, that sure is 'purdy. But some of those pictures suggest that it really wasn't torn down for a complete rehab. E.g.:

the levers are masked, rather than being removed. *Maybe* it was torn down and reassembled before masking and painting, but I would have painted the individual pieces before reassembly.

Bob

Man, those are bigass honkin' machines, aren't they? What do they weigh? (OMG, 17,000#!) Do you need a crane when swapping chucks?

Except that it's repainted the buttfugly battleship gray.

His unforgivable mistake was that he forgot to black the inside, so the old red and white paints still show with the covers off. A nearly flawless restoration (except his choice in colors) was sadly flawed. It's a real shame. (Al Babin's spirit must have visited him.)

-- Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. -- Epictetus

Hey, who says a lathe purchase has to be rational? The Monarch I bought is only 6" longer than the LeBlond C-C, and nominally a smaller swing -- 14" vs. 15" -- though the actual swings are almost the same. Honestly, the LeBlond makes more sense for me, but the Monarch is such a beautiful thing.

And you're right, I did spend a couple years designing and prototyping lamp filament tooling, where a couple months work product would fit in one hand. But the last couple years I've been working on modifications to a hot rolling mill and, for another customer, deep hole drilling, boring, and honing machines.

Re the comparison to an 10EE, you'd feel right at home with the 61. It's clearly influenced by the 10EE design. Other than the gear head, the controls are very similar to an EE; in some cases identical. The comparison is even more obvious if you look at a 1000EE, which appears to be the offspring of a 10EE and a series 61.

I know you put a VFD on your 10EE. You'll get a kick out of this

1000EE drive: anyone not familiar with the Monarch thyratron drives, a thyratron 10EE uses 2 of those big mercury vapor thyratron tubes. They flash the prettiest violet color as they modulate the spindle speed.

I would LOVE to have a lathe like your model 61...

i

I suppose you would have used hot pink?

The smaller things, I like to paid bright red.

i

I like Ford Blue, the pastel one.

-- If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

[ ... ]

Nope -- the one (a 10-EE) which has been done up too nice to use had a candy-apple metalflake paint job. I've seen it (once).

Enjoy, DoN.

I found some red hammertone paint for my server rack. :)