Reed Prentice 20 inch lathe wanted for parts

Send me a pic, I might have the parts you need, do you have a book?

I assume the gear -teeth- on your lathe are bad, but their bores are undamaged (I'll also assume the gears that're damaged have 'somewhat complex' inner bores involving angles, keys, maybe tapers, and similar complexities).

there's another approach to gear repair: remove the 'bad' gears, machine off the damaged gear teeth entirely, and past them, procure new gears, from browing, boston gear, or whoever, then have the new gears bored (or even 'taper or step-bored') to mate with your "old gear hubs". fasten the new 'outer teeth'/ring gears to your old gear 'cores' with tapered rollpins, bolts, shrink fits, contersunk allens, etc, as appropriate. you'll need to determine the correct pitch, face width, and pressure angle of course, before buying any new gears...

hth,

toolie

Dave;

Thanks for the thought, but as I said, I have already explored all avenues of repair. Yes, the gears have complicated bores, tapers, keys, and splines as you assumed. I looked into the possibility of banding the gears as you describe, Short of finding replacements it is the only other possibility, but these are hardened gears. They would need to be annealed, machined, and then re-hardened. The "pros" that looked at it were skeptical that the large gear would make it through all that without cracking or warping. I have also spent much time looking through the Boston Gear catalog, nothing even comes close. So, to band them I would have to machine them down, fasten a blank band, and then cut the teeth. The Machine is a 20 x 120, very clean and straight, I hate the thought of scraping it out, but I have to be realistic too. The only really viable solution is finding another old machine that is really ready for the bone yard and snatch the gears out of it.

Tom, I sent you some pictures, did you get them? Do you still think you might have gears?

Kirk

I got the pix and sad to say they are way different than what I have...Damn, RPs are the BEST!

=========================== Unless you are attempting a "100 point" restoration, or are setting up for high volume production work, you may want to consider having the outer rim of the gears EDMed off and suitable stock gears bored out and adhesive bonded/epoxied, possibly with keys to the "hubs." The hardness of the gears will have no effect on the wire EDM process.

If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536), Dutch humanist. Praise of Folly, ch. 24 (1509).

According to 1968fj40 :

Hmm ... are they *through* hardened, or just case hardened? If the latter, things will be a bit easier. And in that case, I might suggest machining a mild steel to make the outer gear ring, cutting the teeth, then case-hardening it, and using a toolpost grinder to put a good ground finish on the ID prior to shrink-fitting it to the original hub.

If you can do that, it would be preferable, of course. And if you do, then try making a replacement ring gear for the original hub and fitting it. Once the hardened teeth are installed, lap them against a matching gear of brass to get the finish needed on the tooth faces. I would suggest that you make the brass gear lap with either one fewer or one more tooth, so you don't wind up with a stable pattern being lapped into the final gear.

Good Luck, DoN.

I had a similar problem, not with a reed prentice, but an off brand lathe, and I had to have the gears made. It was not cheap. It cost me a bit over a grand for two custom gears.

But a new lathe in this size range would run you 20 grand, easy. And a high quality used lathe of a similar size would still push 10 grand, in most places.

The gear making industry in america is a shadow of what it once was

-largely because very few machines use gears anymore- a cnc lathe costs less than a new american made manual lathe these days, and one of the big reasons is it doesnt need the 20 to 30 precision gears a manual would have for thread cutting.

The few custom gear houses charge a lot, because they know you dont have much choice.

And good luck finding an exact replacement parts lathe that also hasnt been thrashed in its 70 years or so of industrial use- not many of em around at all, much less cherry donor machines. Scrap metal is worth so much that stuff like that sits around a lot less than it used to.

============ In response to a Email -- I meant *WIRE* EDM. If a good EMD machine/operator can cut a complex punch and die to a "line out" fit, I see no reason you couldn't do the same for the gears. Indeed, you should be able to get a couppla thou crush and even a taper/break if you want. When assembled with red Loctite should be better than new.

A thought -- stock gears, for example from Boston tend to be prices at their weight in gold. Check and see if there is some automotive or HD truck gears that are suitable. Because of the volume production these are *MUCH* cheaper even if purchased at full list from a dealer. It may even be possible to upgrade to a helical rather than straight cut gear for smoother operation.

If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536), Dutch humanist. Praise of Folly, ch. 24 (1509).

Really, I do appreciate all the ideas, but I REALLY have looked at ALL of them already, The gears are hard through and through. The quote I got for two gears was not a cheap $1000, no, it was $8000 for two gears, and the gear cutter cautioned that his gears would not even be as good as the original ones. So far I don't have a lot into this machine, and I can get by with my smaller RP if I have to. Originally, the only reason I bought this machine was cuz I wanted the taper attachment, which I believe will bolt up to my 14 inch RP. It was only after seeing it (Ibought it on ebay) and seeing what great shape it was in that I decided to keep it. And yes, a big machine like this can fetch $20,000, but a week later you'll find one on ebay for less than $1000. These are all great ideas, but not very practical. My best bet is to be patient and wait for a scrapped machine to come along. I hope you will all think of me as you come across old iron that is being put out to pasture. Please let me know if you come across one of these machines that is ready to be parted out.

Thanks Kirk

Are you still looking for 20inch Prentice lathe?