Seneca Falls lathe value?

12" | 4 jaw, steady and follow rests and complete taper attachment and a | whole batch of cutting tools and holders. Although it has a great | selection of change gears it has no threading dial; can it still be | used for threading? The lady who owns it is asking $600.00 which seems | rather steep to me but??? Thanks for any help you all can give me. | | dennis in nca |

I'd probably snap it up myself. The lathe is heavier duty than the typical

10-12" Atlas lathes and thus would be more usable than them. The price would be sort of dependant upon the amount of tooling that comes with the lathe.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Then tell her that if she gives you $100.00 then you will pack it off her property for her.

That's it exactly, thanks very much. It looks like I'll continue my search for a machine with threading but for anyone who may be interested it's located in Chico, CA; anyone interested can contact me directly and I'll supply the seller's phone number, etc. As I said it's in good condition and also mounted on a stand with drawers as well.

dennis in nca

That is a "machine with threading"

If anyone is interested in Seneca Falls lathes a friend of mine has one for sale in pretty nice shape. It has thread cutting.

Will

Nothing in the article which preceded yours, nor in the web page to which it pointed said anything which cold be interpreted as the lathe being incapable of threading, and the web page showed among other things some features which make it easier to set up for different threads than most change-gear lathes. Things like the spring clips on the change gears make changing threads a lot easier, and I particularly like the set of hooks on the inside of the gearcover for hanging the change gears not currently in use.

One of the photos on the PHOTOS web page gave the basic list of what gears to put where for a fairly reasonable list of thread pitches:

TPI 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 36 40 48 52 64

There are some useful threads not included in the list. One which come to my attention is the 27 TPI used for microphone mount clips and for lamp fixture "plumbing". (But that particular thread pitch is left off of a lot of different lathes, even those with quick-change gearboxes.

Yes -- it is *easier* to thread with a threading dial, but you can make ones for lathes which don't have one. I seem to remember an article in _Home Shop Machinist_, or some similar magazine describing how to do it. (Also, you can find similar article by a bit of a web search.)

And -- there is a good chance that you could fit a threading dial from another lathe with the same pitch of leadscrew, if you don't feel like making your own.

Enjoy, DoN.

You're 100% correct Don. My inexperience with smaller machines lead me (foolishly) to assume (:)) without the quick change feature, of one of the other models, threading would be difficult or impossible. Now I have to decide if this is a project I want to spend time on or whether I want to skip ahead directly to threading use without the additional project. I like a challenge but have so many things cooking I hate to slow everything down by adding another to the pile. Thanks a lot.

dennis in nca

If the "project" you are alluding to is the fabrication of a leadscrew indicator dial, rest assured, threading is possible without it, and in fact, there are occasions when it is of little use. Keep in mine, machinists were cutting threads with the use of the leadscrew before the leadscrew indicator was invented. My favourite reference on the subject is a book (#3) from "Workshop Practice Series" called Screwcutting in the Lathe by Mortin Cleeve. The leadsrew indicator dial indicates when the leadscrew and carriage are in a known relationship. If you stop the lathe after the first pass (cut), retract the cutter, and with the half nuts still engaged, reposition the carriage by reversing the lathe spindle and the leadscrew. There are many other ways, some easier, some harder, most are the best way given a particular set of circumstances. There is also an advantage to having a change gear lathe that is not available on a lathe with QC gearbox, and that is the ability to use any one of the 804,650 gear combinations available from a standard

20+1 gear set, using 2, 4, & 6 gear combinations.(only ~750K being practical)

I understand the method you've described to reposition the carriage; makes perfect sense. Thanks Mungo. When I sometimes used to buy older machinery the seller would say when the operator retired they tried to have others operate but they couldn't get the accuracy the original operator could. They would say the old operator knew the piece of equipment so well and the new operators knew nothing about it; I'm in the second class. Always had someone much more experienced than I do the fun stuff. Now it's my turn. Guess I'll make an offer on this lathe. dennis in nca

Hope it's still on the market. Maybe she will take $500 and handyman work. I got the impression it wasn't hers.