South Bend tailstock ram

Actually, I also solved the problem in a similar fashion, but my posted solution which follows was lost in the pandemonium created by the original question.

PS: problem solved- Took an imported Morse #2 sleeve which had an OD of 28 MM and turned it down to 1", cut off the end and drilled it through to 27/64ths and borrowed a

1/2" LH acme tap and tapped it- aside from the drive to my friend's shop for the tap, total time 20 minutes. The only thing left is to mill the slot for the key- If I buy the lathe I will do it after measuring the key- if not I will send the part to the owner with my compliments.

First, i agree, the guy has machines, shut up and make one. But:

How would you feel if you got this[your item] from south bend?

What no engraved depth markings? does the screw still push the tool out?

the ones in my catalog are only 4 inches long, a bit stumpy.

Not true, above

For a " restorer type" he

Again not true, It would take a couple hours to blank one, starting with a piece of ground stock[not free] and countless hours screwing with the taper to get it right. unless you do tapers all the time and your taper attachment is all dialed in. i twould take me a couple hours to clena the crap off of mine As I said, I would bid at least twice SB price to make one and make money. It is NOT a high price. Problem is SB lathes aren't worth 300 bucks.

Absolutely

Yes there is. They don't want to. They're not in the parts manufacture business. They're in the "sell off whatever stock is remaining business."

When it's all gone, that's it. No more parts. They've priced them high because a) they don't care if they sell or not, and b) there's effectively no competion for NOS stuff. Actually a smart business decision IMO.

Jim

And at the risk of starting a flame war on this thread too -- why not? If you can make them at a profit for $30 bucks a pop then do so. Sell them to folks with SB lathes, make a tidy profit, and blow raspberries at the "where are the jobs" threads.

It's called "free enterprise", and it's a damn good way to run an economy as long as you put _some_ limits on it.

No flames there - and I'm only guessing at this of course, given the history behind the situation. But the guess is that LeBlond does not have either the tooling or the experience to replicate the original SB stuff.

The trouble with repro stuff (which is what they would be producing if they went with alternative techniques) is that some customer will buy one, and then claim it's not as good as the original one that his buddy charley got, and want a refund. Lack of graduations, etc. In general QC on repro stuff is a big issue.

I think that somebody at LeBlond said, look, lets do a service and keep on selling all the stuff that came with the acqusition. But don't go into the parts manufacture business because that's not what we do, and we're not willing to invest what it would take to be first rate at it. And if we're not first rate at it, we shouldn't be doing it.

Like I say, only a guess there.

Jim

The Hot Rod crowd had no problem solving this- you can get top quality reproduction parts for all the American muscle cars from body to interior- as good or better than original. And at a price a teenager can afford.

"

get requests for the 10-inch belt-driven toolroom lathe, a standard for over

40 years. Times have changed since the O'Brien brothers, "the Henry Fords of the lathe," set up their one-room shop. This was a era when South Bend, Indiana, was a manufacturing center, with Studebaker, the Oliver Plow Company, and the Singer Sewing Machine Company, among others. Many of those companies are gone. And certainly, our last twenty-five years were not like our first, yet similarities remain. John and Miles O'Brien set out with the single-minded dedication to build the best lathe they could, and they succeeded. With much sacrifice and hard work, we've maintained that tradition, and will into the next century."

Yeah- Sure!! According to their own figures, South Bend was at one time the LARGEST machine tool manufacturer in the WORLD. With distribution in 88 countries! Now don't you think there must be literally 10's of thousands of these machines still around in basements, shops, barns and back yards. With all that " sacrifice and hard work" and a little common sense don't they realize that there is probably a decent industry in just supplying parts and technical advice to the owners of all this old iron- AND that every guy who gets good and reasonably priced parts from them is a potential long term customer.

I think perhaps it is your reading comprehension that is lacking. I can't find a #2 morse taper socket that is 6 1/2 inches long. Maybe you can.

So what you are suggesting is that SB sell hacked POS parts? I realize the lathes were POS to begin with, but no reason to make them worse.

I don't think that's true Jim. LeBlond is very capable of reproducing any Southbend part, and they probably have the drawings, methodology, and tools/fixtures, unless that was scrapped.

The reason they wouldn't make new parts and sell the existing stock (assuming this is true), is that THERE ISN"T ANY DEMAND FOR PARTS ON 50+ YEAR OLD MACHINES. Most people who own machines are quite capable of making replacements, or coming up with some kind of hack solution. Why would LeBlond make a production run of 500 tailstock rams when they wouldn't sell them in the next few years, even if the prices were "cheap" . It would take forever to move them.

If it was profitable to produce spare parts they would do it.

SO either make it yourself, or find it on ebay.

T>

If a machine company sold me a replacement part cobbled out of taper sockets and home depot hardware I'd throw it back at them.

FYI, Southbend lathes are capable of .0001 accuracy. Whats the runout on your tailstock spindle if you bothered to test that. Don't tell me, there's no runout on your taper socket stuffed into the end of a piece of bar stock.

Anyhow, why not just use a #3 morse reamer and bore & ream your own.

Tony

LOL I'm reminded of a quote, from a famous cookery book, about making rabbit stew, The first line read: "First shoot your rabbit."

Tom

Lets looks at this from different viewpoints.

viewpoint 1: You are a commercial shop and you need the machine to make parts to sell. I suspect a commercial shop would figure its cheaper to buy the part rather than make it in house. After all, any time spent repairing machines is not time spent making parts to sell. The only exception to this would be if the machine was critical to meeting a delivery, in which case fixing the machine would be a high priority item.

viewpoint 2: you are a home shop machinest In this case you are balencing money vs time. If you don't have the time and you have the money, you buy the part. If you gots lot of time you make the part. (assuming you have the skill)

chuck

That's pretty accurate. In the context of this newsgroup, #2 would be applicable.

Whatever kind of coffee you're drinking, it must be *really* good stuff. Guess I'm kinda pokey, here's how long it might take me assuming the

4-jaw is already mounted (usually is), and I'm wide awake with a clear head: 3 min.--Chuck sleeve, rough-center by eye 3min.--center to .0005 hopefully, with indicator 2 min.--pilot drill to 1/4" 3 min.--drill through for clearance of tailstock screw 3 min.--mount and line up boring bar, set up carriage stop for depth of hole to press nut into 5 min.--bore out short hole to whatever dia. I think the nut will be turned down to 10 min--Unchuck sleeve, chuck a piece of threaded rod to hold nut for turning, set the leadscrew tpi to the same thread so it can be indicated and centered (that's if you have a quick-change gearbox, I don't so it would take me twice as long) 2 min.--carefully measure bore in sleeve to determine OD of nut 3 min.--mount nut on threaded rod with washer to space it away from chuck, put a toolbit on the compound 2 min.--rough turn nut, and mike it 2 min.--lock the cross-slide, make another cut within ten thou of final size, mike it again 3 min.--make the final pass, do a little file work for an easier press or shrink fit and hope you didn't take too much off Shrink fit? you gotta heat the sleeve up, that will take a few minutes-- then just drop the nut in unless something goes wrong and it freezes halfway in cockeyed. Press fit will be quicker, of course. Getting close to an hour now, still haven't put the setscrew in but I don't know why it's needed, so I'll skip it. Oh yeah, gotta allow some time for rummaging for the right washer, scratching my head, answering the phone, etc.

Ken Grunke

The original SB part used a pin installed cross-wised to the bronze nut to retain it. A setscrew would probaby strip out or come loose in short order. A simple press-up fit would also fail in short order.

I think the original design has some merits.

Jim

The 10Ls (and maybe the 10Ks) have the micrometer dial on the handwheel. Actually a pretty handy feature, when drilling holes.

Jim

Baloney

If you can crank these out in less than an hour, go to it

I doubt it

you would still end up with a POS with no graduations, 2 inches too short[by someone elses measurements]

hell, I wouldn't by a southbend on a bet anyway....

EdFielder wrote: