WTB lathe & mill

Chuckle!

36" lathe for your basement? Better be a walk-in. :-)

It might be a good idea to specify a swing while you're asking, assuming you aren't really looking for a 36" machine. Typically, when a lathe is discussed, swing is the designation that is mentioned, with the distance between centers coming next. A 36" machine would be a monster, needing its own foundation, far more than a basement floor could support properly.

Good luck--

Harold

You must have a hell of a basement if you can get a 36" lathe in it.

Gunner

Leftwingers are like pond scum. They are green, slimy, show up where they are not wanted, and interfere with the fishing.

Strider

...

Logan, Southbend, and Atlas all made lathes about 36" long with swings of about 9". Nice machines and small enough to cart down the stairs. As to small mills, stuff that's smaller than a Bridgeport and not total crap is hard to come by. (My personal opinion of the Asian mill/drill) Several fellows on this NG have reported disassembling a Bridgeport and skidding it down the basement steps. Don't know about back up

As to where to look, everywhere you can think of: newspaper want ads and "shoppers", Auction bills, estate sales, used machinery jockeys (Surely some in Toronto and Detroit), Ebay, ask everyone you know to look out for you, etc. Persistence will pay off.

Good Luck

Karl

Moving a 36" lathe is actually quite doable Harold, depending on the lathe. An Atlas/Craftsman 12"x36" can be moved by one person if the lathe is strapped to a refrigerator dolly. A friend & I have moved a Clausing 12x36 and a Rockwell 11x24 to our respective basements, but each of those required a fair amount of disassembly. Each of the latter two weighs around 1,000 lbs.

A Monarch lathe would be beyond by skill and tool set, but I seem to recal pictures on the web somewhere of someone who managed it with the help of professional riggers. They brought it in through an outside concrete stairwell with a crane, AIR.

I've come to the conclusion that 1/2 ton is about as much as I can handle in a basement move and that drops a few tens of pounds as each year passes.

I am looking at a small 36" lathe i.e. between 9 and 12" diameter swing. It must be a "bench style" because I will take it at least partly apart to move. Probably around 10" siwng is where I will end up because of weight.

As for the basement floor strength... This is another reason for looking at a lighter weight machine.

I have looked at a couple atlas lathes; 9"x36", a rockwell 10"x36", and a southbend 9"x36 all of which seem like they would do the job.

Anyone know where I can get a good quality lathe like this or a small mill?

Eric

Try Rottblott's at Front and Bathurst. They are mostly a scrap dealer, but also deal machines. They had a Modern Standard lathe for sale, the last time I was there.

If you are willing to pay full dealers price, Ford Machinery in Richmond Hill.

You won't get any outright bargains at either, but you might find "reasonable" machine for "reasonable" price. I bought my Excello mill from Rottblotts. I've also bought several machines from ebay sellers in Detroit or Rochester area, rented a flatbed truck to go fetch them. That will be cheaper than Rottblotts or Ford, for sure. There seem to be a lot of conventional machines begging for bidders in Detroit, most any time I look.

Adam Smith, Midland ON

The guys who were hooting at you were doing so because when you say 'a 36" lathe' they took it to mean 36" SWING, not longest piece you can swing between centers.

The best way to buy a lathe like you're looking for is to buy it from the original purchaser, along with everything that goes with it. I did this once for my first 9" South Bend. The guy was *amazing*. He still had the wooden crate leaning in the corner of his shop where it had sat for over fifty years! If you buy from a machinery dealer or an ebay seller you will just get a "base package" and it will cost you many hundreds of dollars to get it fully tooled. Further, South Bend is now out of business although someone took over the parts end. New parts are now *much* more expensive.

So look locally. Talk to the guys at your local technical college's machine shop program. Look on

for the CL near you. Look in your local classifieds. Find all of the local nickel ad type papers and look in all of them. Ask around.

Finally, when you are looking for something, POST YOUR LOCATION. There are hundreds of guys on this NG but everyone will assume you live far away from them.

GWE

Amazingly, he did. It was toronto or ontario area. That does cover a bit of ground of course....

But for the OP, grant's suggestions are good. As for the hooting... well, yes. There was hooting. Probably a slow day for the hoot-ers. I managed to figure out that the

36 was bed, not swing....

Jim

Dont leave out the Logan 11" lathe. Its a 5C spindle. A decent lathe of its type and parts Are available. Both bench (or on legs) or the rarer cabinet styles are still available. I personally think its one of the better choices for lathes of this type. But thats sticktly a semi educated opinion. Gunner

"To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated." - Trefor Thomas

I agree, but you're talking about smaller machines, not 36" machines. I think you missed my dry humor. As I said, lathes, at least in the environment in which I was trained, are not specified by bed length, but by swing. Bed length is important to, but doesn't define a machine in the same sense as does the swing capacity, which I'm sure you understand. As the post stands, to the casual observer, you'd be talking about a large lathe. Needless to say, you and I understand he's not talking about such a critter. I thought it was a great opportunity to pass on to a novice, in a light hearted manner, a way of asking in such a way that he/she would be better understood by the masses.

Look at it this way. If you had an interest in a 12" machine with a center distance of something in the area of 36", but found a lathe that had the asked for 36" centers but was a 24" machine, would you still have an interest? Yet, if you found a 12" machine that had longer or shorter than

36" centers, it might still be acceptable. Bed length doesn't change a machine's features the way swing does.

Center distance can be quite important, but most lathes have the vast majority of wear within a narrow band, near the chuck. In essence, bed length is rarely used once you're beyond about 24".

Harold

Yep - missed the joke. Reading too much on the Internet trains one not think literally but to read between the lines to discern what was actually meant rather than what was stated or asked. At least it seems to have affected me that way.

That depends - the last 12" on my Clausing 5914 makes a nice place to park a bed turret . The turret doesn't get used much, but it would be used a lot less if I had to load/unload it.

Mike

Oh, man, do I envy you that! I park mine on the floor, with a nice finished wooden cover over it. It's getting more and more difficult to put on the machine as I get older. There are times when I wish I had a few more feet of bed length.

Harold

I tried to look up Rottblott in canada411.com so that I could phone them. No listings. Do you know if they go by a different name? I wanted to make sure they were still open and find out what their hours of operation were. Eric

Hello,

I'll ignore the 36" swing vs 36" centres comments since they have been done:)

The "Tri-Ad" paper is a pretty good place to look. I think it's called something else now (don't have one laying around, actually cleaned up around here on the weekend). Its the thick buy and sell type paper not called "Buy & Sell". I found the Buy & Sell doesn't have as much machinery in it. There will be several ads in the paper for dealers and such as well as the itesm being sold by people. (look in the Equipment section right before the Trailers section)

You would be surprised what you can fit in your basement, I have a Colchester Dominion 13x36 in my cold cellar. (Gunner: basically the same as your Colchester) Took it apart, took the base down the stairs and a budy and I took the head down. I then strapped the bed to a sturdy doubled up aluminum ladder and sent it in a basement window to a series of come-a-longs and lowered it a cart that I wheeled into the "lathe room"

If you want auctions with machinery there are many thought I have had good luck at:

and The first has most of their auctions in the Guelph/Kitchener areas and don't have a buyers premium.

TTYL, Jeff

distracted wrote:

Go to busy bee tools or KBC in Mississauga. Chinese made, low cost and portable. Good for hobbies...

I would also considering adding the 11x36 or 10x36 Rockwell to this list. Decent machines, cabinet mount, variable speed. You can sometimes buy them worth the money, but parts are scarce and expensive.

Check the online classifeds of all the newspapers within driving distance. Make an icon for each, check them daily and search on "lathe mill".

I like Atlas lathes, but cannot recommend due to the extensive use of Zamak/pot metal where all oterhs use steel. Atlas/Craftsman is the only "consumer grade" metal lathe in that size. Having said that, if you learn the weak points and work within the design parameters, you can do good work with one. Just don't buy one that's clapped out unless you enjoy the restorative process.

NAMES is coming up very soon. Take a weekend drive to Detroit on the 23 and check out the various machinery dealers.

chuck

That is because I mispelled it. Sorry.

Rotblott &Sons Limited

560 Front Street West, Toronto, ON M5V1C1 (416) 703-0456 (416) 703-0460 (fax)

Adam Smith Midland, ON