Looking for a Lathe

[Alex Johnson]

The old American lathes, South Bend, Logan, and Rockwell, etc. can be dream machines to work on if you find one in good condition, but they are also problematic if you happen on one that needs a lot of work and can get very expensive in a hurry if you need to find tooling for them.

My Rockwell lathe came from a school shop and it was fully tooled and had relatively little run time on it. For the price I paid I got very lucky. We also recently brought in an old Heavy 10 South Bend lathe into our lab from another department on campus. This machine has had very little use and was also pretty much fully tooled. Both of these lathes are reasons that many still look to the older machines and either would probably be all the lathe anyone would ever need from a hobbyist perspective. Even given all that the South Bend was a three phase machine and while we have that at the university it would require some additional work for most home shop machinists to get it up and running. Still, I have seen far more tired, worn out machines, than I have seen ones in these conditions. Even a worn out machine can be brought back and it is a satisfying feeling, but if you are a beginner and lack both experience and resources it is not the way to go. In these instances, unless you have someone who can help you inspect an older machine, you are better off staying with some of the better import lathes on the market.

[Clark]

In 2002 I got a 1967 Clausing 5913 that Boeing had painted seafoam green.

It was the same size and weight as my current Chinese Precision Matthews 1236.

I built a number of rifles on both. I got rid of the old American iron because I wanted to work on rifles, not lathes.

It does not take great accuracy in a lathe to make a great accuracy rifle.

A friend died and I got a 1938 Atlas Craftsman lathe 101.07402 12x36 deluxe with Timken tapered roller bearings 1939 tailstock. That lathe weighs about 150 pounds and is worth about $500. I did not need that lathe when I already had the Chinese. So before I gave it away, I did one rifle with it.

I put a featherweight PacNor 270 barrel on a pre 64 M70 winchester with that lathe, and it will shoot 1.5 moa, which is great for a 270 rifle that weighs 8.75 pounds with scope, sling, and bi-pod.

If all a guy was going to do was cut chambers and threads, that might be ok, but with 1/5 th horsepower and lack of stiffness, it was not going to make a lot steel chips quickly while building barrel vises.