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Normal Topic "The Box" that comes with an estate lathe (Read 1488 times)
ssdave
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"The Box" that comes with an estate lathe
May 9th, 2021 at 11:35pm
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When you buy a lathe or mill or similar machine from an estate, generally an eccentric 90 yr old with family not interested in the machines, it always comes with "the box".  Sometimes in two or three boxes, sometimes a cabinet full, sometimes a bunch of coffee cans.  But it's always there.  "The box" is always a mix of scrap, discarded work that has something that went wrong, machine parts for this and other unrelated machines, and tooling.   

You have to sort through it all, because often there's parts for the machine, good tooling, and sometimes some real gems.  When I buy a machine, typically there's $200 to $1500 worth of stuff in "the box".

I had a first today.  I bought a decent Atlas 10x54 QC lathe for a good price.  Had at immediate glance a 3 jaw, 4 jaw, homemade steady rest, 4 way tool holder, a few jacob chucks, face plate, dogs, lantern tool holder and bit holder assortment.  Set up and demonstrated to operate correctly.  Plus, "the box", piled in a 2 door cabinet and a few cans.

I bring it home, and the lathe is all good.  Start sorting the extras.  100% unrelated junk.  A bunch of MT sleeves, bits, reamers, etc that are too big for the lathe.  Broken chucks.  Dinged up arbors.  A set of change gears for some other lathe.  An ancient ridge reamer.  Some kind of single operation boring head for who knows what machine.  Huge, ancient carbide lathe bits for some monster lathe.  Junk that got dredged up out of the dregs of some government or industry surplus auction.  All of it.  Not $100 worth in the lot.   

Usually a treasure hunt going through "the box" from a machine.  Not today!
  
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Re: "The Box" that comes with an estate lathe
Reply #1 - May 10th, 2021 at 7:16am
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Know what you mean,60 years, since I was 12 owned 4 wood & 2 engine lathes. Sill have the “boxes” from 3 wood & 1 engine lathe sold off.

Sometimes dig through & find a useful piece of scrap, not often. Never thought much about it until reading your post, enjoyed it !

Boats
  
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Re: "The Box" that comes with an estate lathe
Reply #2 - May 10th, 2021 at 6:01pm
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Ssdave just bought Bridgeport before my next to last brain surgery. 300 lbs of extras. Can't stay healthy long enough to bring it in shop. Still sitting under carport covered up. 2hp 1 phase motor too. moodyholler
  
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WCFMetalsmith
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Re: "The Box" that comes with an estate lathe
Reply #3 - May 11th, 2021 at 10:22pm
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Years ago Dad bought a used 10x24 Logan lathe. It has a factory bed turret on it, as well as a factory tail stock. It came out of the Eugene Or. area. 

About 3 years later we were in an old machinery shop in Portland, Carters was the name. On one of his shelf's of tooling was this cross slide. I saw the tag hanging down as it was just above my head, the old man pulled a chair over and pulled it down off the shelf. Was labeled for a 10" Logan lathe. 

Dad bought it for $ 150. When we got home, he cleaned it up a bit and went to put the cross slide on his Logan lathe. He yelled at me come see this.

The s/n on the cross slide matched the s/n of the lathe !

What are the odds of finding the factory cross slide that was taken off the lathe years before.

I still have that lathe, it is set up for doing only one operation on 22 rim fire inner magazine tubes and does it very nicely.

J Wisner
  
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marlinguy
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Re: "The Box" that comes with an estate lathe
Reply #4 - May 14th, 2021 at 10:14am
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Used that same method to remove pilot bushings in crankshafts on cars often. But I use a grease gun to fill them as oil wont work with the horizontal shaft.
  

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