Converted Seneca Falls metal lathe

[Lee Alkureishi]

Hi all,

Continuing the trend of picking up gems from craigslist, today I found this for $50. I couldn't believe everything he was giving me with it, so I didn't even bother trying to haggle (unheard of for me!).

Here's what I got:

- Seneca Falls cast iron lathe bed, headstock and tailstock, all in perfect working order (no model number on this puppy though). I think it was originally a metal lathe.
- Shop made (or repurposed) wood lathe 4" tool rest
- Spindle adapter - not sure what size, but it's bigger than my 1" 8tpi so I'm guessin 1 1/8". The original spindle on the headstock is massive...
- Dunlap 1/3hp motor
- 2 link belts
- morse taper adapter (the original morse taper is huge. The adapter brings it down to a MT2, I think)
- A bunch of accessories - From left to right: spindle adapter, 2 faceplates, 3 drive centres, a point centre (what's that for?), no idea what the plate/screw is for, then a collet of some kind, a wingnut and a couple of washers. Haven't investigated what the wooden riser fits onto yet.


Needless to say:
1) I'm very excited
2) I have about 3,500 questions

I'll try to limit myself! Any advice is much appreciated.

- Are there any pitfalls to using a metal lathe such as this for wood turning? From what I read, the issues are only if you're planning to mix wood and metal turning on the same lathe (I'm not), and the making of the tool rest (1 already made, and it's fairly simply made so I'm sure others could easily be fabricated)

- I'm pretty sure the motor is underpowered at 1/3 hp. I'd like to upgrade the motor, and might start by fitting my 1.5hp DC treadmill motor, to see how that works (sorry to my other lathe!). If I decide to go the AC motor route, though, how much motor could a lathe like this take? It seems like it's the sturdiest lathe I've seen in person, so I'm thinking it could probably handle say a 2hp AC motor?

- The headstock has 11" swing on the inboard side. On the outboard side, I'm pretty sure it has a morse taper but none of the tapers I have (including the new ones) fit it. There are no threads on the outboard side, but there is a small threaded hole in the outboard spindle. I'm guessing this is to stop an outboard turning from flying off? That would be very nice! If that's the case, what would be the best way to support tools? An external floor-standing tool rest, or one mounted to the same bench the lathe is on?

- short of buying every kind of morse taper and trying them, is there a better way of figuring out what's hiding inside the outboard side of the headstock spindle?

- If outboard turning is not an option, is there any reason not to turn the headstock around 180 degrees and use it as a dedicated bowl lathe? Obviously, I'd need to properly secure the original tailstock end to stop it tipping.

- there are a few knobs on the top of the headstock, and on top and bottom of the tailstock - I've no idea what these are for! One of them has a threaded portion - I'm thinking I could screw a light fixture onto that, to help with hollowing... :)

- the live centre on the tailstock looks like it's removable with a morse taper, but I can't seem to auto-eject it. Don't want to force it and risk ruining the tailstock mechanism. Can anyone offer any suggestions, or tell me whether it's supposed to be fixed?

- lastly, if anyone can help ID the remaining accessories in the picture, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks in advance,

Lee

Edit: After googling a bit, I'm thinking this is probably a stripped-down Seneca Falls "Star No. 5" lathe, 12"x36", as seen here (mods, if links aren't allowed please remove):
http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=8185

[Lee Alkureishi]

More pics:

[Mike Cruz]

Lee, let me see what I can answer...

Hi all,

Continuing the trend of picking up gems from craigslist, today I found this for $50. I couldn't believe everything he was giving me with it, so I didn't even bother trying to haggle (unheard of for me!). Don't blame you...sounds like you got a bunch for $50!!!

Here's what I got:

- Seneca Falls cast iron lathe bed, headstock and tailstock, all in perfect working order (no model number on this puppy though). I think it was originally a metal lathe.
- Shop made (or repurposed) wood lathe 4" tool rest
- Spindle adapter - not sure what size, but it's bigger than my 1" 8tpi so I'm guessin 1 1/8". The original spindle on the headstock is massive...
- Dunlap 1/3hp motor
- 2 link belts
- morse taper adapter (the original morse taper is huge. The adapter brings it down to a MT2, I think)
- A bunch of accessories - From left to right: spindle adapter, 2 faceplates, 3 drive centres, a point centre (what's that for?) For the tailstock to steady a bowl, or for use when spindle turning , no idea what the plate/screw is for, then a collet of some kind, a wingnut and a couple of washers. Haven't investigated what the wooden riser fits onto yet.


Needless to say:
1) I'm very excited
2) I have about 3,500 questions

I'll try to limit myself! Any advice is much appreciated.

- Are there any pitfalls to using a metal lathe such as this for wood turning? From what I read, the issues are only if you're planning to mix wood and metal turning on the same lathe (I'm not), and the making of the tool rest (1 already made, and it's fairly simply made so I'm sure others could easily be fabricated) I would imagine that tool rests could be made, just not sure what the stess levels are meant to be on a metal lathe vs a wood lathe in the sense that with a wood lathe, you expect the wood blanks to be out of round and unbalanced, but I don't know if they "expect" that with a metal lathe...sorry, no clue, just guessing...

- I'm pretty sure the motor is underpowered at 1/3 hp. I'd like to upgrade the motor, and might start by fitting my 1.5hp DC treadmill motor, to see how that works (sorry to my other lathe!). If I decide to go the AC motor route, though, how much motor could a lathe like this take? It seems like it's the sturdiest lathe I've seen in person, so I'm thinking it could probably handle say a 2hp AC motor? Yeah, I'd have to agree that 1/3 hp would be underpowered. Unless it had some sort of jack shaft that could aid in boosting torque...

- The headstock has 11" swing on the inboard side. On the outboard side, I'm pretty sure it has a morse taper but none of the tapers I have (including the new ones) fit it. There are no threads on the outboard side, but there is a small threaded hole in the outboard spindle. I'm guessing this is to stop an outboard turning from flying off? That would be very nice! If that's the case, what would be the best way to support tools? An external floor-standing tool rest, or one mounted to the same bench the lathe is on? I'm not so sure that turning outboard is the best thing on this machine. I could be wrong. But yes, if you were going to turn outboard, you would want a floor standing tool rest. Even used, they tend to go for $200-300.

- short of buying every kind of morse taper and trying them, is there a better way of figuring out what's hiding inside the outboard side of the headstock spindle? What does you HF use, Morse 2? Try that, if it is too small, then I would guess that it is a #3.

- If outboard turning is not an option, is there any reason not to turn the headstock around 180 degrees and use it as a dedicated bowl lathe? Obviously, I'd need to properly secure the original tailstock end to stop it tipping. I don't know...sorry.

- there are a few knobs on the top of the headstock, and on top and bottom of the tailstock - I've no idea what these are for! One of them has a threaded portion - I'm thinking I could screw a light fixture onto that, to help with hollowing... :)

- the live centre on the tailstock looks like it's removable with a morse taper, but I can't seem to auto-eject it. Don't want to force it and risk ruining the tailstock mechanism. Can anyone offer any suggestions, or tell me whether it's supposed to be fixed? You should be able to eject it by winding the tailstock turret all the way back. If that doesn't do it, is there a hole on the other end of the tailstock that you could insert a thin metal rod like you would do on a headstock? One other option is to extend the turret out, then place a block of wood beteween the live center and the tailstock itself and wind the turret in.

- lastly, if anyone can help ID the remaining accessories in the picture, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks in advance,

Lee

Edit: After googling a bit, I'm thinking this is probably a stripped-down Seneca Falls "Star No. 5" lathe, 12"x36", as seen here (mods, if links aren't allowed please remove):
http://vintagemachinery.org/photoind...l.aspx?id=8185 (http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/detail.aspx?id=8185)

Lee, I was going to suggest that you become a member over there and ask your questions. They will likely know a lot more about it there. Also, you can PM the guy that posted info in the above link and ask him. Often, they love to share what they know... Best of luck to you.

[Lee Alkureishi]

Mike,

Thanks for the info. I got the lathe assembled last night, and cobbled together the DC motor to check everything runs. It does :)

The lathe is pretty dang sturdy - much more so than the harbor freight. it's on a flimsy stand atm, but I'm toying with transferring it to my sturdy bench and putting the HF back on the metal stand. I have a little tuning up to do - the tailstock mechanism is smooth and there's no play, but once it snugs up to the workpiece turning the handwheel doesn't tighten it any further. I'm guessing a nut needs tightened somewhere, but haven't had time to investigate yet.

I got the live centre out of the tailstock - a little penetrating oil did the trick. The tailstock has a MT2 taper, which is nice - it fits all my existing tailstock centres. I think the headstock is also a MT2, but my spur centre is very slightly too short to snug up. Will need to investigate more.

There was a jackshaft that came with the existing motor. It has a 3-step pulley which ranged from smaller than the motor's pulley to larger than the motor's pulley, and a single larger pulley (6" diameter) that links to the headstock pulley (which is about 3" diameter). I had assumed the 1/3hp motor was underpowered, and set it to the side. I installed the jackshaft with my DC motor setup, running the poly-v belt from the small motor pulley to the 3-step v-pulley, then a link belt from the 6" pulley to the headstock pulley. Torque seemed much better compared with my previous setup (with the flywheel), but slippage is a problem because the poly-v belt doesn't quite sit right in the v-pulley. A little more tweaking needed, methinks! Still trying to get that pesky poly-v pulley off - haven't been successful so far though...

Another question for you, Mike: you mentioned that outboard turning may not be a good idea on this lathe. What makes you say that? If that's not a good option, the headstock actually slides easily along the ways. It's held at the headstock end by two 3/8" bolts through the ways, and a large central plate with a nut & bolt that fixes it to the ways. Would sliding it be a better option (it would be easy enough to drill another two holes at the tailstock end), or is there some other reason not to do it? With sliding headstocks, are floorstanding toolrests still required, or is there another option?

It's actually not a Star No.5 - the No. 5 had 48" between centres, but this one is 48" total length of the ways. Not sure the exact model number - maybe a no.40?

Thanks again for your help. I've registered on the other site too - looking forward to finding some more info on this!

Lee

[Mike Cruz]

The reason I said that outboard turning may not be a great idea for this lathe is that it seems that it may not have been intended...since it isn't threaded on the spindle. Secondly, the larger (and especially, when out of round) a blank is, the more torque it puts on the lathe...the ways, the headstock, and all its components. While this lathe seems sturdy to you, it still looks like a medium to light duty lathe to me. That said, it was engineered to withstand 12" stock. Now, I'm not saying by any means that this is a cheap lathe, or not a quality lathe in any way...I don't know anything about these lathes. But I'd be cautious to overstress it, is all... As for moving the headstock, I suppose that woud work. Not really sure. Don't want to tell you to do it, just to find out WHY you shouldn't have. One quick thought on that is will the motor slide with it easily? And for floorstanding toolrests, some manufacturers basically make bed extensions that sit lower than the main ways, and I assume you use your regular banjo with longer posts???? Otherwise, yes, you just use a floorstanding toolrest.