Looking at a lathe

[Three44s]

I have an opportunity to trade something for a lathe.

I already have two but one is a big heavy Hamilton, the other a very old LE Blonde. The Hamilton is a brute. The LE Blonde needs a ton of work to deliver any sort of accuracy as the ways are pretty worn.

The lathe I am going to look at is a Carroll- Jamieson. It’s a cone drive like our LE Blonde and those were last manufactured by “CJ” in 1940, they only built geared models from then on.

To be clear none of these lathes are up to gun smithing tolerances. I just do minute of farm work and the only way I can justify acquiring a third lathe is if it is tighter than my loose horse affairs.

Does anybody have good, bad or indifferent things to say?

Best regards

Three44s

[elmacgyver0]

I have four lathes, they just kind of multiplied.
The first one isa little home built Gingery Lathe.
The second is a Harbor Freight 9 X 20 that I did some mods on to improve it.
The third is a South Bend that dates back to the 1940s it is my favorite, used it to build a 50 BMG rifle.
The fourth is an old Craftsman's.
I don't want any more lathes, I'm out of room!

[country gent]

Im not familiar with that maker.
push and pull on carriage and compound feeling for the back lash an indicator can be used to actually measure it. If you can see them look at the gib screws and see how much adjustment is left also.A bar in the chuck indicate along the top will give an idea of the wear in the bed.
Rotate the head watching the gears for broken teeth, feel for rough areas Listen for grinding and clanks that are out of place.

If you can still run it turn a piece with a light cut about 4"=6" long unsupported you aent interested in actual size but the difference from end and head stock as this also indicates bed wear bearing conditions and head alignment

[uscra112]

I was a machine tool rebuilder for 16 years in the '70s and '80s, and I've never heard of that make.

[Jeff Michel]

Carroll Jamieson was a well made machine in it's day, they manufactured lathes of one sort or another from 1904 till 1987. It will make an interesting/challenging restoration project. You will have to fab any replacement parts, original parts are non-existent, especially when you talking the old cone drive jobs. Pictures would be very much cool.

[bangerjim]

I have a South Bend 9" tool room metal lathe (among 4 others). VERY accurate, VERY repeatable, but it will NOT chuck a barrel. I do not care...at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do lots of non-gun work. It is a very versatile quick=change lathe. I would NOT give it up at all! There is a whole world of non-gun related machining tools out there to worry about -------- if a lathe is "gun compatible" or not.

That is up to you. The machine tool world does NOT revolve around "gun related " stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PERIOD.


banger

[Scrounge]

Carroll Jamieson was a well made machine in it's day, they manufactured lathes of one sort or another from 1904 till 1987. It will make an interesting/challenging restoration project. You will have to fab any replacement parts, original parts are non-existent, especially when you talking the old cone drive jobs. Pictures would be very much cool.

I'd never heard of them, either, but ebay has. Search carroll jamieson lathe and you'll find 18 items, including a 15" lathe. I'd have posted a link, but IIRC they're not allowed here. Looks like the prices for what they have aren't too out of line compared to similar items for my SB Heavy 10L, but not nearly as much stuff...

I have enough lathes now. Five at last count. Having trouble shoehorning stuff in my little workshop. Or to quote General Akhbar, "It's a trap!"

Hi! My name is Bill, and I'm a toolohaulic!

[Three44s]

I read a thread on the Practical Machinist forum about the manufacturer and the consenssus was that they were built a bit on the light side of the heavy standbys like South Bend etc.

The original poster was asking about buying three lathes of that brand and the members there thought that his desire of turning 6-8” diameter heavy wall pipe and expecting cuts of 0.080” in a production setting was not realistic.

Well I am not in that big of a hurry!

Luckily, I have a neighbor who has a lifetime of experience running machine shop equipment and he is in the loop. Knowing him as I do he will not feel comfortable pricing the lathe and it’s tooling but he will be great at assessing its serviceability and that’s good enough for me.

Three44s

[redneck1]

I'm not one to get caught up with a name , is it suitable for the work I want to do is .
If your wanting to do smaller work you will probably want to stick with a lathe that has roller bearings in the head stock . Plain bearings are fine but they do limit your rpm .

Does it have a gear box , if not are all the change gears with it ?

Is there a steady rest ?

What's the spindle nose ? Will you be able to affordably find another chuck if you need one ?

A very common misconception out there is that a " tool room " lathe means super precise .
It does not . What it does mean is there are more features then a production lathe , things like a gear box , gear boxes with a larger feed and threading range , a taper attachment.

[pworley1]

Get it . Everyone needs a project.

[Three44s]

Get it . Everyone needs a project.

Oh, trust me, I have project overload already! Lol!

Country Gent touched on several things. I have only seen a few pictures but looking at a photo of the gears, I think I see a real deal breaker (but hope it’s just a photo allusion) that of some significant gear damage. The lathe is quite close by and at the present trajectory I will likely be able to look first hand on this Friday.

Three44s

[Jeff Michel]

Don't let a trashed spur gear discourage you. Spur gears are pretty straight forward to make and you will learn a TON in the process.

[Scrounge]

Don't let a trashed spur gear discourage you. Spur gears are pretty straight forward to make and you will learn a TON in the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd6m-FdoheQ fixing a bull gear

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/difficult-weld-materials-technique-90487#post200864 and a link with discussion of some other ways to accomplish what needs accomplished. Same video

You can do the same thing with smaller gears. You can use brass wire instead of screws. Lots of possible variations!

Bill

[Moleman-]

Screws and jb weld or just built up braze would of been enough to repair that gear. Did these about 14 years ago, still in use. Used a bench mill and a fly cutter to cut the new teeth. Used a plate with a hub and two wedges that locked into good teeth to index the gears. Bolted plate on Kurt vise in place of fixed jaw pad, bolted on gear, closed vise and cut. Could do the same thing with an angle plate. Since have got a 9x49 knee mill and several indexers. Recut new 16T compound gears for the gear box on that lathe winter before last.

[uscra112]

Going back some 40 years, I had an old Pratt & Whitney cone head lathe. Plain bronze spindle bearings. Then I bought a Monarch 10EE, thinking I was upgrading myself. The 10EE is of course gear head, roller spindle. I was never able to get the surface finishes from that 10EE that I got with the P&W, no matter what I did. A number of times I wished fervently that I'd never let that old Pratt go. When I left Rhode Island I sold the 10EE, without regret. Now I have a South Bend 10" Heavy, cone head. Slow, but smooth and accurate when I need it to be.

Making gears on a mill is tedious, but possible. Making accurate gears is very difficult. 16 years rebuilding machine tools, including some gear-making machinery (Fellows, Gould & Eberthardt, Sunderland) taught me that. But you can buy involute form cutters that rotate on the milling spindle easily enough, if you've done the math to select the size. Doing it with a fly cutter seems unnecessarily primitive. But at that, you have a gear that isn't hard enough to last long. Headstock gears should be hardened and then ground to final form.

[Three44s]

The picture of a possible broken toothed gear may be a fluke as the neighbor with a ton of experience with machine tools looked the lathe over and was quite impressed.

I think I get to look it over Friday.

I much appreciate the wisdom displayed by this forums members!

Best regards

Three44s

[Three44s]

Update on the lathe!

It’s a fairly tight machine it seems.

The downside is that the picture was not a fluke as there are two teeth chipped back to 50% side by side, in other words in a row. Half of each tooth is there on both and half gone.

I do not know if our neighbor with experience missed that as he is in his 90’s or if he’s taking it into account when he inspected it.

Overall, compared to our ranches existing lathes this model has a comparable length bed but the fram is a good bit lighter. The manufacturer was known for raising the headstock up fairly high to get a “big swing” number when really the weight of the lathe was more indicative of a lighter machine.

As far as I am concerned, I have a real muscle lathe in our old Hamilton so this lathes lightness is not a problem. I am after less looseness.

All in all, I wish our old Le Blonde was tightened up (another cone drive) but how can I belly ache? My father bought that one from a scrap yard for $200. Yes, two hundred!

So what about a shop making the repair on that gear? The gear is part of the speed reduction that powers the lathe after the cone drive so all operations go through it as I see it in the short time I saw it run.

Our Le Blonde has the cone drive hooked straight to the head and into the chuck. The gears are running to the feed works as I recall.

Three44s

[uscra112]

If the gear is steel, it can be welded and recut. But in that period it wasn't unusual for gears like that to be cast iron. Look sharp at the fracture surface - it should be evident.

I knew guys in the rebuilding shops I worked in who could have done a decent job of filing the weld to shape, given that there's some of the tooth still there. The fact that the weld wouldn't be hardened would not make a whole lot of difference to you, since you won't be running the machine 16 hours a day, or even eight, day in and day out.

[country gent]

Filing in a tooth isnt to bad if you can get to it assembled. Dykem 109 blue and ink it then file and fit. slow process but it dies work.

[Three44s]

Filing in a tooth isnt to bad if you can get to it assembled. Dykem 109 blue and ink it then file and fit. slow process but it dies work.

You folks might be on to something there. It is right out in the open!

It is likely cast iron though. I will have to check.

Three44s