Frank R
Thank you for starting this thread. I have never seen a South Bend lathe so heavily modified. It reminds me of the kind of additional tooling you'd see on an old Rivett lathe, where they had equipment for doing all sorts of toolroom and similar complex work.
The fact the lathe has loose change gears vs a quick change gearbox may put a lot of potential buyers off. The fact it is an "old" lathe rather than some shiny new import with a geared headstock and all the bells and whistles may also put a lot of hobby shop lathe buyers off this one. After the Holiday season, when people have flatter wallets, the little lathe may become available for a more reasonable price.
As Dundeeshopnut correctly states, a video of this little lathe in operation (assuming you do purchase it) would be great. Figuring out the riddle of the dividing head/driveshaft as it was used on this little lathe is something I'd hope would one day happen. A new thought for the possible purpose of that dividing head/driveshaft might have been to generate 'wedge cam' surfaces on rifle bolts. I.E., rather than s bolt with regular square-face locking lugs, possibly this lathe was being used to generate 'wedge cam' surfaces (I am no gunsmith, but I seem to recall some high powered rifle actions used multiple locking lugs on the bolts and had a 'wedge cam' profile to them) on bolts and receivers.
I have a lot of respect for the little South Bend lathes. Simple, basic, kind of light, and definitely an obsolete design, but an incredibly popular little lathe. As has oft been said, countless numbers of students got their first exposure to machine shop work on a 9" South Bend lathe. These little lathes were in widespread use in all sorts of businesses, and were perhaps the most prolific and enduring design of lathe. I wear a pocket watch with a case machined from solid stainless steel stock. The case was made by an oldtime toolmaker in our area. He had "retired' about 1972, and had bought himself a new Bridgeport as his 'retirement gift'. He setup a small shop in his house, and had a 9" South Bend bench lathe, Sanford surface grinder, DoAll band saw, an 'original' Craftsman US made drill press, a belt sander and a pedestal grinder. His work mainly consisted of making fixtures for grinding prisms used in some kind of medical lasers. The little South Bend lathe this guy had was a gem. Whether he bought it new or used I never learned. He had taken the lathe apart and rescraped anything he needed to bring the lathe into what he considered toolroom accuracy. Every angle plate, rotary table or other piece of tooling was either made by this guy or had been bought new and then checked and 'scraped in' by him.
He did some very close tolerance work in his little shop, working until he was about 92, and dying within a few weeks of 'laying down his working tools'. Unfortunately, this oldtimer was a crusty character and disposed of his shop contents in a weird way. He called the firm for whom he'd been making fixturing and simply said: come clean out my shop. Considering this firm was a modern manufacturer of some kind of medical imaging or laser equipment, they likely had no real use for his shop contents. My watch case was made by that oldtimer, and he cut a very fine pitch/short distance of thread on the case as well as on the bezel (which holds the crystal) and the back of the watch. Did it on the little 9" lathe. He used to boast that no one but him had ever 'made any chips' on the Bridgeport, and no one but him ever touched or operated any of the other machine tools in his shop. I suspect the deceased gunsmith who owned and modified the lathe in this thread was similar to the oldtimer in my neck of the woods. Did some amazing work on a lathe many people would not even consider as a viable machine tool in today's world. That oldtimer never had digital readout, let alone CNC equipment. He had a habit of calling me in the wee hours of the morning, rousing my wife and I from sleep. My wife would pick up the phone, fearing bad news (which often comes in phone calls in the dead of night or wee hours). A voice as gravelly and sounding much like Oscar the Grouch would come out of the phone. It was the oldtimer needing to talk to me to ask a question. He'd never apologize for waking us (I had to be up at 0500 to start my work days), and would simply rasp out: "What's the sine of 27 degrees, 32 minutes, and 6 seconds" (or somesuch odd angle down to the last degree). I'd turn on the bedside lamp, get a calculator and convert the minutes and seconds of arc into decimals of a degree and get him the sine of it. He would rasp out: "How did you do it so quick ? That is the answer I got." I'd explain using the calculator. The old buzzard would say: "I used logarithms" and then hang up the phone. No thanking me, no good-bye, just 'click' as he hung up the phone. He worked in the wee hours of the mornings because his home was near an otherwise busy two lane back road with curves and rough pavement. He claimed the jarring from heavy trucks on the road affected his work, as he was working to that close a tolerance. He and his wife were childless, so no family members to pass anything, either as knowledge or in the form of tools and machinery, along to.
This oldtimer did tell me he never hesitated to help other machinists and toolmakers when he was employed in working shops. He did have some very strong and good principals and ethics despite his blunt ways. One piece of wisdom he gave me was his definitions of being a success. He asked me what I thought a successful person was. I deferred to him, knowing whatever answer I gave, he'd disagree with. He told me his definition of success: "Being able to tell the boss to go f--k himself and having a better job before lunch time." He claimed this was the case with his own career, and that having a solid and highly skilled trade put him in that position.
Seeing the work he was doing in his little 'retirement shop' with basic machine tools left no doubt as to that point.
The oldtimer who made my watch case was a tough old buzzard. He called 9 of us in the area whom he knew to be either machinists or railroaders. He had a hobby of working on Hamilton 992 railroad pocket watches. He called us to say he was making ten stainless steel watch cases for the Hamilton 992 pocket watches, and was giving each of us an opportunity to buy one. He said he'd give us each the case if we bought the 'works' (movement) for a 992 Hamilton watch. He'd go thru the movement to service it and install it in the watch case. In those days (1992, I think it was), I paid 300 bucks and have been wearing that Hamilton watch ever since.
I know I would have liked to have met the gunsmith/toolmaker who designed and modified that little 9" lathe. Whoever he was, and no matter whatever else he might have been, he was a very gifted and skilled person with a fine mind to have dreamed up and built that little lathe into what it now is.
