_boris_
Aluminum
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2014
Last year buddy of mine found a couple of lathes, as package deal, that owner was trying to move out from his rental property and struck a deal to take them away for a symbolic price. Buddy had his eye on 6’(4’?)Whitcomb-Blaisdell lathe and there was also the “bigger” one. Without even seeing it, worst case, we scrap it, I can’t say that I was looking for one.
Fast forward to earlier this year, with snow off for the time being, owner and his tenant managed to drag both lathes out of the shed and onto tarps and wood. We went to move the Blaisdell, this is the first time I saw “it” and holy madre de dios, this “other one” was huge. I’ve seen much bigger machinery in a real modern factories- but the prospect of homing this thing was giving me hernia just looking at it. So much so that I didn’t even measure it. I figured it’s going to a scrapper for sure.
We moved Blaisdell first and took apart the “other one” as much as possible.
Luckily, the owner had an old International with FEL to help along. The bolts came off easy from the headstock and three legs like the day they were put in. Only the last legs set, most further from the tail stock needed some PB Blaster to encourage disassembly. We lay the bed onto wood and took whatever we could in preparation for the real move. We tried to lighten the bed and lower it as much as we could for transport.
Backstory on the “other one”:
Property owner’s FIL acquired it sometime in the 1940s. He moved both lathes and set them up in the shed complete with overhead cone etc. We still have the original wooden sticks to move belts on the cones. Sometime later he got other more modern machinery, other, bigger sheds and this lathe just sat there until now with other toys seeing more play time. Over the years, the owner tried to make some money with his collection, but it seems like that side of business just never took off.
Subproject 0, History of the “other one”:
The only badges seen on this lathe was standard F.E. Reed feeds table badge and a small “L 6” badge.
Blaisdell had the makers brand badge and a Machinery seller badge, but not this one. I looked through internet resources for weeks, catalogs, whatever I could find.
Scanned F.E. Reed catalogs do no not mention the “long bed” 10’ bed lathes, that came with three legs. I found one on the webpage of CAMS (Chesapeake Area Metalworking Society ) and the other one on blacksmithandmachineshop. “The other one” does not appear anywhere and judging by the badging, I’d take a guess that it may have been a factory machine making leadscrews for other lathes, like 10’ers. So in some sense, may be this machine made other machines that made your machine ; )
The only other leads I got so far are records available in DC special collection relating to F.E. Reed catalogs but I’d not hold my hope for them, because I’d think that factory machine was a special equipment not offered for sale.
The legs are cast with “F.E.Reed Co” which indicates that this was after 1877.
There is no tool-post/top slide on the cross slide, which were available in early 1900s, so this may predate that.
I got the “tombstone” and plenty of gears to sort through, but that’s another subproject.
Eagles.
It is also worth mentioning that seller is close to the glorious city of Worcester (correctly pronounced as “woo-stah”) Much like Bethlehem (PA), it’s but a ghost of its former glory. Old factory buildings are converted into artsy ********* lofts. The old lathes bought for their legs, parted and scrapped like elephants for their tusks. Most of the city is kind of a shithole. … but once, it was the “silicone valley” with monster Reed foundries that poured beds not only for their machinery but other manufacturers (like Blaisdell). F.E. Reed was the biggest machinists’ lathe maker in the world. THE WORLD Carl! Entire damned planet!!! Many famous machinery makers hail from this once center of machinery universe, belching freedom and glory from every smoke stack. … it is very hard to imagine it walking through the “Woostah“ now.
This shed that safely kept “the other one” for may be 80+ years … across the lake, a family of American Bald eagles made its nest and watched over it all …
Work ahead.
To be perfectly honest, I got this lathe 89% being sentimental and I have no illusion that it will be long work in progress and no payoff. 1% pride of owning this ancient monster of American awesome that can quiet literally trace heritage to a lot of other machines in the world. May be 10% for making it useful again, but even with US stopping to import viruses from commie shitholes, I can’t see any other work than turning telephone poles.
Also, I checked … Tiger II tank barrel will need few more inches on the bed … food for thought.
I got some time, more time than space, so a lot of work on just cleaning it will take time, more time if it were in a warehouse with space not being an issue. I’ll have to solve problems on how to solve problems in a really limited space.
I’ll try to post progress little at a time. I need help. I’m neither Reed expert nor a restorer. I can manage that, but I need time to research and help, so before diving head first, I’d like to research things and think about them over time. Sometimes projects take years. But I’ll try to do little at a time. Plus honestly, it’s very hard to forget about something that takes that much space.
Many tasks will become projects into themselves. Moving parts around is hard. I was purging my bowels just lifting the headstock with a friend. Most of the work, I’ll have to do alone now. I have a tractor and some parts are in different places (not garage), so some things may take a while because I have to wait for dry weather to ride the tractor across dry lawn. There is also the challenge of very limited space. A lot of things in my garage are on wheels so I can play tetris making space for different tasks.
… wife still does not know about it. ; ) and having friends is a blessing (especially if they have trailers and are as crazy as you are)
… to be continued and Happy Easter!
Fast forward to earlier this year, with snow off for the time being, owner and his tenant managed to drag both lathes out of the shed and onto tarps and wood. We went to move the Blaisdell, this is the first time I saw “it” and holy madre de dios, this “other one” was huge. I’ve seen much bigger machinery in a real modern factories- but the prospect of homing this thing was giving me hernia just looking at it. So much so that I didn’t even measure it. I figured it’s going to a scrapper for sure.
We moved Blaisdell first and took apart the “other one” as much as possible.
Luckily, the owner had an old International with FEL to help along. The bolts came off easy from the headstock and three legs like the day they were put in. Only the last legs set, most further from the tail stock needed some PB Blaster to encourage disassembly. We lay the bed onto wood and took whatever we could in preparation for the real move. We tried to lighten the bed and lower it as much as we could for transport.
Backstory on the “other one”:
Property owner’s FIL acquired it sometime in the 1940s. He moved both lathes and set them up in the shed complete with overhead cone etc. We still have the original wooden sticks to move belts on the cones. Sometime later he got other more modern machinery, other, bigger sheds and this lathe just sat there until now with other toys seeing more play time. Over the years, the owner tried to make some money with his collection, but it seems like that side of business just never took off.
Subproject 0, History of the “other one”:
The only badges seen on this lathe was standard F.E. Reed feeds table badge and a small “L 6” badge.
Blaisdell had the makers brand badge and a Machinery seller badge, but not this one. I looked through internet resources for weeks, catalogs, whatever I could find.
Scanned F.E. Reed catalogs do no not mention the “long bed” 10’ bed lathes, that came with three legs. I found one on the webpage of CAMS (Chesapeake Area Metalworking Society ) and the other one on blacksmithandmachineshop. “The other one” does not appear anywhere and judging by the badging, I’d take a guess that it may have been a factory machine making leadscrews for other lathes, like 10’ers. So in some sense, may be this machine made other machines that made your machine ; )
The only other leads I got so far are records available in DC special collection relating to F.E. Reed catalogs but I’d not hold my hope for them, because I’d think that factory machine was a special equipment not offered for sale.
The legs are cast with “F.E.Reed Co” which indicates that this was after 1877.
There is no tool-post/top slide on the cross slide, which were available in early 1900s, so this may predate that.
I got the “tombstone” and plenty of gears to sort through, but that’s another subproject.
Eagles.
It is also worth mentioning that seller is close to the glorious city of Worcester (correctly pronounced as “woo-stah”) Much like Bethlehem (PA), it’s but a ghost of its former glory. Old factory buildings are converted into artsy ********* lofts. The old lathes bought for their legs, parted and scrapped like elephants for their tusks. Most of the city is kind of a shithole. … but once, it was the “silicone valley” with monster Reed foundries that poured beds not only for their machinery but other manufacturers (like Blaisdell). F.E. Reed was the biggest machinists’ lathe maker in the world. THE WORLD Carl! Entire damned planet!!! Many famous machinery makers hail from this once center of machinery universe, belching freedom and glory from every smoke stack. … it is very hard to imagine it walking through the “Woostah“ now.
This shed that safely kept “the other one” for may be 80+ years … across the lake, a family of American Bald eagles made its nest and watched over it all …
Work ahead.
To be perfectly honest, I got this lathe 89% being sentimental and I have no illusion that it will be long work in progress and no payoff. 1% pride of owning this ancient monster of American awesome that can quiet literally trace heritage to a lot of other machines in the world. May be 10% for making it useful again, but even with US stopping to import viruses from commie shitholes, I can’t see any other work than turning telephone poles.
Also, I checked … Tiger II tank barrel will need few more inches on the bed … food for thought.
I got some time, more time than space, so a lot of work on just cleaning it will take time, more time if it were in a warehouse with space not being an issue. I’ll have to solve problems on how to solve problems in a really limited space.
I’ll try to post progress little at a time. I need help. I’m neither Reed expert nor a restorer. I can manage that, but I need time to research and help, so before diving head first, I’d like to research things and think about them over time. Sometimes projects take years. But I’ll try to do little at a time. Plus honestly, it’s very hard to forget about something that takes that much space.
Many tasks will become projects into themselves. Moving parts around is hard. I was purging my bowels just lifting the headstock with a friend. Most of the work, I’ll have to do alone now. I have a tractor and some parts are in different places (not garage), so some things may take a while because I have to wait for dry weather to ride the tractor across dry lawn. There is also the challenge of very limited space. A lot of things in my garage are on wheels so I can play tetris making space for different tasks.
… wife still does not know about it. ; ) and having friends is a blessing (especially if they have trailers and are as crazy as you are)
… to be continued and Happy Easter!