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Longest F.E. Reed lathe (four leg, 17’ bed), help needed

_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.

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We moved Blaisdell first and took apart the “other one” as much as possible.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 …

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Work ahead.

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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.

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… 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!
 
Do you have anything else you were hoping to accomplish in your life? Even considering the 8 Billion people on this planet do you think there is anyone else who would actually move and home that thing when you are dead?

I would carefully consider what you are getting yourself into and for what cause before you get too deep. Museums get broken up and sold off/scrapped out regularly and they can charge admission.

I would suggest something with a higher chance of a good outcome like a Heroin addiction or parachuteless base jumping.
 
Excellent! I thought my new Whitcomb Blaisdell was long, but you've got me beat! I look forward to seeing your progress.:D

FYI this is my WB lathe's thread: Long 3 Legged Lathe (Whitcomb Blaisdell) Questions

Mine looks to be a newer generation that yours. What's the serial number (located near the headstock between the front ways)?

yes, I saw that thread and from what I found, at least some WB (if not all) were cast at FER foundry. I could not see any numbers in that area, actually anywhere on the lathe. There are some spots that are still covered in baked grease, so perhaps it's there somewhere.

I looked for links or photos of FER lathe numbers, i.e. the specific place where they are and what they look like and found nothing. Would you please take a snapshot where your serial is located and what does it look like?
 
You could actually make money with that long bed. Mount a wood router on the tool post, rig up a way to mount a pattern along the back and make porch posts.

that's not a bad idea. I have 10'x5' router that I built with CNC in mind, but at this point it's not quiet CNC yet, I do very simple operations like flattening out an area at fixed depth. Z axis is not working yet.

I've looked at lathe duplicators in the past, perhaps that's something indeed that could be done.
 
I have a double back gear 1888 Lodge & Davis lathe 108" between centers that I have been planning to use to make porch post with. To bad it 33 miles away from the house I live in and in a garage at my rental house and I haven't had a chance to get it running. I plan to run it slowly in back gear and let the wood router do most of the work. Historic buildings need posts that match their existing posts so posts need to be made custom. If you index the head stock you could even use the router to make fluted columns without the lathe running. With a 17' bed you could likely make any post or column you would likely to come across.
 
yes, I saw that thread and from what I found, at least some WB (if not all) were cast at FER foundry. I could not see any numbers in that area, actually anywhere on the lathe. There are some spots that are still covered in baked grease, so perhaps it's there somewhere.

I looked for links or photos of FER lathe numbers, i.e. the specific place where they are and what they look like and found nothing. Would you please take a snapshot where your serial is located and what does it look like?
Mine is #A884. It's very faint as there was a fair amount of rust pitting. There was also some other information stamped before it but I can't make it out yet.
 

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Mine is #A884. It's very faint as there was a fair amount of rust pitting. There was also some other information stamped before it but I can't make it out yet.

I took some soap water solution and plastic bristle brush and scrubbed one side completely. I don't see any numbers. Once the weather is nicer, I am planning on doing more washing. I'm not in the rush, but I can't imagine why lathe bed would not have a serial. Hopefully it's somewhere else.

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here is more work done lately.

First, we moved the lathe into garage rolling on oak logs of similar thickness. I wanted to make a more solid footing since I want to take apart the carriage which is seized right now (at least I don't want to push it harder)

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In parallel, I got some gears that I wanted to clean up. They are in much better shape then what they look like:

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this is my first attempt at a electrolysis setup, that charger is so ancient it got amp meter permastuck on 4 amps:

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I am using a piece of half inch rebar as cathode and have three hooks to hang metal gears at a time. I am using some baking soda as salt. I am getting something like 250 mAmps drawing, this is where that "save-a-watt" meter comes handy. I am also running an aquarium air pump that's tied to the end of rebar. It provides agitation. It may not be necessary, but just looking at ll the crud stuck everywhere, I like to keep it loose and circulating, not stuck to parts.

Because moving this setup is kind of annoying, I set it up on a dolly or whatever you call it and secured everything with zipties. Now it's off the ground and wires are not all tangled up. My OCD feels better.

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The process is something that I am still getting a hang of. I tried to degrease these gears first real well, and I mean I used ultrasonic heated bath to do one of them. It doesn't seem to matter, no matter how much I scrub, I still get some grease on, but a day in a electrolysis bath the grease is looser than it was before somehow, so I go degrease it again and electrolyse some more.


I also would like to repaint some parts so I got a gallon of Sherwin Williams Industrial Enamel. That goes for about $100 and dries in about 7 days. It doesn't look bad. Here are three gears and one that still has the original paint.

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These are all my gears. Some were painted, some were not. Few have original paint, some have it really worn out, some never had paint at all.

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The gears also came with the famous FER "tombstone". Some of these were mounted on a lathe, but I have not seen any holes on the bed for it, so it was probably stood alone. It's in remarkably good shape, covered in grease of ages. I used some soap water and tried to lift the grease hoping to have the original paint under it. Unfortunately in many places paint was worn out to bare metal and just was covered with grease over time. I am letting it sit like this for now. I don't want to scrub anything off, may be I'll put it into a tub of degreaser solution for a while.

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The "tombstone" still has the original hook, I believe:

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well, that's the progress for now. I also got a bunch of lathe dogs and taking a break on gear cleaning at the moment. These were painted gray and I'll have better pictures with markings once I'm electrolysed them. I don't have the cash to spring for another gallong of Industrial Enamel in gray. I don't think these are that historic to be accurate. I am planing painting them black once I get some electrolysis on, get the nuts out, on some of them I don't even want to try getting them out just yet. I am not in a rush.


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not a whole lot happened 'til now. I took carriage and apron off, which is another story all together.


for now I am taking the bed out for some scrubbing, de-greasing, pressure-washer rinsing and repeating ...

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originally I planned to make a setup to move the bed around, but being lazy I figure that oak logs are fine. I have a mini-crane that attaches to the rear lifting arms and that's enough to lift one side of the bed with ease. It's pretty fast too since all I have to do is move the lever to raise or lower the crane. I used a tire to prevent bed hitting the tractor going downhill.

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what's next? Hydrolysis rust removal ... yes, you heard that right. I built a small pool that took friggin forever to fill. The frame of the pool are just 2x4s holding one big tarp. I filled it once and it collapsed. So I mended it and secured tarp better and filled it again.

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Then I discovered that there is a hole in the tarp (probably from me screwing 2x4s) To plug the hole I put small piece of flat steel stock and on the other side I put a large rare earth magnet wrapped in a latex glove ... no leak!

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With electrical current flowing there is a whole lot of gunk floating to the surface. At first it freaked me out, because overall bed looked really good. Most of the rust came from the inner parts of the casting that were barely painted.

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After less than a week of electrolysing, there was no more gunk, floating up. Actually most of it came up in the first 2-3 days. Draining the "pool" left load of rust everywhere. This whole endeavor made my tetanus shot 100% worth it.

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The lathe itself had no labels attached to it, like logos etc. Only number 6 on the headstock. On the tail end of the bed there was "62" which I will repaint later.

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With a lot of dirt out of the way, the casting did not look all that great. You can see some casting defects at the tail end:

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Also in the middle you may see a defect near the ways that was filled in with some metal:

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Also this revealed some other interesting info. By the head end, there is one number that was stamped and filled with orange paint. It was completely covered up by paint before I stripped it.

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... and the elusive serial that I could not find? It is stamped on the tail end of the bed. It reads:

H55
R3
PATD SEPT 4 1888
PATD JAN 28 1896
2893

based on the serial that's pre 1903.

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And there we have it, clean as the day it came out of the mold. I can't say happy birthday grandpa Reed, but today is mine, so after 120+ years it will be painted again.

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years and years ago there was a farm machinery dealer up in acton quebec, they specialized in oddball obsolete brands of tractors from europe. they had one of these super long bed lathes. i think [not sure] it was blaisdale which means it would have been cast by reed. they had it on the floor in the sales room, very nice almost like new shape. it was for sale, but used every once in awhile. as i recall the price tag was $2500 firm. very, very little english was spoken. i could read french some enough to read a parts book and speak a few words but could not understand a single spoken word.i used to go get parts for people if i was up there on business. acton is well into the boondocks of old quebec. the thing had a small swing tor the bed length , not over 14 inches and close to 20 feet between centers. it was straight and perfect. i think it had at least a couple of center rests. it was used to make shafts to repair old saw and grist mills.
 
You can see some casting defects at the tail end

Funny the foundries had trouble with this surface that was upper most in mold. You should see the 12 foot log 20" Greaves Klusman bed of mine - far worse head stock end. So crappy they had to move one of the leg bolts over about 5"

You would think the first one they did like that would make them add better venting or even risers
 








 
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