Sidney 17 cone head lathe

[jfkid]

Hello!
I picked up this older Sidney 17 inch lathe this weekend. Lots of tooling and options like the taper attachment, follow and steady rests, 3& 4 jaw chucks and two faceplates. Big machine. After searching I found one reference that said pre WWII 17 inch Sidneys must be rare because he had only ever seen one. I thought I would upload a few photos. Do we know when the cone heads stoped being made?


I didn’t think to take photos after we got it unloaded. I will get some better ones and update here when I can.

 

[Tom A]

The tower for the overhead drive shows some "creative" construction :~)

 

[johnoder]

"Do we know when the cone heads stopped being made?"
No, but I have a brochure dated 5-11-30 that is all gear head

 

[jfkid]

So it’s probably a 1920’s machine?

Is it possible for you to scan that 5-11-30 brochure?

 

[johnoder]

So it’s probably a 1920’s machine?

Is it possible for you to scan that 5-11-30 brochure?

Its but 8 pages, has been scanned and has nothing to do with cone head Sidneys

Start a "conversation" with johnoder and provide your email address and I'll send it over.

 

[99Panhard]

If it's not too much trouble I would really like some close-up photos of that taper attachment. I have part of one for my machine but lack the bracket that bolts to the back of the bed. I bought the lathe (a 15") at a print shop auction about 40 years ago. The part I need was probably there but I didn't know enough to recognize it.

 

[jfkid]

I was back there and took some more photos including this of the taper attachment as requested:

 

[99Panhard]

Thanks very much. It is a bit more complicated than I'd thought and will be a challenge to make but at least I now have an idea what it looked like.

 

[johnoder]

Thanks very much. It is a bit more complicated than I'd thought and will be a challenge to make but at least I now have an idea what it looked like.

Hi Joe

Here are some Greaves Klusman photos of their bracket. This one also has upper details to "box things in" on top

 

[99Panhard]

Thanks John. I'll have to take some pictures of what I do have so perhaps we can come up with an idea on how to make them work. I'm a little confused as to how it works. Is this one where you have to remove the cross feed screw so that the saddle is controlled by the taper attachment? I'm sure it does not have a telescoping lead screw.

By the way, I got some heat treated (i.e. not annealed) 4140 for the axle. I haven't gotten to it yet...I've more work to do on the rear end fitting the new bearings but that is next up.

 

[johnoder]

Thanks John. I'll have to take some pictures of what I do have so perhaps we can come up with an idea on how to make them work. I'm a little confused as to how it works. Is this one where you have to remove the cross feed screw so that the saddle is controlled by the taper attachment? I'm sure it does not have a telescoping lead screw.

By the way, I got some heat treated (i.e. not annealed) 4140 for the axle. I haven't gotten to it yet...I've more work to do on the rear end fitting the new bearings but that is next up.

I expect the oldies don't have telescoping - mostly meaning you get to fiddle around with partial disassembly to make it do something useful.

Here is the HTRAL from late twenties. It may say something about South Bend's non telescoping. Yep see page 82

http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/1617/5795.pdf

 

[99Panhard]

The SB attachment seems similar but simpler. I'm going to have to puzzle this out...making use of the parts I have and figuring out what I can make. So far, I'm only turned short tapers and I've been successful doing that by using a boring head in the tail stock to offset the center. I managed to make a #9 to #10 B&S adapter for my universal dividing head that way. It is probably not perfect but it is very close and allowed me to use the #9 collets to hold a work piece.

The cross feed screw on the Sidney is easy to remove and I suspect it was planned that way for this purpose.