Anybody know what this cast iron work bench is made for?

[dkhuong]

First time posting, but was seeing if anyone knew what this was originally used for. I bought it just for the legs to use as a lathe stand but I have no idea what the purpose of the top is. Its all cast iron, top and legs, around 36" long, around 29"-30" to top of bench top, and legs are 26" tall. Bolts attach the legs to the bench top. The small clamping hinged plate is not iron or steel as it does not take a magnet but everything else takes a magnet.

 

[PugetDude]

Lathe stand.
Everything old is new again.

 

[kbuhagiar]

Sure looks like a lathe stand to me.

 

[dkhuong]

Thanks for the responses. The parts that confuse me about it being a lathe top is there are parts that I don’t see how it could be for a lathe. For example the slight recess on the top that looks like it’s hollowed away in one of the pictures. Then there are 2 extensions on the side that appear something could attach to it. And third on the top there is a narrow strip of metal that extends a distance on the top of the lathe, (is it a track? Or for something to clamp on?)

 

[DocsMachine]

There's about 20,000 different things that could have been used for. The leg-and-base combo is hardly unique to lathes, we're just used to seeing those most, as those are the old machines most likely to have survived to this point.

It could have been anything from bench centers to a straightening jig, to a base for a brazing/gas-welding fixture, some kind of alignment/assembly jig, or an add-on to another machine, like an outboard table and stop for a tablesaw, a bar feeder for a lathe, a material support table for a mill or drill press, you name it.

What happened was the original use ended, and rather than scrapping the whole thing- which is what usually happens to obsolete tooling- somebody stripped off everything but the base, and kept the rest as a table. It's original purpose may never be known.

Doc.

 

[dkhuong]

Some good advice. I'll put my mind to rest then for the time being and enjoy the repurposed cast iron legs on my homecraft wood lathe. Got to say, learned a lot researching other machinery and tools that use A frame legs to find a match.

 

[BobnCO]

It would make a nice small sheet metal break or roll stand as well (weight).

 

[OccupantRJ]

The legs are identical to a power hacksaw that was at my old workplace.

 

[OccupantRJ]

,

 

[DocsMachine]

Back in the leather-belt-drive days, it was common to make one-off machines. That is, a whole machine designed to do one process, often just one cut.

Check out this video from 1917, showing manufacturing 8" cannon shells for WW1. Literally millions were made, and of course that was long prior to CNC, so if you watch, they show a dozen different machines which were pretty clearly made to do that one, single operation.

They designed, cast, machined, scraped and operated an entire machine tool just to make one single cut. About the 30 minute mark in that video, is a machine designed to mill left-hand threads into the base of a cannon shell. It's a complex machine with worm drives and powered mill heads... and when it wasn't needed to make cannon shells anymore, it was scrapped. Broken into pieces and melted down to make some other machine. It was very much a case of why save it? It could do that one task and basically nothing else.

That table is much the same thing. It was part of some piece- a jig, fixture or small machine base- designed and built for a single purpose, and once that purpose was done, it was scrapped.

Doc.

 

[dkhuong]

Looked up the hacksaw and was surprised that was on a frame legs as well.

I checked out some of that video Doc, very informative and an eye opener on machining and the skill and effort that went into making products.

 

[oldmachinenut]

It all looks a lot like the base of my Keller power hacksaw.

 

[metalmagpie]

I had a 7" Atlas shaper on factory stand. The stand looked just like that.

 

[ozyborn]

For your shop cat to piledrive ground chipmunks and mice into.