bodyguy16
Well-known member
Very nice find! Even with no particular need for a lathe im jealous...Hello folks, first post. Hope it's in the right place.
I stumbled across this lathe thru a guy at work. It spent its whole life in the fleet repair facility for the City of Dayton, Ohio. It was setup to turn armatures for starters and generators and by looking at the wear, appears that it was the only function it ever served. There were no chips ever made on this lathe or at least I couldn't find any evidence of it. Sadly, when it was retired, the new owner (a City of Dayton employee) took it home and left it sit uncovered outside for who knows how long. Fortunately, the sixty plus years of oil and grime protected it from certain death. When I went to pick it up, the chip pan was full of water and all of the tooling stored in plastic pans was submerged in a rusty broth.
It included a 3 and 4 jaw chuck, steady rest, follow rest, spindle adapter for 5C collets, micrometer stop, multiple tool holders and boring bars as well as the "mica cutter" for resurfacing the armatures. The only piece it is missing is the drawbar for the collet adapter. That will be my first project on this little beauty. As a bonus, it has a 115 volt, single phase, one hp motor. Even the belts are in excellent condition. It has a really heavy duty stand and setup for a coolant pump. The guy had the original invoice, manuals, parts list and all of its service records... simply an incredible find. And it was free, all I had to do was move it.
I spent the day yesterday reassembling the machine and freeing up everything that had rusted itself together or just gummed up from it's long life. I'm happy to report the damage was minor except for a complete set of Hardinge 5C collets (1/32" thru 1 1/8" by 1/64" increments ) that are too far gone to save, what a shame. The ways have some surface rust pitting that will in no way compromise it's precision or functionality. With a little work, lots of WD40 and shop towels, both chucks are now operational and work like the day the made. Next week I will tackle the painted surfaces with de-greaser as it looks like it too will also cleanup nicely. Some Scotch Brite to polish up the bare metal surfaces will hide the fact it was at one time, almost junk.
I am overjoyed with my little Logan lathe that will hopefully see many years of service in it's new home. There's also a sense of satisfaction that I was there to rescue this wonderful tool from an untimely death and give it another 50 plus years of life. It's too fine of a machine to be turned to scrap and that was certainly where it was headed had it not found its way into my garage. A couple of photos.
Good on you for saving it from certain death and hopefully it will be of great use to you.
$27
