The Story of My Home Shop Lathes......

[wrustle]

I had originally started writing this story in the "Let's see your lathe" section of the "Lathe" forum, but thought it best to move it to a new thread so as to not hijack the original.

I hope the moderators will understand this and not delete this thread.

However, if they do though, I will be forced to go out in the woods scratch a pentagram in the ground and sacrifice a chicken with a dull cutoff tool, then strew swarf about in random patterns while speaking in tongues I've never heard before cursing them for all eternity to never be able to hold even a +/-.005" tolerance forcing them to just take up fishing for the rest of their days.



You have been warned........thus my story shall begin.........




My very first lathe......

A Clausing 12" x 36" toolroom lathe. I had this lathe for about 15 years. Bought it used from Boston Machinery back in 1996.......any guesses where that is?.......wait for it.......you're WRONG.......they're in Peabody, Ma. (pronounced "peebuddy"......it's one of those tests to know if you're from New England or not......us natives know it's "peebuddy".......you outsiders call it "pea body"......that's just plain wrong......what is the matter with you people?)

Ok.....back to the story.........

Paid $3,900.00 for it. Came with an Aloris quick change tool post, 6" 3 jaw chuck, an 8" 4 jaw chuck, and a follower, or what ever it is leaning against the back wall right to the left of the clock.

Never did use it, but didn't want to throw it away......cause then sure as shi....ah.....well, let's just say I'd need it for sure then!!

It also came with a bunch of 5c collets and a collet rack (pictured at the right end of the lathe) and about a half dozen tool holders. But best of all it had a collet closer as you can see at the left end of the machine.

Damn that thing was fricken great!!.....with a collet stop in the collet, you could pop pieces in and out of that machine without even turning off the spindle! Made some good money with that piece of equipment
despite its weakness......and that's just what it was.......it was weak!

Don't get me wrong......you could remove some stock in a hurry.....it was just a little cut at a time with a really fast feed......no hogging on that baby.....no sir!

Then one day.....oh maybe three-four years ago.....my neighbor (well, 1/2 mile down the road anyways) was doing some excavation work for me in the yard and we got to talking about his son working in his shop repairing and restoring old , I mean really old bicycles.

One thing led to another and I asked him if he (his son) might be interested in my lathe for free since I never ever used it anymore and would love to just have the space from it being gone. Well, the next day he comes back with his son in tow, and as you've probably already figured out by now, it was love at first sight.

So that afternoon he and his dad came back to the house with some sort of flatbed truck he has with a crane behind the cab and between the three of us.......yup.......two grown men and a boy.......(cool...always wanted to use that in a sentence describing lifting something heavy....now it's done!) we got it out the back door and in a position so he could sling it with his crane and set on the back of his flatbed.

After lashing it down with some chains, off they went...........hopefully he's putting it to good use!

Didn't get rich with that machine, but it put bread on the table at a time when we sure could have used some bread!

Clausing 12" x 36" Vari-speed toolroom lathe.




Oh, and guess what?


To be continued................

[stevec]

I just read that and it sounded vaguely familiar.

[EdK]

Yup, I'm confused also. Is this a rerun?

Ed

[ETC57]

Is it ground hog day?

Jerry.

[SnailPowered]

He added the Prologue

[Mayhem]

I was expecting the next instalment as well. Perhaps he got distracted by the chicken or lost in the woods.

[wrustle]

For those of you just tuning in.......you may want to go back to the first post I wrote in this thread to get up to speed with the story so far........before reading this..........



So, to continue where I left off..............




Back in the day when my Clausing lathe was in use, (which I used strictly for business and not for hobby......see......I love machining, but have a passion for making money while doing it) I realized through customer demand that I needed to increase not only capacity with regard to the size and length of the parts I was machining, but more importantly the efficiency in which they needed to be made.

I also knew that despite my LOVE for cranking handles (isn't it GREAT when you know a machine so well, you can blindly reach for handles and find them every time.......every single time?!!) there had to be a way I could do things faster...........

Fall one year......(as in the season.....not as in clumsy) I was sitting in my lawn chair at the edge of the school yard soccer field casually conversing with another parent while watching our young sons engage in a somewhat less than riveting soccer match......(thankfully it was cold out to keep me from dozing off)......when the subject came up regarding our employment. Lo and behold, we were both not only machinists, but had our own businesses as well.

Well, one story led to another, and he being farther along in his business than I offered up some parts I could quote on for him to help with his current backlog.

See, he was telling me about how he just bought a new Haas TL-1 lathe........(ohhhhh, I was all ears now.....) and was going through a bit of a learning curve with it.

It was a way cool machine he described!

You cranked the handles to make a cut and then pushed a button and the machine remembered the moves. And when you put a new piece in the machine and pushed that very same button........it did it again......this time......all by itself!! And let me tell you I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I stated I wasn't green with envy as he talked about his new piece of heaven......ummm, I mean, equipment!!

So for a little while......maybe a few months, I did some work for him, and he even did some work for me, some of the bigger stuff I could not do in my Clausing. It was a good thing, all the way around.

One late afternoon, I had some parts of his that I had just finished up and thought,........maybe I'll just take a ride over and drop them off in person.

So I called up my friend and explained to him just that, and after a few minutes of figuring out which giant oak tree he was talking about taking a left just before, and then which stonewall that ran the length of the road to turn right at the end of..........I was on my merry way.

Conveniently for me, his shop was in the next town over, so 15 minutes later and a left at the giant oak, and a right at the end of the stone wall that ran the length of the road........I was there!!

From the outside, you would never know this gentlemen had a machine shop. As I drove down the driveway I came upon a rather large very old two story home with a breezeway attached to very big red barn. Parking my truck in front of the barn I pulled the keys from the ignition and looking around for the usual barnyard dog (not getting my butt chased back to the truck if I could help it).......opened the door and got out.

The first thing that struck me was the sound of a seemingly large diesel engine idling away inside a broken down old 18 wheeler trailer to the side of the barn. As I watched for a minute trying to convince myself that YES, it is an engine inside a trailer, and YES it's running........but why??.........it roared to a higher pitch spewing a cloud of thick black smoke from it's stack pipe as if someone somewhere had just stomped on the gas peddle in the hopes of freeing it from its place amongst the knee high grass and picker bushes en-snarled everywhere around the trailer grasping onto any and everything in an attempt to reach even higher towards the sun. But it was not to be.......and in fact it appeared to have been perhaps many many years since that particular spot was vacant.

As I reached into the back of my truck to gather up the box for my customer a familiar voice welcomed me to his home.

We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, talked of the weather, and as I handed him the box of parts and was about to open the door to my truck, he asked if I'd like to see to his shop..........

"WOULD I????"...........I shouted out loud.......well, in my head anyways...........I simply responded with a "Sure".......but knowing of this new Cnc lathe.......I just had to see it!!!

"Great", he said, "Follow me, my shop is in the barn. That diesel generator over there is how we power everything. Oh, and I have something else to show you, something that you may be very interested in!" and with that we headed off into the barn.





To be continued...............

[Rickabilly]

Still re runs,

I'm headed off into the woods with chickens blood and my own bucket of cursin swarf.

unless of course we get a proper update

Regards
Rick

[dallen]

sounds like the natives are getting restless and tired of reruns, may be an uprising in the Forum before this story gets finished

still waiting on the third chapter where wemay find out that the big generator is being pulled down to almost stall by a little 7 inch lathe drill a 0.01 mm hole in a piece of Aluminum

[EdK]

I'm running out of popcorn and beer just waiting.

Ed