As I have said before, I have run a number of different lathes in my time, and I still have a fondness towards the Clausing Colchester 17" tool room engine lathe as far as a general purpose, all round, easily to work with, accurate as hell and as "good" as the guy running it! Very easy to change speeds by means of a rotating control dial. Feeds were equally easy to select. It had a bunch of add on features / options including a "quick threading" attachment with it's own dedicated half nut, that could be set to disengage within a thousandth or so. Great for blind holes or difficult threads! Sturdy enough to take heavy cuts yet accurate enough to work in tenths when required, and it could run all day without beating up the operator.
I like those machines also, a local shop I worked at had a older one and a newer 17", i was low on the totem pole and used the older smaller one when I was there. The machines are hard to find in good condition
I've run a lot of the lathes you've mentioned. My favorite to run was a 60s model 20" South Bend Turnado. Not heavy duty by any means, but the 2 speed motor with the clever gear change selector and the slick quick change gearbox made it easy to concentrate on the work. The lighter carriage and tail stock were a plus for light to medium duty work. The heaviest lathe I ever used was an Axleson. As pointed out in the video you will get a good workout if you run it all day. The best Taiwanese lathe I ever used was the Cadilliac. The build quality was excellent. The best Japanese lathe I've run would be Mori Seki. The Mazak Ajax is good as well and a good machine to get if you can find one that hasn't been beat to death. Cheers from NC/USA
@@deedeeindustrialsuperprecision South Bend must have not sold many. They were undercut at the time by lathes like Mazak I would guess. I saw a nice long bed Turnado on sale from a college five or six years ago and it's the last one I've seen anywhere.
I don't know if the manual Okuma's were popular in USA, but in South Africa I found an Okuma LP that they called a toolroom lathe. A generous 12" diameter over the ways but only 1½" spindle bore with an A1-6 nose, and a short bed, with carriage wings half the length of the ways. Variable spindle speed using a Kopp Variator. Beautiful solid machine.
Hi, the larger Okuma gearhead lathes about 16" were sold and now sought after by gunsmiths because of the shorter headstock, there are a fair amount of those still around HGR surplus gets them in. The machines from Japan really changed things and are still being copied today.
I have a 10ee and a 14" Enco with the 3.125" bore. The Chinese company that built the Enco built all their lathes from 14 up to 24" using the same beds, saddles, and headstocks. So my 14" lathe has 12" of travel on the cross-slide. The 10ee is like driving a Ferrari, the Enco lathe is like driving a dump truck. But even a dump truck comes in handy from time to time.
MS, yep the 10ee is wonderful, just like a Ferrari. And just like a Ferrari a 10ee is mechanically complicated and costs a fortune to repair... if you can figure out how to repair it. The last price list I saw from Monarch 25 years ago had the list price for a 10ee as $90,000 ... just like a Ferrari!
@@aceroadholder2185 Actually, they are a simple design. There is no transmission, the spindle is directly belt driven. The motor has a back gear mounted to it.The quick change is driven by a belt for feeds. In thread cutting it is gear driven. The rest of the mechanics of the lathe is conventional, except very well designed. The lube system on the lathe is excellent.
@@makerspace533 An A.C. motor driving a D.C. generator driving a D.C. motor all controlled by vacuum tubes... indeed wonderful when it works. Simple, not so much.
I sold my last gearhead lathe 10yrs ago and just used the two 10ee lathes and found I really need a standard lathe for multiple reasons, one being general lack of power to quickly remove metal. Thanks.
The problem with the 10ee is lack of maintenance and abuse by operators constantly overloading the drive system. In my observation the Monarch ee and the Hardinge HLVH really out class most all cars. They made enough 10ee lathes that one can still be found in great condition, it is ridiculous to think one can truly rebuild one at home.
The KDK seems to work great on the Hardinge, I like it on this Axelson, but I found an early rare version 200 series post that has the mounting bolt more forward like the 100 series making the tools not project out as far as the 150m series and the newer 200 series, thanks for that
It’s getting to where my fingers are not so nimble anymore. I have to use a pair of tweezers to load and unload those chips for the GoPros. Did you try to clean off the chip and test to see if it still would read? Have a great day.
Nice video Dee, interesting thoughts on lathes, especially the imported ones. The carriage wings are pretty short on imported lathes compared to the US or Europe made lathes. Best regards
I have a leblond 15x54 lathe. It’s OK and you get used to the servo shift. But I will sell it if I can find a monarch 61. The Herc is a tank. The pacemaker is likely the most over engineered lathe made.
whats your take on chucks? size wize. i was told by an old toolmaker to use the smallest chuck that can do the job well to reduce vibration. he recon if your chuck is heavy it will amplify vibration......and im not shore if it is wishfull thinking, or the changes i made over time was also changes in quality. but the sence i get is that that holds true. what do you think?
Most have found a small as possible 4jaw chucks are the most solid. If the chuck is not balanced the part becomes larger on the outer end. The best thing is to test out your chucks.
So I have never ran a Axleson lathe But I have two Monarch and I can tell you my 16X30 weight around 6,500 Lbs. And my 16X54 is 9,890 Lbs and they are Rock Solid machines right there
Instead of fretting over a thou or 2 runout in the chuck, why not just used soft jaws custom bored to your holding diameter? Piece is then held true concentric with the spindle axis.
@@bluestarindustrialarts7712 Honestly i think that approach is far to slow relating to the work I do in repair, restoration, hydraulics, and powersports applications, that sort of fixturing is for manufacturing and multiple parts, I am familiar with it, but it should not be a crutch because your chucks are in bad shape and you do not know how to fix them, thanks for the input.
