Model Train Journal

Here is a picture of the lathe I use. Advertised in Popular Mechanics in the 1920's for $225. I bought it a few years back and stripped paint and shot new, also mounted the modern electric motor on top. The cast arches on the top are actually aluminum castings that I made by first creating patterns from wood and then sand cast. I tried to make castings that give the feel of the machine. The motor sits on a welded frame, pivoted, and uses it's weight for tension on the flat belt. It really has no issues and I use it fairly often. It sits in my 10' x 10' shed, floor beefed up to hold the weight.



Allan

I like it. Unfortunately, Photobucket has lost my photos of the 11" Sheldon, but here is a distant shot of the 9" South Bend. I have everything - full collets, lots of chucks, taper attachment, etc. built Sept. 1944.

Oh - here is a better shot:



The drill press is Harbor Freight - one of their better efforts. I have one in each hangar, one in the home workshop, and one converted to a rivet machine.

The table is also Harbor Freight. Do not waste your money. It needs serious bracing to even be useful as a writing desk, let alone a work bench. And it is made of fiber board, mostly. Looks great, though.

Oh, yeah, speaking of COLA, there are a lot of my UP cars - 90% K-Line. Way ahead of their time.

Nice Bob!

I just bought another drill press, a Ryobe, much prettier than my other one.

Allan

My Craftsman 6" 101.212, and China drill press, and another Harbor Freight work bench.
And then my father cira 1953.
Hugh

I always wanted one of those 6" lathes. They are so cute. Here is the 11" Sheldon - it has 2- railed a dozen locomotives, and made drivers from rough castings for others.

This one is an early 12" Atlas - I sold it on Craig's list for $300 to the first caller.



I had an early Atlas 6" lathe for a time - did not like it. Attempted to machine some live steam drivers - wound up on a 10" South Bend.

One of my drill presses....



Wish I had had my camera with me, but a couple of weeks ago while up at an Amish estate auction there was another one of these, but then in the barn was a band saw that was all wood - blade and pulley to the motor appears to be the only metal parts (nails & screws...).

And another bump. Not sure about that spelling of lathe. Janet called me about a week before I left for Kansas City to clean out Allan's basement to ask me if I wanted his lathe. I will spare the story for now of how she and I managed to get the thing loaded into the van, but we all -- including the lathe -- survived it. After the summer layout project is over I will build a pedestal for it and get set up.

Jim

So I am not the culprit. Until very recently, all my photo posts were Photobucket. That means almost all my stuff is no longer accessible from this forum.

My 10-coupled are all hosted here - and they are high resolution. But I cannot imagine that I have saturated this place.

We are going to need some guidance from Bill.

Nice to see Allan's stuff again. It has a charm.

Per Jay's suggestion I am going bump and update a few posts. This one is an embarrassment: I have had Allan Wehrle's lathe in my shop for about a year and a half and still haven't set it up. Here is sits, with headstock and tailstock removed, as was necessary to get the weight down for loading it into a van for the trip from KC to DFW:



I have had to rely on my little lathe for what it will do and rely on friends for more substantial lathe work (you know who you are -- thank you!). I need to fabricate a stand -- I have rough plans and material but it is just a matter of priority.

Jim

I have finally made restoration of Allan Wehrle's old Monarch lathe a priority. Part of what stalled the project was the need for a suitable stand. A regular workbench places the lathe too high. I was going to build a stand out of dimensional lumber, as I have a lot of that sitting around. However, there was an old test fixture in my shop from a customer project many years ago that was heading to the recycle center when I realized that it had enough 8020 in it to build a nice lathe stand. Here it is:



The top is two pieces of 3/4" furniture-grade plywood that I salvage from a built-in entertainment center in my house when it get removed as part of a remodel. The bottom shelf is to hold the extra chuck and any other heavy or tall pieces. There are brackets for a low-height shelf just under the top to hold stock and maybe tooling. I may make this a drawer -- or not (under the life is short rule).

The odd stack of horizontal pieces at the bottom on each side is my way of getting the bottom side-to-side rails off the ground enough to get a pallet jack (which I have) under the stand to move the lathe.

For those who don't know what 8020 is, think "lab grade erector set". By good luck, I had enough --just enough really -- 8020 in the right lengths to get the stand built without having to buy anything but 5/16 countersink machine screws to hold the top on. I also learned that a chop saw will cut aluminum with no complaint (and cut it pretty clean too). Sometimes procrastination is a good thing. I have been planning to give away my chop saw (an old and very heavy Craftsman I no longer use) but hadn't done it yet. *sigh* -- guess I'll have to keep it now.

More to come
Jim

Here is the lathe bed after a good clean up:



Everything looks to be in good operating shape, with no signs of abuse or excessive wear. I will say that Allan did a nice job painting this. Very little overspray -- in fact, very little evidence that his paint job was a repaint. I don't know what color these were from the factory, but the paint has the look to me of a factory job.

The next step is to get this up on the stand while it's still light enough to be lifted by the available crew (my fellow club members) without a crane. Then the headstock and tailstock get remounted.

Jim

Sharp looking unit!

Mmm...compound slide! One thing my little Unimat still lacks.