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I currently own an Atlas/Craftsman 101 6" lathe. Years ago, I had a chance to use some large lathes and understood the advantages of a larger, heavier lathe.

I have a chance to pick up a South Bend 6" or 9". The buyer says "needs a 6" inch head stock" I don't see a 6" listed for South Bend. Maybe its a 9".

I am wondering if the carriage and bed are heavier on the 1920s Southbend than the Atlas allowing me to turn some larger stock. Just want to make a few small cannon barrels and a mouthpiece or two.

Can anyone here offer some comparisons?

tj

In Alexandria Tennessee, see if you can find the phone number for James Keyes Bassoons and talk to Jimmy.

It's sort of hard to find his phone number, but if you can find it, he will talk with you.

Never heard of a South Bend 6. The 9 and 9A (bench mounted) are staples of the home machining community, and get a lot of use in the model engine community. I am sure they will work well for your application.

Figure on $300ish plus shipping on a good headstock. Figure on spending at least as much on tooling a you did on the lathe.

Personally I went the other way. I get rid of my old 1940s 13x72 and use my Chinese 9X20 for everything. Tooling (also Chinese) is cheap and readily available, and it doesn't take up my whole basement. Plus I can cut metric and standard threads.

I'm really not wanting any new stuff but this South Bend is only $500 which is about the best price I've seen. I have an extra Atlas chuck that will probably fit. I would like to have it in the shop for my grandson.

TJ

My father had both the 6” Atlas and later a 1950s South Bend light 10, which I think is the 10” version of the 9A. I never did all that much work on the Atlas - toy cannons and model rocket nose cones mainly - but I recall him saying the South Bend was way stiffer. His SB also has the change gears, power cross feed, and taper attachment so a way more capable machine. I’ve used it and another similar SB quite a bit over the years and it can do anything I’m likely to try other than spin up a tuba bell. $500 seems like a bargain compared to what I have seen lately so I’d be sure the machine was in good shape. If it is really missing the headstock that would make it basically a parts machine and not useable. But since you are familiar with lathes you know what you’re getting.

I missed the sale on the $500 SB, but now I have found a 10" SB with a 4.5 bed that includes a taper (I don't know what that does yet). It is listed at $2200, which is more in line with everything on eBay. I am a little undecided about taking this on, but I have fond memories of working out on the lathe on a summer job back when I was in college. I know the SB won't let me down. It looks like it's in really good shape.

TJ

Taper turning attachments are cool accessories. The move the cross slide in or out a set distance for a given amount per length of travel to cut shallow tapers. This means you can cut long tapers without adjusting your tailstock off center. You can also hold your workpiece in a chuck instead of needing to turn between centers.

If you want explore what’s out there and was ever made visit www.lathes.co.uk. Scroll down and click visit archive.
I was a machinist and later a manufacturing engineer who went to the Band Instrument school at Red Wing for something to do in retirement. My lathe of choice is 1953 13”x48” Leblond Regal with a taper attachment. You can find them for not much more than a South Bend. I’ve used it to make dent rods, dent balls, mandrels and tooling for a Ferrees dent machine. I spend more time making tools than using them.

Twoconnguy wrote: ↑Thu May 16, 2024 8:14 pm My lathe of choice is 1953 13”x48” Leblond Regal with a taper attachment

I recently traded a very underused 1940s 13" regal to @tylerferris1213 for an old Eb three banger... I really wanted to make space in my workshop and to see it get used again. I only had a collet chuck for it and never got around to making or getting a backing plate made for it. If you have one to sell/trade or could cut the the spindle taper threads into a semi finished plate... he would probably be very interested.

Yes, I would be very interested!

A South Bend 10" with a 5c collet closer is a very handy machine.

Kingconn wrote: ↑Sun May 26, 2024 7:30 am A South Bend 10" with a 5c collet closer is a very handy machine.

I’ve never used a lathe with collets - only three, four, and six-jawed chucks - would think the attraction is if you’re doing a lot of work with the same diameter round stock. And perhaps more rigid mounting in the headstock.

Genuinely curious.

Eric

Collets are fantastic when you need fast and repeatable high concentricity work-holding for the lathe, especially for drilling an boring operations. The only way to get better alignment is to turn between centers, but then you are limited with what operations you can perform.

Ok, speaking of lathes. I have never operated one. I have always wondered how the conical bore for an oboe was done; some kind of spinning something, but the thing that is being spun, how is that made?

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 7:44 am Ok, speaking of lathes. I have never operated one. I have always wondered how the conical bore for an oboe was done; some kind of spinning something, but the thing that is being spun, how is that made?

You can see them boring an oboe at about 45s in this video. Notice how the boring bar moves toawrds the center as it moves further in.

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 7:44 am Ok, speaking of lathes. I have never operated one. I have always wondered how the conical bore for an oboe was done; some kind of spinning something, but the thing that is being spun, how is that made?

There is a nice explanation of the steps in making a delrin flute here. Wooden flutes are made the same way.

http://www.francoisbaubet.com/p/blog-page_31.html

Ok, but those don't appear to be a conical bore. I was curious about how to make the reamer one would use for a conical bore. Seems it has to be "exactly exact" and I have no clue how that would be done.

Mary Ann wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 10:29 am Ok, but those don't appear to be a conical bore. I was curious about how to make the reamer one would use for a conical bore. Seems it has to be "exactly exact" and I have no clue how that would be done.

The flute reamers are conical. This might help to show you how they are made.

https://www.labellenote.fr/en/lutherie/ ... sconiques/

Thanks. I can't imagine how they made conical bores before such tools were available. Then to play with the bore dimensions would be unbelievably time consuming. I see a picture on one of my double reed books of a curved Cor Anglais, and simply can't imagine how that was made or how it played in tune (and perhaps it didn't!)

Way back between engineering schools I worked for a year in a factory that manufactured punches and "other stuff," and I got very familiar with operating centerless grinders and surface grinders. I had just been informed I was assigned to the fancy new computerized milling machine a week before I planned to give notice because I had saved enough to go back to school, so I gave notice early and didn't get to learn it. However I can see how a very precise tapered reamer could be easily made on one of these if you had access, and how you could fiddle with the dimensions of same pretty easily.

I was pondering making a Russian Bassoon a while back and decided I could make essentially long tapered spade bits to get a tapered bore. Never got around to trying it, but tgat looks a little like the delrin flute approach. Other way to do a tapered bore - maybe - on a manual lathe would be with a long boring bar, a taper attachment (which varies the ID as a function of the distance down the bore), and with the workpiece held in a steady rest - if you could get the setup stiff enough. The reamers seem way less scary somehow.

I did make a cornetto though by using a router and spherical bits to rough out the bore in a left and right half of the instrument, then finalizing the bore by hand. The instrument is then glued together then the outside shaped. Not to hard in bass wood. I started making a bigger one in maple and got the bore carved (and a pretty good blister on my palm doing that). I should finish that one.

Eric