Rescued a lathe

A coworker works elsewhere as well, and one of his co-workers there caught a bunch of lathes being dumped from a local high school. The last one had been sitting out in the rain (with a bit of plastic wrap over it) for some time by the look of it when my co-worker mentioned it to me. It's been painted over so many times I can't make out any numbers, but it appears to be a Delta/Rockwell 1460 12x36 - with the "new style" tailstock (cam-lock base) and indexing pulley but old enough to have the cast iron legs, not the pressed sheet steel legs.

Tool rest (base and all) is missing, and somebody ripped the 3-phase controls off of it. In a weird variation from the usual school lathes (with missing tailstocks) this one came with one somewhat complete (it does not self-eject, the ram lock seems to not work, and the ram lock has an old-style locking screw in a new style tailstock casting, per documents found at OWWM) it also has a second tailstock casting with only the cam-lock parts (no ram, handwheel, screw, clamp parts, etc).

It's ~80 years younger than my other 12x36, at a guess, and in better shape by far. Not sure what I'll do long-term for powering it - I'm more set up for DC variables, but since it has a (probably functional, but untested) 3/4 horse 3 phase motor with it, I might get a 1->3 VFD to run it and give it variable speed.

Reply to
Ecnerwal
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Good for you! Lots of things can be overcome. Took me years to find a 1" x 10 supplier for chucks - but I did. Mine is a 1945 or before all there. Home made cabinet - but heavy cast iron bed and an indexing main pulley. Nice for art work or indexing.

Mart> A coworker works elsewhere as well, and one of his co-workers there

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

get a VFD , you will be much happier than with DC and you won't need a new motor either.

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Reply to
Bill Noble

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