Da 90 Year Old Lathe
 

I figured I'd just start a thread on the lathe.
https://i.imgur.com/5I3KDI4l.jpg

I did some learning. It is a Craftsman Metalcraft 918, not the 910 as I was told. Pretty darn simple name. 9" swing with 18" between the centers. It's the same age as my Dad. It was made by Atlas for Sears and the only difference between the Atlas and Sears 9" lathe was the style of the feet of the bed. The feet on the Sears version were somewhat stylized and the Altas feet were plain. $64.50 out the door in 1935. I probably paid the same amount, but in 2024 dollars.:shrug:

I moved all the toys from the west bay of the barn, swept the floor, and backed the truck to the door. I took off the motor, a heavy puppy, and the tail stock while it was in the truck. Then maneuvered it, carefully, on to my ramps.
https://i.imgur.com/XuAW1MOl.jpg

From the ramp to the creeper.
https://i.imgur.com/5TVkP82l.jpg

And from the creeper to magically getting itself up on the bench and back together.:hehe:
https://i.imgur.com/NlhNiRrl.jpg

Actually, it took three hands to slide the heavy poop up the ramp. I got smart and took the chuck off. I poked a large eye screw into the bench and ran a chain through it to the bed. Looped the chain to the bed, then simultaneously pulled the chain towards me while pushing the lathe up the ramps. And also keeping it straight. Once the head stock was on the bench, I could swing it and get the whole thing on the bench. I put the motor back on, swung it another 180 and moved to where it's going to live. Then I stopped for lunch.

Tomorrow, it gets bolted down. I found a reprint of the manual and once that arrives, I'll start going through it and hopefully figure out that funky transmission. I found my old copy of 'How To Run A Lathe' in a box with our old high school year books. It was an old copy when I got it.

$64 in 1935 would be about 2 ounces of gold in terms of rough value.

I don't care if it works or not, it is very cool! I'm sure Mrs. cheesy wouldn't mind you sticking it in the living room so you could just admire it.

Mrs.C is going to have to just look at me for the next few weeks.
https://i.imgur.com/zLGUxXll.jpg

Broke my ankle last night at the roller rink during a race. Laid up for four to six weeks. And I lost the race.

Ouch! I broke my ankle a few years ago. That sucker still hurts every time the weather changes.

What's one more ache at my age?

Bummer.

On the positive side, you now have another great reason to not travel for your old job, should they ask. And lots of time to learn macrame.

Geez..... Dress you all up, can't take you anywhere, cheesy!

Unfortunately this will also put his dreams of being a professional tap dancer on hold for awhile. But Irish dancing might not be a problem.....

I think I am missing something here ,is the lathe 90 years old ,or the roller skating owner with defective porcelain ankles ?

The lathe is 90. Porcelain bones is 68.

When I first started reading this thread and then saw your foot, I thought maybe you should have had more help moving that heavy lathe. I once had a beer can fall out of the freezer when I opened the door and land on one of my toes. It popped like a grape. I pictured worse in your case.

Dropping that lathe on my foot would have really really hurt. I damn near got taken out by the lathe chuck when I killed the power at high speed and it unscrewed itself. SOB came after me pretty quick.(Note to self:disengage transmission before cutting power)

The operators manual came today and it reads like my former company's operator manuals, meaning next to useless. I'm on the hunt now for an Atlas/Craftsman 9" Maintenance Manual. That one looks like it will be a tough one to locate. There is a pretty good site in the UK that has good info on this puppy, like belt lengths and how to actually work the transmission. Also, this lathe may be closer to 1932 than to 1936. Either way, it's old.

As to my boo boo, I see a bone doc on Tuesday to get my hard cast and have him/her/it take a gander at my knee. I hope it's just a sprain and not a torn ACL. The ankle is letting me know that I screwed up, but the knee has been whining more than it did Thursday night.

You've probably searched everything I could come up with, but just in case (scroll down to the 936; the 918 is just below it):
http://www.lathes.co.uk/atlas/page2.html

These manuals might help: https://store.lathes.co.uk/print/ma731
Second one seems to cover care and feeding of a lathe.

Also this: http://www.lathes.co.uk/craftsman/page2.html

Yes and thanks. I've printed out the 'Craftsman 9 inch' page. More info there than the operators manual.

I've also found the parts list at VintageMachinery.com. I can probably wing the service without the maintenance manual.

Adventures today.

Buster woke me up at 4:30 this morning to let him out. As I can't get up the stairs to our bedroom, I'm sleeping on a naugahyde covered couch. Which is also the world's most comfortable bed. Anyway, I don't want him to run upstairs and wake up Crabby, so I hobble on my crutches and let him out on his lead. I throw on a coat, hat, and a solitary slipper, then follow him out though I stay on the deck. He starts to head back to the deck, so I start to turn and fell flat on my back. I spent the 20 minutes trying to figure out the hell I'm going to get back up or at least get to the door. "I've fallen and I can't get up"
I ended up crawling to the door on my hands and knees, while dragging my crutches along. Buster is licking my face or standing by the door. Buster was not doing the helpful Collie, "Timmy fell in the well' thing.
I managed to get back in the house and haul myself upright. I hobbled back to my couch and went back to bed. It's now 5:10.

7:30 rolls around and Buster is again licking my face to wake me up. This time Crabby...er...Mrs.C is with him and mentions the two sleepy heads she found when she came downstairs. I tell her about the adventure and she gets a little bent. "blah, blah, don't you know better, blah, blah, what if you couldn't get back to the house, blah, blah." I interrupt when she takes a breath and tell her I was on my hands and knees. That means the evil little knee scooter can be put back in use.

Adventure Part II
I want to wait for either Jake or Courtney to come over to go up into the barn attic and get the Evil One down. It's a low ceiling place that's hard to move around in. Mrs.C insists that she will get it down.
Oh, Jeez. She went up there. I gave her the general location. She has OCD. Not the Monk or Rainman kind, but the kind that pisses folks off that don't have OCD. She comes back with the Evil One about 20 minutes later and she's spitting nails. The Evil One was not in the exact location, blah, blah, blah, I had to move two bikes, blah, blah, I got my jeans dirty kneeling on something, blah, blah, I'm going up there and straighten that mess out. This is where my knickers knotted. I said my attic is fine, I know where everything is, and if you mess with it, just remember what I did to Marlene and George when they 'straightened out' my desks. That shut her up.

I hate to say it, but I'm glad The Evil One is back.

Not sure if you noticed ,but you are falling apart my friend .

At least it makes for entertaining reading. Keep up the good work!

It's not the years, it's the miles.

Honestly this thread should be re titled "Cheesy's Retirement adventures" :lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:

Thank God there is a follow-on to his work adventures. Not sure I could have handled the withdrawal.

or maybe, a TV Series...?



https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/6258/grnHbH.jpg

:lmao:

I'm thinking we could all get together to write a short story. Each person gets one sentence.

For example:
Writer 1: Well cheesy finally retired, looking forward to a long period of peace and quiet, and setting a leisurely schedule into his sunset years.
Writer 2: While he was sipping a Long Island Tea on his front porch, suddenly a gang of Mexican banditos invaded Cheesy Manor, demanding gold and jewelry.
Writer 3: Fortunately an alien mother ship arrived for the inevitable invasion, and scared the banditos away.
Writer 4: cheesy countered their demand to take them to our leader by informing them that it was Super Bowl Sunday, and they should stay and partake of yummy snax prepared by Mrs. cheesy.

There's a football game?

I thought you dropped that heavy lathe on your foot. That makes more sense than a rollerskate race. Sorry, Cheesy, get well.

I sold a nice lathe a couple of years ago. Can't remember the brand, but it was GB Packers colors.

The chuck was aiming for that ankle when it unscrewed itself, so it tried. As one of the cute ER nurses said, I was having fun when it happened.

I do have belt sizes now, two 30" and one 31", so that's something. I bought a 2MT live center for the tail stock and 3MT dead center so I can do longish shafts if I want. Still looking for the Maintenance Manual. I would like to find a 3 jaw self centering chuck for it, along with dogs, a face plate for the dogs, and a steady rest, but that's not a rush. After 90 years, the threading gears have gone bye-bye, but I can't ever see me cutting threads on it. And most threading I do is metric anyway.

I actually found metric gears on ebay that fit.

No hard cast.
https://i.imgur.com/FnhPkEKl.jpg

I graduated straight to an Aircast/walking boot. I have another one of these so plans are afoot for a robot costume come Halloween.
If I don't get stupid(:lmao:)and the break stays stabilized until I see the bone doc next week, I won't need surgery and the accompanying hardware. Going to attempt going upstairs tonight and the garage over the weekend.

"If I don't get stupid()and the break stays stabilized until I see the bone doc next week, I won't need surgery and the accompanying hardware. Going to attempt going upstairs tonight and the garage over the weekend."

Translation:
Here's how it will go if I don't F it up.
Here's how I am going to F it up. (This weekend)

I can totally identify except I generally don't tell people first. They have to catch me. Quote from my wife:" OK. Exactly which part of bouncing around the backyard on a dirtbike do you think qualifies as 'bed rest'?" She threatens to tie me down sometimes.

your knees didn't look dirty. :o

Snort.:lmao: You have one of those, too. I used my crutch to push the hydrostat pedal on our JD tractor after my foot surgery and heard about for days..

Thursday night, as our SIL is helping me into Mrs.C's Renegade, he asks her if she told me not to get hurt. Because our daughter says that every time he plays hockey after the incident of a puck, followed by a stick, in his mouth the day he left his mouth guard home. He hasn't gotten hurt since.

Parts are arriving daily. Too bad all I can do is watch them stack up.:shrug:

So, Mrs. C had her 'Inconvenience' surgery yesterday. She came through it fine. Her surgeon came to see me in the waiting room and she is just too bubbly for an old guy. After telling me everything looked great with Mrs.C, I had to do a step by step on how I effed up my ankle.

It was a long day, we left home at 1pm and didn't get back until after eight. Her surgery was scheduled at four and she'd had nothing to eat for 12 hours prior. I offered to stop at a BK on the way home but she reminded me that she'd set up the crockpot before we left. Still, I haven't had a Whopper in months and it sounded good.

She's doing great, though there is a bit of resentment that I'm not able to spoil her. I try, but there's not a hell of a lot I can do. That said, I dropped her off at the grocery store while I took and gassed up her car. For her birthday, I've always gotten her a Devils' Food chocolate cake with Pistachio frosting. Last year, they didn't have any. She found one today and figured we needed spoiling. It was supposed to go with dinner but it rounded out lunch.:tup:

Are you sure that ankle is broke? I think you fakin so you don't have to wait on her hand and foot. lol
Glad to her she's doing okay. :tup:

If it ain't, I deserve an Oscar just for being able to go from my light taupe skin color to freakin mayo toned when I bump the SOB.

And thanks.

So the $2200.00 worth of furniture we ordered last month arrived this morning. Two rocking recliners and a new couch. As I am no help at the moment, Mrs.C and the delivery guys got everything arranged to her liking.

I haven't tried the couch yet but it's looking like it may be tonight's sleeping spot. The rocking recliners, though, are the catsass. Except for how Mrs.C has them set up. Instead of next to each other, the foot rests are angled towards each other at about forty five degrees. Not a big deal normally, but she managed to walk into my Aircast when she got out of her chair.

OMG, I felt that through the top of my head and saw stars. If I was still wearing my smart watch, the heart rate alarm would have gone off. It took almost forty five minutes for the pain to subside.

All I got from her was, 'Oops' and 'I didn't bump it that hard'. If I'd had the power of speech, I would have offered to punch her latest stitches.

As far as the lathe goes, the cover to the gear case is held on by a hook and square 1/4-20 nut. It's supposed to be a knurled brass nut. I happened to find the correct nut on fleabay for $50. For $50, I can get a hunk of brass round stock and make a bunch of them.

I went back to the bone doc today. Heard what I didn't want to hear. The break has not stabilized and I never got out to the garage or down to the basement. X-rays showed the fibula has moved, so surgery. That's tentatively scheduled for Monday. I earned a plate and several more screws in my left foot.

I can kiss spring time riding good bye.

Sux. :ohno:

Oh man, That sucks.