Southbend Lathe

[Jacques Reed]

Hi Chris,

Love the old South Bend lathes and will look forward to seeing photos of yours here.

Many years ago I passed up buying an old pre-war South Bend when I found it was missing some of the change gears. At a later date I was visiting the South Bend website and found out that you can still buy replacement change gears for the old machines. Regretted I didn't know that at the time of the sale.
How many companies still offer parts for their products after 80 years!

I eventually bought an Australian made Qualos lathe as shown in one of my older posts. I was not getting great results with the tool bits that came with it. After further reading on how to grind tool bits I noticed they had been ground for tool holders that hold the tool bit in a horizontal plane. My Qualos lathe has Australian made, but American style holders that hold the tool bit at 13 degrees above the horizontal. I went back to my fifty year old South Bend, "How to Run a Lathe" manual and reground some of them as per their instructions and diagrams which show the tools held at an angle within their holders. Problems solved.

Good information is timeless.

Cheers,