Southbend Lathe

I guess I disagree, sort of

I probably am not a good person to be giving advice about using old machines. I have no nostalgic view toward machines, they are nothing more to me than pieces of machinery with which we make money.
In a working machine shop such as ours, I am obligated to furnish my men adequate machines to perform the job at hand. I define adequate as my men being able to perform the work so as to satisfy the requirements of the job, and my shop make a profit.
We do not need to be wasting time trying to figure out the limitations, and peculars of a certain machine. The job comes first.
There is no doubt that these old machines, if in reasonably good condition, are perfectly adequate for the hobbyist or Gunsmith. If it has a few quirks, the craftsman learns to work around them. In a working industrial shop such as ours, we do not have that luxury........jackie
 
jackie schmidt said:
I probably am not a good person to be giving advice about using old machines. I have no nostalgic view toward machines, they are nothing more to me than pieces of machinery with which we make money.
In a working machine shop such as ours, I am obligated to furnish my men adequate machines to perform the job at hand. I define adequate as my men being able to perform the work so as to satisfy the requirements of the job, and my shop make a profit.
We do not need to be wasting time trying to figure out the limitations, and peculars of a certain machine. The job comes first.
There is no doubt that these old machines, if in reasonably good condition, are perfectly adequate for the hobbyist or Gunsmith. If it has a few quirks, the craftsman learns to work around them. In a working industrial shop such as ours, we do not have that luxury........jackie
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Jackie,

What's your take on the Asian made machines, for say, chambering 50 barrels a year. I mean, if you could get a Jet, grizz or Colchester for $4000, vs an old Pratt and Whitney or similar, in descent shape, same money, which way would you go. New asian, or old solid lathe with a little slop?

Ben
 
Ben

Personally, I want the Pratt with no slop. We have one. It is what I do my barrel work on.
But, I would take one of the new Asian Machines any day over a old American Lathe that has seen better days.
The fact is, most Gunsmith work is not that demanding on a machine. You rarely ever even approach the HP out put so as to strain anything, probably the most demanding operation that is performed is threading, and the craftsman can always take his time with that so as not to tax things.
I think the manufacturers have done a pretty good job of bringing out machines that suite the hobbyist. You can always offer up more cash to aquire one of the higher end Asian Machines, such as the Acer that is made in South Korea. You just have to decide if you want to spend $8000+, or if a $4000 China built lathe will suite your needS just fine........jackie
 
With respect, Jackie.

Where do you think the Taiwanese fit into that comparison?
Just curious.

:eek:
 
Spot3

For about four decades, you could watch the Asian Market change as Countrys modernized.
Remember when the term "made in Japan" meant cheap junk. Then the Japanese got a LOT better.
The 'cheap' manufacturing then moved to Tiawan. Then They got better.
Then the South Koreans took up the gauntlet of providing the really cheap low end products. Then, they got a lot better.
It is now Mainland China's turn.
The super cheap machine manufacturing follows the cheap labor market. I don't know who will be after China, as they are starting to discover 'things American'.
At present, the Tiawanese make machines that are considered "upper end"in the medium priced machine tool market, along with South Korea.
The upper end is certainly Japan. But I can't think of a Japanese Machinery Manufacturer that even makes a manual lathe anymore........jackie
 
Jackie, has Mazak stopped shipping small engine lathes to the US? My Mazak sales rep is out of town. I know Mazak stopped shipping the larger engine lathes in the 20" and larger swing class about 1993 or so. They still make larger conventional lathes for the world market but do not ship them to the US. Why, I wonder??

It is a shame we US citizens let the US Government shut down all the good foundries so we can no longer pour cast metals. We did let it happen!!

I will, reluctantly, admit it is simpler to go to the lathe store (Harbor Freight, etc) and buy a nice shiny new "kit" lathe that comes with most everything needed to start making barrels. I will also, reluctantly, admit that some of these lathes will make do for an amateur to start out with.

The problems I have with this scenario is that ;
1) we are contributing and condoning and aiding in the military armament of the Chinese Communist military who is not just arming so as to provide traffic control for the upcoming Olympics.
2) we are adding to the balance of trade deficit that is very close to shutting down the Mighty American Dollar. When that happens, things will follow like $400/barrel oil and $8.00/gallon gasoline. But as our illustrious Vice President, Dick Cheney, said Tuesday in an interview, "SO"!!

Like I mentioned, some of this Chicom Junk is ok for the hobbyist. But there are hundreds of good quality "old" American iron out there to supply the demands of the hobbyist-benchrest wanna-be gunsmiths for years to come. What you want to look for is American built that is in the "toolroom" class and "toolroom" sizes for barrel fitting and other similar needs of our sport/competition shooting.

I still contend you are better off with used quality than new junk.
 
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You all make good points.

I just got back from Hyundai heavy industries in Ulsan, and I was touring through a nearly completed container ship. It had a Korean lathe in the machine shop. It looked quite well made, I tinkered with it for a second, before moving on to the engine room. HHI is proposing a Korean machine for our shop, and I scratched it out, and put in what I knew and trusted and can get parts for (Clausing Ibarmia, Italian made).

The choices are getting slimmer for manual lathes, for sure. Make no mistake, I would have specified an American made machine, if anyone built one!

Sorry for paying $ to the commies, but I do have a grizz lathe coming.

Althoug British stuff has never really impressed me, I'm Looking at an older, but good shape clausing Colchester (English) what do you guys think.

See pic
 

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jackie schmidt said:
For about four decades, you could watch the Asian Market change as Countrys modernized.
Remember when the term "made in Japan" meant cheap junk. Then the Japanese got a LOT better.
The 'cheap' manufacturing then moved to Tiawan. Then They got better.
Then the South Koreans took up the gauntlet of providing the really cheap low end products. Then, they got a lot better.
It is now Mainland China's turn.
The super cheap machine manufacturing follows the cheap labor market. I don't know who will be after China, as they are starting to discover 'things American'.
At present, the Tiawanese make machines that are considered "upper end"in the medium priced machine tool market, along with South Korea.
The upper end is certainly Japan. But I can't think of a Japanese Machinery Manufacturer that even makes a manual lathe anymore........jackie
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Cambodia, Laos and Myanyamar (Burma). Cambodia is now in the clothing business, where China was 15 years ago. A person in Cambodia needs about $30 a month to live.
 
oneeyedmac said:
Cambodia, Laos and Myanyamar (Burma). Cambodia is now in the clothing business, where China was 15 years ago. A person in Cambodia needs about $30 a month to live.
Click to expand...
I don't remember GW Bush visiting them and offering MFN status.
I thought he only visited Communist Vietnam!!!
Are they not Communist????
 
Cambodia is a democratic monarchy, however corruption is rampant. Myanyamar (SP?) was taken over via a coup a few years ago and are a repressive government, it's defined as a military junta. Laos is a communist state. So any one of these is ready to be a most favored nation.
 
Jerry

To my knowledge, Mazak has not produced a manual machine in over ten years. We have three 18x80's in our shop.
I was told at the Houston Tool Show that Kingston bought all of the rights, (and I guess the tooling), to manufacture the Mazak design, much like Wacheon did with Mori-Seki a number of years ago.........jackie
 
Bnhpr

Bnhpr said:
You all make good points.

I just got back from Hyundai heavy industries in Ulsan, and I was touring through a nearly completed container ship. It had a Korean lathe in the machine shop. It looked quite well made, I tinkered with it for a second, before moving on to the engine room. HHI is proposing a Korean machine for our shop, and I scratched it out, and put in what I knew and trusted and can get parts for (Clausing Ibarmia, Italian made).

The choices are getting slimmer for manual lathes, for sure. Make no mistake, I would have specified an American made machine, if anyone built one!

Sorry for paying $ to the commies, but I do have a grizz lathe coming.

Althoug British stuff has never really impressed me, I'm Looking at an older, but good shape clausing Colchester (English) what do you guys think.

See pic
Click to expand...

How much are they asking for that Lathe??
 
Manual Lathes ...then moving to CNC's.

We are seriously considering a CNC for the Workshop. We have a Lathe and a Mill.

So I asked the Shopbot people for any clients in the area.
Shopbot owners are apparently very approachable. They even have camps and share info.

Shopbot told me that the local school system had 20 machines.

Our Children are learning CNC'ing...!!!!!????!!!

Wow, that was very interesting. You still need to know how machine to set the best tool paths though.

:eek:

http://www.shopbottools.com/
 
jackie schmidt said:
And your Children will be making $13.50 and hour, rather than $30.00 an hour.......jackie
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The machines just keep getting faster and faster..............the shops just keep passing the savings on to the customers in order to keep/get their work (cutting one another's throats)..............we have a serious shortage of qualified operators..............because they don't want to work for $13.50................and the good ones want to be bona-fide Machinists and not operators...............and so it goes................


Signed,
Some other guy using Dave's user name:eek:
 
The Machines Just Keep Getting Faster and Faster........

and the need for actual human beings becomes less and less.
Just as the automated assembly line has replaced vast numbers of skilled Auto Workers, (even the engines are assembled by a machine), the manual machinist is being replaced in the Production Machine Shop by machines that require no human interaction..
But, there are still multitudes of small shops that serve a specific "niche" in industry. Our shop, being in Marine Repair, is one such shop. We need honest to goodness first class Machinist, men who can think on their feet that can do just about anything as far as Machine Shop work goes.
In our particular area, the training programs went by the way side back in the recession of the early 80's. Before that, we depended on the big oil field shops and their apprentice programs. Those are long gone.
Through the 20's and 30's, many Machinist came out of the Rail Road Shops, where maintaining Steam Locomotives required a tremendous amount of custom machine work. Shipyards also had strong Machinist apprentice programs for that, and Millwrights.
The fact remains that operators who run CNC will be on the bottom rung of the pay scale in large production shops. In smaller specialized shops, the pay will be much more, because more will be required of the individule. And in shops such as ours, where there simply is no CNC, the pay scale will be the highest.
Right now, I pay my top Machinist $32 and hour, plus a full benefit package. I have two young men coming up[ who are at $25 an hour, and in two more years will probably be at top scale.
And yes, we make good money off of their efforts..........jackie
 
Real Machinist Rock!

I second Jackie in a major way!!! Young people finish up at the various Tech Schools or Colleges in our area with degrees in Machining Applications. Some are sharp on writing code but couldn’t square up a billet or cut an internal thread to a shoulder without a thread relief on a manual machine if they had too. There are two shops in my area that can’t hire a real machinist because there are none to hire. Both of these shops can hire parts changers with college degrees all day long for $10 - $12 per hour. But those folks can’t think on their feet, QC parts as they come off, or adjust the programming to allow for various changes that happen throughout the production day. Both of these shops have multiple CNC 5 axis machining centers with stub spindles to run off short production runs. The serious money comes from the Industrial Customers that show up with a broken whatever or with a bearing spun on this shaft or that in that housing or a shuttle valve scored and stuck in that valve or piston stuck in this cylinder. Of course a portion of the plant is down until it’s fixed and it needs to fixed yesterday but they can’t get part out of the unit and there until tomorrow. That is when the manual machine get fired up and the real difference between “Machine Operators” and “A Machinist” becomes as plain as day. I sometimes get to “visit” (what my wife calls it when I work a night or two) one of these shops but I couldn’t write a program for a CNC machine or de-code an operation like a “double naught spy” if my life depended on it. I have been good friends and worked for this guy off and on for 29 years and every time I "visit" we talk about who is there to replace us "old school types" when we get too old to work any longer

Nic.
 
jackie schmidt said:
and the need for actual human beings becomes less and less.


The fact remains that operators who run CNC will be on the bottom rung of the pay scale in large production shops. In smaller specialized shops, the pay will be much more, because more will be required of the individule. And in shops such as ours, where there simply is no CNC, the pay scale will be the highest.
jackie
Click to expand...
The fact about using CNC is that someone has to program the machining process. All the CNC does is repeat what is it told. Just as a computer GIGO, Garbage In-Garbage Out. Granted CNC does have some "canned" routines for roughing and threading but the general process requires a highly skilled machinist, manufacturing technologist or process planner.

The bigger problem is that all that work, conventional and CNC is being done elsewhere, not in the US. and your Congressman is a party to that treasonous crime. They are taking work away from you and your future generations in the name of Globalization and Free Trade.

Getting off the path of this thread just a little further, what your US Congress should do and should have done is institute tariffs for where work is being done in lesser economies, but do they? No!! Why?? They go where the money is for their highly paid lobbyists. Insist they go where the votes are, you! If they do not, this election send them home!!
 
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I found it interesting, during a tour of a GE steam turbine shop, they were using manual lathes to perform certain cuts on the shaft. The blades, etc were cut CNC, and the explanation given to me was that the machinist was more trustworthy than the CNC for certain critical steps on the rotor.

The oilfield shops in Houston right now are crazy. I'm waiting 6 months to get a gripper head overhauled. I'm now sending stuff to Norway to have it machined (between all their holidays). Right now, price is no object, where a $100 part in the critical path can cost us $600,000/day, and it takes me minumum of 4 days travel from out here (offshore) to Houston and back. There are very few shops in south Louisiana that I have had good work from, I'm always better off to send stuff to Houston.

We try to do what we can in our shop onboard, but, again, you can never get a good machinist to work offshore anymore. It used to be that most of the old deepwater rig mechanics were good machinists, and could pull the rabbit out of the hat. They are all retired, or retiring these days.

Ben
 
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