Southbend Lathe

[chris vickery]

While slowing gathering equipment to outfit my shop, I have been on the lookout for a decent and reasonably price metal lathe.
This is a tall order, especially with small bench top lathes.
I happened across an ad recently on Kijiji and found an old Southbend 9C for cheap.
Not exactly the one, being a manually gear changed model vs a quick change gear box for thread cutting.
I made a deal on it and picked it up Friday night. In the dark.
It is a diamond in the rough, having been badly stored in a damp garage.
Lucky for me, the lathe itself was not too bad, having been liberally smeared in grease (and so was I after picking it up)
Unfortunately, the tooling and change gears are pretty rusty but I will use one or more methods previously described here in the Forum to beat the rusties.
Access to a bead blast cabinet and roto polisher at work should help too.
The most interesting part about this one is the history I discovered yesterday while giving it a quick cleanup.
I ran the serial number on the Southbend data base and it appears to be a wartime model, 1940. On the rear of the bed I located a data plate which was greased over. After cleaning it up it read- Department of Munitions and Supply Ottawa Shared Property of the Canadian and British Government. There is also a serial and control number.
I also found a second data tag on the front of the bed. A small oval tag which read- AECL NRX. I recognized the prefix right off due to working in the Power Utilities business but had to Google it to confirm and decipher the rest. Atomic Energy Canada Limited Nuclear Research Experimental.
This was the site of the first nuclear reactor built in Canada at Chalk River which opened in 1947. I can only assume this little lathe was used somewhere in wartime service, only to be put to use post war in another government facility when it was surplus. Imagine the stories it could tell...
Pics to follow.

[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,

[maple_leaf_eh]

There is a huge beast of a vertical milling machine for sale on GCSurplus right now. I think it needs over 500 volts, and the warehouseman noted it was too heavy for their standard forklift to move. The winning bidder has to bring more lifting power! What caught my eye was the plates said made in Toronto.

https://www.gcsurplus.ca/mn-eng.cfm?...1&sf=ferm-clos

[chris vickery]

Terry, Modern Tool / Standard Modern has been around a long time. They built lathes as well as other machinery.
I missed out recently on a great deal on a small milling machine. It was an Excello (XLO) made in Canada as well.
My father was one of the best Toolmakers around and he passed on some of his knowledge to me. Wish I had him around now to teach me. One thing that always stuck was to buy quality. That's why I opted for the Southbend lathe and will keep my eyes open for a XLO or Bridgeport for the shop.
I inherited Dad's precision tools so that's one less thing to worry about buying!
Here is a picture taken after a couple hours of elbow grease. I also got the motor drive, a box of tooling and a cabinet stand/bench. Don't think it's too bad for $500

[Mike K]

Being a SB you have great backup with parts and information.

I see it has power feeds which is essential . When it comes time to set it up , it pays to get it running as smoothly as possible, less vibrations the better . V belts tend to cause vibrations . I used a serpentine multi rib automotive belt from the motor to the counter pulley , I bought a Mitsubishi crank pulley for the counter shaft and machined a pulley for the motor . I have a SB clone , made here by Sheraton in Melbourne . The lathe now runs very smooth, almost nil vibrations

[Mike K]

This is the setup for my SB clone lathe .

I use a 3 phase 3/4 hp motor , driven buy a Huanyang inverter ( easy to buy on EBAY) , the VFD converts single phase 240V to 3 phase 240V . You can adjust many parameters on the VFD - braking for example and variable speed plus a lot more. These VFD's have proven to be reliable and are not expensive.

Another SB clone was manufactured here by Hercus of Adelaide, they actually exported lathes to SB and these were sold as SB lathes in Nth America . A family concern founded pre WW2, Hercus lasted into the 2000's .

[chris vickery]

Further to my last post, I was able to contact Grizzly Industrial who holds the legacy information from Southbend.
I purchased a copy of the original serial number card and was surprised by the information.
My lathe was sold by Canadian Fairbanks Morse in Montreal in 1940 to Defence Industries Limited Verdun Plant in Verdun QC (Montreal)
I was in Montreal this weekend and was happy to locate the site of the original plant which incidently, is about two blocks away from where our son lives!
Sadly, the area is now condos but part of the DIL plant was saved and incorporated into the design.
DIL was a major contributor to the war effort, mainly in the manufacture of ammunition and artillery shells.

[45jim]

I have also seen a test gun used to proof ammunition (now used for ballistic testing) that was marked as shared property. It had been in service in Quebec throughout the war and ended up in Ottawa at the National Research Council (who also ran Chalk River). From the documentation we found attached to the gun and speaking to NRC, it seems the UK paid 50% of the cost to set up small arms ammunition manufacture early in the war and used the gun to proof ammo.

This was before the creation of AJAX Ontario, the city created for the sole purpose of ammunition and ordnance manufacture. I believe the Nicollet Quebec facility (now owned by General Dynamics) that still produces Canadian ammunition was part of that deal.

[chris vickery]

Yes Jim, from the bit of digging I have been doing, it looks like DIL was a branch of British Munitions Company who set them up.
Ajax ON was also known as Dilville, a nickname bestowed by the workers who were employed in that area by DIL.