Southbend Lathe

[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.