South Bend Links: Sources for Info, Parts, and Supplies

Thanks to the many suggestions from South Bend Forum members, here is a list of helpful links for South Bend machine owners and enthusiasts. If you know of any more that should be added to this list, please post to the thread linked above.

Paula

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Begin Your Journey

>Get your serial card here< - Use your serial# to get a copy of the original serial card that was printed when the lathe order was received. On it, you will get info regarding date of manufacture, who it was originally sold to, special options, etc. The cost is currently $25 for , and can be accessed on-line. You will need your serial number. For lathes, this number can usually be found on the extreme right end of the front bedway:



Serial Numbers Wanted - Add your serial#, model#, and date shipped to Steve Wells' data base. If possible, attach a copy of serial card and a pic of your machine.

Steve Wells' Serial# Data Base Here

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South Bend Specific Manuals and Publications

The SBL Workshop - This is the excellent website of forum-member Steve Wells ("swells"). You'll find loads of vintage SBL literature, feed screw parts/service, and repair instructions, restoration pictures, and more. Please donate once a year to help the site.

Vintage Machinery, South Bend Publications - A wonderful collection of literature. Going to the Manufacture Index there, you can search the history and publications on a great many machines. Please donate once a year to help the site.

WEWilliams - Excellent on-line collection of vintage South Bend literature, from a Practical Machinist forum-member and former Tape Monkey. Other machine tool brands also featured.

Lathes.co.uk - Excellent website of historical data/pictures for South Bend lathes (plus many other brands).

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PARTS & ACCESSORIES

Sooner or later (usually sooner!) everyone needs parts for their South Bend machine. It almost goes without saying that eBay is the great parts clearing house. Though good parts, and the occasional bargain, can still be had, it's definitely a case of Buyer Beware. There are sellers (and buyers) out there that your mother would not approve of.

Steve Brooks - Steve is a staple on this forum. Known for his turnkey felt kits. He also offers lubricants and other restoration goodies for South Bends. He has an eBay and Amazon store.
eBay: stevewb | eBay Stores
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=ilion+rebuild

SBLatheman - Email him at [email protected] for prices and availability. SB Forum member "SBLatheman" (Ted) has a large stock of NOS parts to help with your repair/restoration.

Miller Machine & Fabrication - Web link is down. Call 1 618 946-0793. Leave a message, he'll call back. Test Bars and spindle adapters, also highly regarded supplier of repro machine parts, primarily replacement feed screws and nuts. They also offer headstock spindle restoration.

South Bend Recommended Lubricants - Brad Jacob's thread on South Bend lubes.

Lost Creek Machine - A variety of machine parts including South Bend.

Brass Oiling Hole Plugs - Forum member Dennis Turk is reproducing the brass-ball oiling hole plugs for the older lathes. Also see this link for a more recent source.

Baltimore Belting - Good source for custom-made flat belts.

Bolt Depot - No South Bend parts, but a nice place to purchase standard fasteners in small quantities.

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Other Helpful Information

Evaluating A Lathe - David Ficken’s hard-hitting treatise on buying a used lathe, aimed at the inexperienced buyer. Start your Lathe Quest here. Also recommended: Inspecting A Used Milling Machine for prospective mill purchasers, and In Praise of Klunkers(sic) for getting the most from your worn lathe.

Lindsay Books - Reprints of “How To Run A Lathe�, the South Bend lathe user’s manual, a copy of which was included with virtually every South Bend lathe ever made. Highly recommended reading.

Ozark Woodworker - Quality reprints of South Bend machine manuals.

How To Use A Lathe - Not to be confused with “How To Run A Lathe�, this is a highly-detailed online instructional treatise. Great for the beginner. Sponsored by American Machine Tools Company.

Shopswarf - Useful machining and general shop data.

Reversing & Repair of Electric Motors - The title says it all.

Continued in next post...
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More links:

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RESTORATION CHRONICLES

Frankenlathe - Highly detailed account of the restoration of a 1943 9B.

You spent $2,000 on WHAT??? - The engrossing tale of Charlie’s rescue of a 9” Hercus (SB clone) lathe. (This is where I learned why my star-knob screw wasn’t coming off!)

Refurbishing a 1952 South Bend 13"x40" Lathe - Profusely illustrated and professionally presented by SB Forum member, 'Grey Rider'. According to forum member 'cegreen', "This is a well-organized, extremely thorough, and well-documented account of tearing-down and rebuilding a mid-50's SB13. I've found it immensely helpful in working on my own SB13."
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Paint and prep


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Miscellany

The South Bend Lathe Story: What Can We Learn From An ESOP “Failure”? South Bend Lathe may forever hold the dubious distinction as the company whose "owners went on strike against themselves."- Fascinating account of the reasons behind the failure of South Bend Lathe's employee stock ownership plan. Written by Norman G. Kurland.

CPI Inflation Calculator - I use this handy resource to help in relating the prices in vintage SB catalogs to our inflated monetary system.

Ball Turner Plans - Forum Member "Holescreek" has designed a ball-turning attachment for the lathe. This has turned out to be a very popular item. Pictures and drawings available at this link.


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crossfeed nuts and kits

I have crossfeed nuts and repair kits for south bend,logan,atlas,and clausing lathes. PM for pricing and availablitily. Thanks Mike

If people want to make their own brass lathe charts etc. I have some bmp files that can be downloaded free. Each download contains a reverse black and white image that can be used to etch the brass.

For the plates available...

http://bbssystem.com/viewforum.php?f=15

Mike Burdick

Popular Mechanics Magazine

All available copies of Popular Mechanics 1900-2000+ and Popular Science 1870-2000+ are available for reading for free.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Nt...sues_r&cad=2_2&atm_aiy=1930#all_issues_anchor

South bend half nuts

I am now also rebuilding half nuts. Call 913 636 6107 for pricing. Thanks Mike

Old South Bend web site

I thought some people might be interested in seeing what used to be on the South Bend web site prior to the Grizzly purchase.
I looked it up on the Wayback Machine and found it was archive almost completely (i.e. there are very few broken links).
This is the most recent saved version.
South Bend Lathes and Machine Tools

For those unfamiliar with it, the Wayback Machine (yes it is really called that) is a project to create an ongoing archive of the internet. All of it! They index (visit) sites on a regular basis and save what they find. It is a pretty useful tool for finding old web sites that have disappeared.

Josh

A caution about using Teflon Grease in the spindle pulley

Some of us who have had Teflon grease used in our older lathes marked "Oil" and not "Grease" at the hole have experienced "warm cone pulley issues". Please see this thread for more information:

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...arm-when-running-back-gear-any-advice-216503/

source for domed head bolts

Some lathes used domed head bolts for the bearing caps, perhaps elsewhere. The caps on the 11" and 10" are a 7/16" 14tpi with a 5/8" head.

I found out that 1926-1927 Model T Fords use domed head bolts for many things, and the one for the cylinder head is a 7/16" 14tpi with a 5/8" head, perhaps will need to be shortened to use on the lathe. They are available in nickel plated or black oxide at very good prices from Lang's Old Car Parts.

http://www.modeltford.com/pl.aspx?t=s&v=domed%20head%20bolts&page=1

Jim

Leather belts

Don't bother trying to clean a very old belt. Contact John Knox in Niles Il. (Google John Knox, leather belts) He sent me a custom belt, skived to the correct length, that I glued in place with contact cement, and told me not to send a cheque untill it is running properly. Runs smooth on my SB 9B and so much more torque! Old leather will never come back to new specs. and the new belt was very inexpensive.

Two additional links to South Bend Yahoo Forum area. These two address the Heavy 10 Models and are a great source for information specific to the 10L and R Machines.

southbendheavy10 : South Bend Heavy 10 Lathe

southbendheavy10files : South Bend Heavy 10 Files

Flat belts

I purchased a new flat belt for my Heavy 10 here:

Al Bino Machining & Flatbelts

I bought a laced belt where you just insert the metal pin. Works great!
Excellent customer service too.

Best of all... the price!

Hope this is useful.

Mitch Smith

tooling from surplus school stock CHEAP

Hey Guys and Dolls,

Now that I have your attention:

I do not know if this was ever brought up; but I found a ton of tooling (chucks, collets, face plates, steady rests) on-line at a Career and Technology Center. The site is posted below. A lot of schools are dropping tech subjects. Replacing it with hair styling and motel management I think. (wonder why we are going to hell in a hand basket). Actually they are dropping it because they cannot find teachers... we all retired.

Anyway they do not ship, look for schools or school districts in YOUR area, you will have to go inspect the stuff, the people that are selling it do not know a three jaw chuck from ground chuck but the prices here are real cheap. Remember the teacher retired last year.

Sign up for the site, it is free.... READ ALL THE RULES... THIS IS A GOVERNMENT THING. Search by location NOT by subject, most are miss labeled.

http://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm

ED S

Oregon Leather Company. Saddle, tack, harness, shoes, belts, clothes and more. They have the leather for it.

I bought a 1.25" wide by 72+ inches long 1/4" thick strip for $20. I cut it to length and used a small block plane to skive the ends then glued with Gorilla Glue using a couple of pieces of angle iron and c-clamps. Ran perfect on Wade 8A serial 403. They'd never sold leather for a machine tool belt before.

Anybody know what's up with Miller Machine & Fabrication? Just noticed their website is now a GoDaddy Domain Parking page. I'm sure I was just on their site 2 - 3 weeks ago.

John

JBTR said:

Anybody know what's up with Miller Machine & Fabrication? Just noticed their website is now a GoDaddy Domain Parking page. I'm sure I was just on their site 2 - 3 weeks ago.

John

Click to expand...

Also brought up here:
Anyone know what happened to Miller Machine and Fabrication?

Brian Miller runs that as a one man show. He's still making items, and I in fact just received a test bar from him. He predominately focuses on existing customers, and has been swamped, so he pulled down the site for now. He can be reached at 1 618 946-0793. Leave a message, he'll call back.