Mike's Metalworking Page

This is the machineshop area of the Southern Museum of Flight.

In the beginning

When I started volunteering at the museum, the only machine tools in the shop were a drill press, a small horizontal bandsaw and a little elderly, but well built 9x20" Logan lathe. I had never even seen a metal lathe up close, but I was intrigued with metalworking tools and caught on to using them quickly.
The little Logan was donated by Oliver "Dusty" Shinn, a well known local aircraft mechanic, and is still an often used piece of equipment.

The 9x20" Logan lathe. It has change gears for threading and only longitudinal power feed.

A milling machine is found

I found one of these lathe/mill/drill combination machines that served fairly well, but it was not really very good at anything except turning operations. The mill/drill head was just too close to the headstock to be of much real use.

Then a local instrument shop was donated to the museum, lock, stock and barrel. This included an entire warehouse full of ...well JUNK. This was the good kind of junk, though. Hiding in the very back area of the warehouse, unused for over 30 yrs was an old Van Norman #6 universal milling machine that looked absolutely terrible. Nearby a full set of collets, a horizontal milling arbor and a boxfull of milling cutters (both horizontal and endmills, and a pile of slitting saws) were found. There was also a Brown and Sharpe dividing head, a VERY heavy milling vise and a 12" Van Norman rotary table! We were completely set up!Once the stuff was dug out and in the light, it turned out to be in fairly good condition considering its age.

After a thorough disassembly, cleaning, stripping, and a paint job, the machine was ready for a tryout. It ran like a top and only needed a new belt. The lathe/mill/drill soon found a new home.

The mill head can be rotated from vertical to horizontal and any angle in between, but the overarm can only be used with the head completely horizontal.

The visitor from the far east

Geoff Morgan, an engineer with the City of Birmingham and another poor soul fascinated by creating metal shavings, recently purchased a brand new Grizzly radial milling machine. Realizing that he didn't have anywhere to put the thing in his shop, much less an available forklift to unload it when it arrived, he graciously loaned it to the museum until he figures out what to do with it next.

This is a really nice machine and a much better vertical mill than the Van norman due to its longer reach, longer table and greater clearance between the table and spindle. It also has the ability to drill angled holes, due to the drill press like quill; something the old Van Norman can't do. Power feed is very handy for nice clean long cuts.

Careful what you ask for....

As the old saying goes... I was showing a friend of a friend around the shop one day. Knowing he ran a machine shop, I was whining about only having the little 9" Logan lathe and asked him to keep on the lookout for a larger lathe that we might be able to pick up cheap. "I may have something for you, do you have 3-phase power out here?" he said.

A few days later one of his trucks showed up with springs nearly on the stops and this absolute monster of a lathe on the back, a 24x72" 1943 American Pacemaker... a lot more machine than I had really bargained for. Like most everything else that has come in, it looked horrible, but once unloaded, it showed promise.

I spent so much time scraping old paint and rust I thought I had been sent to the Navy, but a coat of primer and some paint and she looked almost good as new. The good folks at Reeve Electric hooked it up for us and the time was at hand. "This is a real machine!" I thought as I hit the starter button for the first time and felt the whole floor start humming.

First lesson on the big lathe; set the speed up right...this machine doesn't stall or slow down, it just burns up your cutting tool.
Second lesson on the big lathe; if the machine hangs up, DUCK! something is going to break and it won't be the machine. Again, the machine doesn't stall.

Built in 1943, this machine weighs approximately 12,000lbs and came with a 16" chuck. It is powered by a 25hp British Coventry Electric motor that has been rewound for US 3-phase 440 or 220v. It has a 6 speed gearbox with three ranges for a total of 18 speeds and also has a quick change box with separate drives for threading or lead/feed. Cariage mounted levers control lead (longitudinal feed) or feed (cross
slide feed). The carriage also has an auxillary clutch handle mounted at its far end and can be reversed or stopped during power lead or feed cuts without stopping the spindle or disengaging the feed levers. The Pacemaker was donated by Curtis Shipp of Curtis Machine Shop.

The old veteran from Indiana

Geoff Morgan was also responsible for finding this fine, albeit abused, machine in the old basement shop at Birmingham's City Hall. It was probably still there because noone really wanted it out badly enough to muscle it out to the elevator. It took about five of us to haul it over to the elevator and then load it on a pick up, but it finally got to the museum. After a good cleanup and a new belt this old machine is probably the most often used machine in the shop.

This South Bend 10L toolroom lathe was built sometime between 1939 and 1943. A continuation of this machine is still made today and costs over $16,000. This machine has a 1 1/2 hp instant reversing motor and is driven by flat belts. It has a quickchange gearbox for theading and has power lead and feed on the carriage and a taper attachment. It also has a very large spindle through-hole for a lathe of its size..almost 1 3/4"!

The cabinet gives a hint to the history of this machine. Note the window latches on the drawers and lower belt access door. It was first assumed that this was probably a surplus Navymachine, but the discovery of olive drab paint inside the drawers and an old forgotten scribe block found in one of the drawers and marked U.S.A.A.F.confirmed that it was probably part of an Army Air Forces mobile machine shop and, due to its age, undoubtably saw service during WWII.

The latest addition

The latest piece to be added to the machine shop is a VERY, VERY old Steptoe crank shaper. I saw this machine sitting in a vacant lot with some other tools, but had no idea who the owner was. Geoff Morgan knew the right folks to ask and soon went over to ask the owner how much he would take for it. During the conversation the owner said he was a pilot etc..etc.. and after finding that it was going to the museum, donated it. I picked it up and had it cleaned up, stripped, and repainted in ten days. This will be a fine addition to the shop once I figure out how to best provide power to it. It was originally run off a line shaft and flat belts, so most electric motors are too fast without a serious reduction.

This machine is, again, VERY old. No parts on this machine were milled with a rotary type milling machine. There is a socket on the back of the horizontal slide (t-nut slots are visible in the picture)where the lead nut for the horizontal slide is mounted that was cut in with a cold chisel!! This could have easily been done with a milling machine if one had existed!

Update on the shaper... John Steptoe & Co. was in business in Cincinatti, OH from 1869-1924. Cincinatti Mill produced their first horizontal milling machine in 1884, so the shaper was probably built between 1880 and 1890.

A further update, the shaper has now been dated between 1878 and 1883, the years Western Machine Works was in business in Cincinnati, Ohio.

NEW STUFF!

I have been working on my OWN shop now. I have a 30x48ft shop at home with reinforced concrete floor covering 30x36ft. Details of the floor to come.

On this floor are my new homeshop tools. A 1918 Lodge and Shipley gearhead engine lathe and a 1968 Van Norman 2G bridgemill.

The L&S was an enormous restoration job, comparable to the Pacemaker above, but FAR nore involved. Pics of the actual restoration will follow soon.

The 2G was in beautiful condition as-purchased. Only needed tooling and a few minor repairs.

Lodge and Shipley Restoration

Van Norman 2G

New to the shop are a pair of old drills won at a City sealed bid auction. The first is a 3ft Fosdick radial, the other an unidentified antique benchtop drill press.

Fosdick Radial Drill Small Antique Drill Press

I just picked up a small tool and cutter grinder for the home shop. Pics here:

K. O. Lee B360 Tool and Cutter Grinder DRO Shaper Van Norman #12

Any comments or questions are welcome. Contact me though the home page. Back to Home