El Grande Lathe

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lkorn

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Jan 12, 2005
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Virginia Beach, VA, USA.
Here's a lathe I'm glad ISN"T in my little woodshop!



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It has a 60 inch swing and a 48ft bed.
 
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That should go with that drill press we saw a pic of the other day! It doesn't look like a face shiled would do you much good if something broke loose from that! That would really leave a mark!
 
Oh no! You mean to tell me that I'll need THAT lathe to turn my El Grande pen kit? Forget it, I'm canceling that order!
 
Larry, do you know what that lathe is used for or a link to the story behind it? Might be an interesting read. I wonder what the pen mandrel looks like? [:D]
 
Woodchucker,

The lathe in question is in a shipyard here in Norfolk, VA. It is primarily used for turning propulsion shafts wieghing many tons, for large ships, NAVY, etc. In this environment it is an average sized lathe, with namy being much larger. This one has a 46 ft bed. The yard has turned 60 ft shafts by building a bed for the tailstock off the end. Runout would be measured in .001's if an inch.
RPM is dead slow. I doubt if it exceeds 100rpm, but I'll check later.

I really don't want to hold the Skew[:p]

Any other pertinent question? I'll try to get answers.
 
Great to see this massive lathe. Brings back memories of having the pleasure of selling one at an equipment auction in Houston back in the seventies. Brought good money. Thanks for sharing.
 
Our club visited a local business that has a lathe custom made by the owner to turn wood columns for fancy southern mansions. If I remember right it will turn up to about 36" in dia and maybe 32' long. They mostly use glued up stock. mahogany I think, to custom turn these. The cutting tool is actually a spinning cutter that they also cutom make, reminds me of a large shaper cutter with about 24 teeth shaped like a round-nosed scraper. It is programmed to mechanically advance and controlled much like a metal lathe. They use several men with belt sanders to follow directly behind the cutter to do the final sanding. The other thing that was rather unique was that the whole thing was made from misc. scrap parts from government auctions and is hydraullicly operated (how bad did I mispell that?). I have some photos somewhere at home I will try to post.
 
I went back into the shop and found the foreman. He said that the lathe has a 60 inch swing, and can turn a shaft 60 feet between centers. Not only do they turn and polish shafts to +/- .002in, they also STRAIGHTEN bent and damaged shafts.

More Mass than I wnat to deal with.
 
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