Posted: 9/20/2025 8:11:09 AM EDT
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Years ago a friend of mine asked me to help him out and turn some suppressor baffles for him (he has an SOT). I would go down to his shop and get a few crash courses (no pun intended…I never crashed anything) on running the lathe and then proceed to break tooling and make metal chips. It was a new Fox Shop gunsmith lathe. Nothing special about it but it was good enough learn on and make baffles. I’ve always wanted to buy my own lathe but it was never good timing. I finally started searching this summer and passed on several nice 9” South Bends wanting something a little bigger. I was looking for a 10 heavy when I came across this 14.5 fairly local to me. Called a buddy with a skid loader and a lowboy and went and got it. The guy just wanted it out of his garage and I got it for a steal. He was using it for woodworking and it “scared him” at some point so he bought a proper woodworking lathe. The chuck tool imprint in the ceiling of his garage revealed some of that story. Loading up… it’s about 2200lbs so the skid loader was a must. Attached File Got it in the garage and in its general position. Haven’t leveled it yet… Attached File Started cleaning and tear down the following day. Vacuumed out a lot of wood chips and used a few cans of parts cleaner to remove old grime. I noticed the apron was hanging loose on the saddle, and when I tightened it up I lost cross feed travel. I could get two rotations on the cross feed knob before it would bind. With my brothers help we pulled off the tailstock and saddle assembly. Dropped the apron and found a mashed gear tooth. Dressed it up with a file and back in business. Attached File Attached File Attached File The gibs in the cross feed and compound were not properly adjusted so I pulled them apart for cleaning. The compound gib screw is not the proper size and did not interface with the gib properly. Of bigger concern, the cross feed gib was bent. I carefully dressed it down at the bend and tacked some new metal in the slot with the welder for a tighter lock-up. It’s a temporary fix…I have a new gib on the way. |
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Attached File Attached File Attached File The lathe came with a 3-jaw…I need a 4-jaw independent so I started searching. Turns out these South Bend 14.5’s are fairly rare…so parts can be challenging. On top of that, the spindle nose is 2-3/8x6TPI…so back plates are challenging to resource and it would take me a decade to make my own at my current skill level. I lucked into a 6” back plate on eBay last week so I picked that up. The BCD of the current holes doesn’t match anything I’ve found online, so I’m going to have a local machine shop mate a chuck to this back plate for me. They said it would run about $75….worth it to me. Attached File The current 3-jaw only has 0.002 runout so I’m convinced the headstock bearings are still GTG. I saw the machine run before we moved it so the only potential issue I can see is runout across turning a long piece due to way wear. This machine definitely has some way wear in the 12” or so up close to the headstock where the saddle spends most of its time. I’m not doing a tear down and repainting it until after I know it cuts well. If it doesn’t, I’ll start shopping for a new machine and part this one out. It’s worth more in pieces than it is complete, and I basically stole it compared to other 14.5’s in similar condition. Attached File |
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The 8183B is actually toolroom model which is cool. I found the “War Production Board” tag to be particularly cool. Attached File Attached File I’ll update some more as progress continues. I have new felt wipes on the way and a BXA QC toolpost in the mail with some tooling. |
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