F.E Reed & Company

10" x 4' Metal Lathe

=Patented 1884=

I received this lathe in November of 2008 for the promise that it find a good home and be restored.  You may know this by now, but this was right up my alley!  From what I was told, this lathe came out of one of the mills in Orange, Mass originally.  From what I have been able to narrow down is that the lathe was built about 1890 in Worcester, Massachusetts.  I received the lathe with three chucks, two are in great shape. Two face plates, the steady rest, all of the threading gears and a bunch of tooling.

I will add some more photos as the time goes on, but for now the lathe is running and in use.  My plans are to get my own single tool line-shaft built to hang from the shop ceiling and run the lathe via this line-shaft.  My plans are to either run the motor in the attic, or on the shop ceiling.  I feel a bit safer with it in the shop, but it will look so much better with the motor belt going into the attic and all hidden.  Once this is done, all of the added brackets can be removed and the holes filled in the lathe head-stock.


Here is "Martha" as she seems fit to be called, sitting next to the tiny looking Craftsman lathe.  I have removed the wood bar that is connected to the reversing switch as I plan to move that anyway.  Once the lathe is set up on the line shaft, I can start to restore the lathe itself.  My goal is for a semi-gloss black to achieve as original of a look as I can for the lathe.  

   

Here are a couple of close up photos of the carriage, while it does not have a compound rest, it does have this cool hight adjuster that will raise the tool bit by elevating the carriage in the rear.  Oh, and the shape of the apron is where Martha got her name from!

   

Below are some photos of the original 1800's cast iron bearings (Yes, cast iron!)
 A little shimming and they are good to go!

       

Here are the threading gears all restored, polished, and painted.
The custom stand will fit onto the back-board I plan to build to hold all the tooling behind the lathe.



More to come!