I see your an earlie bird also Todd.
I assume you have discovered this by now;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southbendlathe/?yguid=38655850 My guess would be that your SB is a cone drive? We had an old cone drive 14” in the basement when I was growing up and that drive was easy to build, all we needed was a matching three cone countershaft and a 2hp motor was plenty of power.
I have what Lodge & Shipley called the “Selective Head”, one of the early geared heads. It has a clutch the was driven by a spur gear. Like I said before, that complicates the drive design a bit but I have her all figured out now.
I also got lucky and found a steel supplier that sold me the rectangular tubing I wanted for the 5 foot Jib crane I’m going to mount behind the lathe. That should make moving the chucks, face plates, work, motor, tailstock, etc., up onto the bed a breeze.
I think my DL800 boat winch will serve the task just fine, and it only takes up about 8” below the trolley when all the cable is wound on the spool. The trolley that I designed to traverse the rectangular tube is almost flush with the bottom, only hangs down about a ½” below. The winch is rated to handle a 1600lb boat pulling it up a ramp onto a trailer.
I’ll look into the invalid lifts also, good idea.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
