'42 Monarch..

[latzanimal]

What can anyone tell me about an ol' 1942 Monarch lathe? It belonged to the gov at one time (originally). It has either an 18 or 22" swing. Comes with some tooling, soft & hard jaws, 16" chuck 3 jaw chuck....

Long story short, I have a chance to purchase one...

[Harry]

I dont know about this particular lathe but will say about old iron in general it is hard to go wrong if you can get it close to scrap price then you can always get your money back or most of it by hauling it across the scales. Unless it was abused or simply wore out it will probably be fantastic. One thing about lathes is even if a machine will not hold its once tight tolerance it would probably still be fine for most of us and what we want to do with them.

The other thing is tooling, this is where you can dump so much money in short order so if it comes with considerable tooling it could well be that the tooling is worth the purchase price... how much are you looking at?

[dallen]

What can anyone tell me about an ol' 1942 Monarch lathe? It belonged to the gov at one time (originally). It has either an 18 or 22" swing. Comes with some tooling, soft & hard jaws, 16" chuck 3 jaw chuck....

Long story short, I have a chance to purchase one...

if the moneys right buy it you won't get a better lathe that large, Monarchs were top of the line in engine lathes and they will run for ever just make sure it all works, is it under power where you can play with it will the owner let you run it for an hour take some stock with you put it under a load and see how it runs first before you hand over the cash goverment tools are hardly ever wore out, most hardly have any time on them. if it came from a depot shop probably a take out from a CNC upgrade oh yea you buy it I hope you got a floor to hold it. things gonna weight a couple tons. I'd go for it in a heart beat if I had the chance and a place to put it, how long is the bed

I was too eager when I bought my 12 inch enco but I almost have a new lathe now, almost.

david

[latzanimal]

It has been sitting a few years in a garage. The last thing he used it for was to turn a drum shell for me. But I am sure it works. I am going to look at it in a week or so, work is really busy.

So, for $800 I should do OK? Pricing from a local shop puts the chuck at a couple hundreds bucks alone.

dallen, not sure how long the bed is, but plenty long for my purposes.... just like my anatomy. Sorry, couldn't resist...

[dallen]

for 800 dollars if I was close enough it would already be in my toy box. if the guy has done work for you on it before and you were happy with the work then the lathe probably is in pretty good shape.

Hard to wear the larger machines out as then just weren't run that hard and fast if it was keep clean and hasn't been crashed, I found out that the 12 inch I bought had been crashed about 3 times, its really hard on the smaller machine when they crash hard enough it breaks gear teeth.

[latzanimal]

Well, I went to look at this lathe over the weekend. A little disheartening. His "garage" is missing the back 2 windows and it was pretty damp in there. So needless to say there is some rust going on. It has an 18" swing, and it has a 12" chuck not a 16" like he told me. There is a taper attachment about 18" long. The bed is 78" long. He is keeping the cutters, although he would let me have one. Sure, this can be cleaned up, but is it worth $800? The last thing he used it for was turning a wood drumshell for me about 7 years ago. There is other junk piled on top of it, also. What do you guys think?

[Harry]

Some of those pictures look absolutely terrible Mike. Hard to tell if that is just paint boiling up or layers of rust flaking. The gear change handles look to be rusted in place. The important bits are the ways and screws.

My take on it is if it works and is tight it is probably better than a $500 Harbor Freight mini lathe but you could probably find something in better shape even if it is a little more. Its not just the $800, this thing is going to take a lot of work in moving and cleanup.

[dallen]

it would take a lot of thinking on my part to buy that lathe, first off like Harry said if that rust is more then skin deep, hell even someone that drinks keystone knows to throw a tarp over the thing it hes not going to fix the leak, only way I would buy that lathe is if I got it for scrap price after seeing the pictures.

[Harry]

hell even someone that drinks keystone knows to throw a tarp over the thing it hes not going to fix the leak

Hehe, I missed that

Also missed who the OP was here... For some reason I was thinking it was Mike and I was trying to figure out why in the hell they would send Keystone 4000 miles across the ocean, could just pour some in on this side and drink the sea water on that side.

[mite5255]

hell even someone that drinks keystone knows to throw a tarp over the thing it hes not going to fix the leak

Hehe, I missed that \

Also missed who the OP was here... For some reason I was thinking it was Mike and I was trying to figure out why in the hell they would send Keystone 4000 miles across the ocean, could just pour some in on this side and drink the sea water on that side.

If I even tried to bring something like that home Harry she would remove my gonads with the bluntest rustiest cutting implement she could find she puts up with a lot of stuff from me but something looking like that I think would really be testing the love

Mike