10/2/2021 Lodge & Shipley Lathes

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Lodge & Shipley Lathes

Lodge & Shipley X Lathes Lodge & Shipley Powerturn Lathes
Loge & Shipley Lathes - Development Lodge & Shipley T Lathes

Manuals for Lodge & Shipley lathes are available

Flute Milling Inserts manufacturer specializing OPEN

in custom cutter and insert design
Made in Cincinnati 25, Ohio, in the heartland of the American machine-tool industry,
Lodge & Shipley lathes were long recognised as being of superior quality and
advanced design. The company was started by an Englishman, William Lodge, who,
upon arriving in Cininnnati in 1872, worked initially for John Steptoe, another
Englishman widely acknowledged as the first in the area to manufacturer machine
tools. In 1886 Lodge went into partnership with William Davis, the new company -
specialising in lathes, planers and drills - quickly becoming the largest machine-tool
builder in the city. By 1891 Lodge had founded a new company, Lodge & Shipley, and,
from 1893 when they dropped their other machine-tool lines to concentrate on the
production of lathes ("Good Lathes Only" was the Company's motto) started on a path
that was to make them the largest lathe maker in the U.S.A. By the end of the First
World War, in 1918, Lodge & Shipley occupied what they claimed to be the largest
facility in the world devoted exclusively to the manufacture of lathes. However,
although their product range was wide - and included a wide variety of ordinary engine
lathes ("BGSC" or backgeared screw-cutting centre lathes in the UK), as well as the
same machines modified for production purposes and specialist versions such as "Oil
County" (very large spindle bore) and "Duomatic" automatic-types - they did not
attempt the manufacture of repetition-production machines in the form of dedicated
capstan or turret models. Even the earliest of Lodge & Shipley's lathes were
characterised by careful design and adherence to sound principles of quality
engineering. They were not distracted by attempts to manufacture lighter 'workshop'
models of the South Bend's type - designed to appeal to garage owners, repair shops,
training schools and amateur owners - but concentrated instead on heavy industrial
machines intended for serious work. All Lodge & Shipley lathes had massive beds,
with bracing of the front and back walls in the form of "elliptical girths", and by the
early 1920s were advertised them as having a "chilled" finish where the outer shell of
the casting was altered to a depth of around two inches so that its iron grains were
more closely and uniformly packed together. This layer could then be machined and
hand scraped to give a hard, wear-resistant finish. At the tailstock end of the bed the
normally full-height and massive cross ribbing was cut away to allow the tailstock to
overhang the end (and so steal a little more capacity between centres) or allow a bed-
mounted capstan turret be slid on and off easily and quickly. Down the centre of the
bed on larger, very heavy-duty models a longitudinal rib was cast; cut with a deep rack
the rib provided support for a tailstock-mounted sprag to engage - and so provided a
positive end stop when using the machine to the very limits of its strength.
Continued below:

An artist's impression of the Lodge & Shipley Cincinnati factory as it appeared in the early 1920s

Continued:
A steady improvement in the quality of cutting tools during the early decades of the
20th century saw a significant increase in the ability to remove material in one pass
and lathe manufactures responded by building increasingly rigid and massive machines
that were able to take full advantage of the new tools. Lodge & Shipley's machines
were a good example of this process with their post WW1 lathes being not only much

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more heavily built than the pre-war flat-belt drive type but with the option of powerful,
all-geared headstocks and integral motor-drive systems - such self-contained models
needed no access to overhead line-shaft drives and allowed a Work's Manager the
opportunity to shift the machines around the factory floor in order to maximise
productivity and profits on long-run jobs.
As part of the drive for increased work-rate and better surface finishes the bed of
Lodge & Shipley lathes was modified in the early 1920s to include two extra ways that
the makers described as "supplementary bearings". The first 'way' was created on the
horizontal surface (also used by the tailstock) between the inside edge of the front V
and the gap between the front and rear Vs; the second 'way' was directly in line with
tool thrust and formed on the inner vertical surface between the front and back Vees
(as illustrated below). This arrangement meant that the carriage was precisely guided
on very long V ways (a process that also tended to even out wear) yet with a
substantial proportion of the tool thrust absorbed against a vertical rather than inclined
surface. This improved bed-to-saddle arrangement was to become a feature of all
Lodge & Shipley lathes until the 1960s and, far from being left alone, was steadily
developed until the height of the inner flat eventually rose to equal that of the top of
the front V. The arrangement called, of course, for very precise machining to ensure
that the bed-to-saddle fit was absolutely precise for, unlike other makers, Lodge &
Shipley could not simply drop the saddle onto the Vees of the bed and fit keeper plates
at front and back - to work properly all saddle-to-bed surfaces had to be correct
relative to each other - which is probably why no other manufacturer (known to the
writer) copied the idea.
Continued below:

Lodge & Shipley bed and saddle arrangement showing the "supplementary
bearings" - extra horizontal and vertical ways formed just inboard of the front
bed V-way and also used to guide the tailstock.

Bracing of the front and back bed walls was in the form of "elliptical girths"

Continued:
The saddle was extremely long and, because the wings could slide (fully supported on
their ways) past the headstock and bring the cutting tool right up to the spindle nose, it
was possible to position the cross slide exactly on the saddle's centre line instead of
being biased towards the front as on many competing lathes. Although very early
Lodge & Shipley aprons were lighter, one-sided constructions, later types had a bolt-
on back plate and were, in effect, double-walled; all the shafts were ground finished
and supported at both ends and the whole assembly made even more rigid by being
tongued into a groove machined underneath the front edge of the saddle. The rear of
the apron had an oil reservoir, cast into the rear upper section, that was filled from a
plug in the saddle wing immediately above it. In order to prevent dirt getting into the
system the bronze outlet pipe was raised above the bottom of the sump by 3/16" and
oil fed into it by a wick; from there it was taken by capillary action to the rear
bearings. Unfortunately, the bearings at the front had to be lubricated individually by
hand. The apron carried a pair of conventional bronze leadscrew clasp nuts (chased
from the solid and then split) with the power sliding and surfacing feeds arranged
through metal-to-metal friction clutches built into a pair of cast-iron gears. The

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selection of power feeds was by a three-position quadrant lever - and engagement by
individual screw-in handwheels on the face of the apron. Instead of a separate
powershaft for sliding and surfacing feeds money was saved by slotting the leadscrew
along its length and, by the action of a sliding key, made to drive a pair of apron-
mounted bevel gears. One gear provided a carriage motion towards the headstock the
other, engaged by a rather small knurled handwheel on the apron front, caused it to
reverse.
Continued below:

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OPEN

Apron Components of a very early Lodge & Shipley Lathe. Note the relatively light, single-sided main casting
Continued:
On the geared-head models the right-hand face of the apron was fitted with a lever
that, through a long rod parallel and below the leadscrew, controlled the start, stop and
(if fitted at extra cost) reverse of the headstock spindle; for ease of operation when the
operator was working at the headstock the control rod was usually fitted with a lever at
that end as well. Apart from the special "clutch gears" all apron gears were made from
steel with bronze bushing where necessary. The ground-finished leadscrew was held in
tension with the thrust taken by bronze washers at each end; a thread dial indicator
(indispensable for screwcutting) was fitted as standard.
Whilst many manufactures of the immediate post WW1 period were slow to introduce
screwcutting gearboxes Lodge & Shipley were soon offering a complete range of not
only inch-threading boxes but metric ones as well. In order to make the structure more
rigid, the Norton-type box had the leadscrew arranged to pass beneath it and pick up its
drive from the left rather than normal right-hand end. However, even so, the early
boxes were comparatively light affairs with a limited threading range and used just one
sliding tumbler (with spring-loaded pin location) together with one or more sliding
gears on the output set. The makers claimed that, because the gears were exceptionally
strong, chances of breakage were eliminated and changes could: "safely be made with
the lathe under a heavy cut." Lubrication was at the whim of the operator, who was
required to apply an oil can to fill small reservoirs that fed oil though a series of drains
and pipes to the required places.
Continued below:

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A geared-head Lodge & Shipley lathe from the early 1920s

Continued:
Heavily built, the compound slide rest was equipped with proper tapered gib strips
tongued and grooved into the slides for extra security; adjustment was by a single
screw that moved the gib strip endwise. Unfortunately, the cross slide was not a full-
length type but very much shorter than the ways it ran on - a situation that would have
caused greater wear to occur on the more heavily used section nearer the front. The top
slide was able to be rotated 90 degrees in either direction and had a distinctive, square
4-bolt base (yet another Lodge & Shipley trade-mark design feature) that minimised
tool overhang even when the slide was moved fully forwards. The micrometer dials
were, of course, far too small - but then, so were those of all competing models from
other manufacturers. One notable feature was an adjustable depth stop on the cross-
slide feed - this aid to screwcutting and the turning of duplicate diameters was an
ingenious device and all the more remarkable for being neatly contained within the
outer portion of the cross-feed screw support housing. It enabled the cutting tool to be
withdrawn from the workpiece (by up to three revolutions of the screw), yet be run in
again without any need to change the micrometer-dial setting. The dial was engraved
into the end of a sleeve, machined with a coarse thread, in which ran a ball bearing that
was also located in a long slot cut in a second, surrounding sleeve. To operate the
device (when disengaged it made no difference to the normal operation of the slide),
the tool was set at its furthest point forward and a small screw turned that increased the
friction between the parts and almost locked the micrometer-dial. With normal hand
pressure on the feed-screw handle the screw would stop turning when the pre-set point
was reached; however, by applying extra force, the setting could be over-ridden and a
new stop point set.
Continued below:

12-speed "Selective" headstock with a "double nose spindle" as produced until the mid 1930s

Continued:
The second design of geared-headstock was to prove a sound one for, together with its
the spindle-speed control system of three external levers with spring-loaded release
triggers, it was used continuously by the company (with steady improvements in
rigidity and speed ranges) for over 50 years. The "selective" headstock had 12 speeds,

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arranged in geometrical progression, and the more complex and stronger "triple-
geared" version 18 speeds. Bolted to the back of the headstock was a casting that
contained a combined clutch and brake mechanism (and, if fitted at extra cost, a set of
reversing planetary gearing) with, on its outside, a wide ball-bearing-supported flat-
belt pulley by which means the lathe was driven either from an overhead line-shaft or
from an electric motor bolted to the top of the headstock. A new departure for many
makers in the late 1920s was the use of a "third-rod" control system where the spindle
clutch and brake were activated by two levers; one pivoting from the right-hand face of
the apron the other from a position just in front of the headstock. They were connected
to a single rod running along the front of the lathe bed parallel to the leadscrew and by
this means the operator enjoyed full control over the spindle from both normal
working positions.
Hardened chrome nickel steel was used for the headstock transmission gears and their
ball-bearing supported shafts with the drive was taken not through the (then common)
method of sliding the gears along a keyed shaft but by arranging the feed to travel
through sets of gears that could be joined together through the use of dog clutches built
into one or both sides of their faces. The makers claimed that this eliminated the
possibility of, "shearing keys or twisting of the shaft. Thus no key can be twisted to
bind gears or clutch, nor can keys become loose and fall into gears." The base of the
headstock was formed as an oil sump and the lubricant flung about by the gears
dipping into it; to prevent gear shavings and dirt getting into the spindle bearings (they
shared the same oil) these were protected by felt pads acting as simple strainers. The
oil level could be checked though a protected glass inspection gauge. One
disadvantage of all geared-headstock lathes is the possibility that any resonance set up
by the gears (especially if inaccurately cut, poorly supported or worn) can "mark" the
surface finish of finely-turned work (this was one of the reasons that caused so many
fine-quality toolroom and precision lathes to continue with simple flat belt drives long
after they had been abandoned for manufacturing lathes). Lodge & Shipley were well
aware of the problem and in their advertising claimed to have eliminated the
appearance of these "gear marks".
All headstocks used massive bronze bearings with 4-bolt caps with the spindles
manufactured from forgings of what was often advertised at the time as "crucible" steel
- a contemporary advertising description that was meant to evoke the idea of very
high-quality metal smelted in small, carefully-controlled batches by expert craftsmen.
Lodge & Shipley were well aware that no matter how rigid and well supported the
headstock spindle was if the thread on its end was pathetically small (as it had been on
many lathes of earlier years) jobs would flex under heavy cuts and so both slow down
production and reduce accuracy. To prevent this they devised a system that attempted,
in advance of the first successful industry-standard, "American long-nose taper" of the
1930s, to minimise overhang from the spindle nose and give additional support to the
insides of chucks and faceplates. As a consequence they formed their spindles ends
with both a large-diameter cup and a long, finely-machined pilot guide that passed into
the screwed-on fittings and engaged with a precisely reamed matching recess inside
them. The mounting thread was machined on the inside of the cup - the rim of which
acted as a large diameter stabilising flange against which the fitting was dawn. Of
course, the pilot guide worked only with fittings that were machined to accept it and, if
other types were used, the advantage was lost. A similar idea was revived for the
English Cromwell precision lathe of the 1940s and 1950s (but without the cup thread)
and that too suffered the same unfortunate side effect - the spigot on the end of spindle
substantially reducing the size of the through-bore that could be provided.
Lodge & Shipley grouped their spindles fittings in sets to allow the greatest
interchangeably between machines for customers who had lathes of different sizes;
lathes from 14" to 20" used identical fittings and similarly those from 22" to 30" used a
common standard (including the special large-capacity but lighter-duty 36" model. All
the very large "triple-geared" lathes (36", 42" and 48") used a different system where
the two sizes of spindle nose had fittings that, for extra security under the very heavy
loads likely to be encountered, were keyed in place.
A carbon-steel barrel was a common fitment on all Lodge and Shipley tailstocks and
locked by a particularly stout "split-plug" clamp. Depending upon the size of lathe, the
tailstock was clamped to the bed by either a single bolt, tightened by a handle or, on
lathes over 16" in capacity, by 4 bolts onto two plates. Machines over 22" were given a
built-in pawl that engaged against a set of teeth cast into a rack that ran the length of
the bed between the ways. On these models, because it was so heavy, the tailstock
could also be propelled up and down by a rack handle that drove through a pinion
engaging against the bed rack..

Most Romantic Destination

Romantic Candle-light Dinners.
Snorkeling trip for two. Couple
Massages

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Lodge & Shipley works in 1951

Dynamically balancing a headstock spindle

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Cincinnati horizontal borer machining a headstock casting

Thread grinding on a headstock layshaft

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One of several method Lodge & Shipley developed for dead-length turning on longitudinal and sliding feeds

Lodge & Shipley X Lathes Lodge & Shipley Powerturn Lathes

Lodge & Shipley T Lathes

Manuals for Lodge & Shipley lathes are available

Lodge & Shipley Lathes

email: tony@lathes.co.uk
Home Machine Tool Archive Machine-tools Sale & Wanted
Machine Tool Manuals Catalogues Belts Books Accessories

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